Evening star., 1939-03-25

OF the race tracks, the kid who ado,
the racketeers' who turn the sport.
OF kings into the profit of punks.
Those who like it will find it pro-
duced with some good acting o.
MenJou, some extravagantly good
race sequences, and considerable
implauSibility in certain areas of the
plot.
This departments choice of the
best morsel on the program is the
singing of Paramount's pretty Sh:r-
ley Ross. The vocal partner of Bing
Crosby, the girl who introduced
Thanks for the Memory" makes a
pleasant and varied thing of her
moment musicale on the stage.
The most original feature of King
OF the Turf is the sight of Mr..
Menjou as bum. Hardly less STAR
ting than the appearance of Shirley
Iemple In rags is the spectacle of
the screens lor is it the worlds?
best-dressed man in the costume O;
a doWn-and-outer. The shock Is
abated as soon as it is discovered
that Menjou, as Jim Mason, de-
throned turf monarch, carries both
himself and his liquor with dignity.
Edward Small, who produced and
directed the film. has been COM
mendably energetic in keeping the
familiarity of his story from breed
ing contempt for it. In certain Sc
quences he is successful. One such
Is that in which he starts the regen-
erative process of Mason and the
rise OF the latter'S devoted juvenile
through the device OF buying an en-
bittered 3-year-old thoroughbred for
81. 1t is a brave director who would
try to make that plausible, but Small
makes it plausible. The horse, a beast
named Bing Crosby Gin honor of
guess whoO is one of the best actors
IN the sequence, an animal full of
enthusiastic scorn for human be-
ings.
The affection between the man
and boy. the latter played bv Roger
Daniel, thereafter travels the we'll
marked highway of horse owner and
faithful, devoted jockey. Victory
1oilows victory until the bookmaker
ring Is aroused to desperation. The
only part of the story that is not
guessable from there on is that
which Identifies the boy as the run
away son of an Eastern woman who
happens to have been Masons first
wife. And, that's right, his co-par-
ent OF the lad. With a mothers in
tuition of where her son probably is.
backed up by front-page pictures
OF him as winner of stake after stake
race, she never thinks of checking
the race tracks.
The climax of King of the Turf"
manages to be drama, in spite of it's
implauSibility. 1t is a combined af-
!alr OF the lad being ordered to
Throw race by his heretofore i'm
peccable boss" and the latter's
complete surrender Of the boys GUS
tody to the mother. because he
thinks. school is the place for him.
Ihe comedy sequences are those
IN which the film scores some of its
biggest misses. The impression they
leave is that Dramatist George
Bruce let his capable cast. Alan
Dinehart Harold Hubert and viii
liam Dimarest, down in this part of
his writing. The picture marks the
return OF Dolores Costello to more
ambitious film making. Her part.
that of the mother, is pretty sub
ordinate, however, and Miss Costello
plays 1t with none too much spirit.
Miss Ross contribution to- the
stage show In addition to the song
that gave her her greatest fame is
lts most popularity received feature.
she leaves the ballad form in which
She seems to fit most snugly to prove
that she can swing 1T Could Be
but that done she goes right back
to the other style. Her most popular
item is a medley of songs from her
Crosby pictures and the 1.-TWO Sleepy
People"
The bill opens with a bit of skilled
tumbling by Monroe and Grant,
moves on to the singing of Frank
Hornaday Cloud but good, the
violin numbers of Helene Fay, the
lucky find of the month, and ends
with some good comedy adagio by
the always good Peggy Taylor trio.
The Roxyettes do their usual three
routipeS, none of them among the
best they have offered in their long
stay at the Earle. Most tricky is
the opener, a most interesting affair
from the standpoint Of lighting.
]. G.