Evening star., 1939-09-23

Is due to the flaws in the picture,
rather than any fault on the part
OF Secretary Hull and his corps of
vigorous assistants. Yet. whatever
its several shortcomings, Espionage
Agent" is timely film, interesting
In its revelation that this country
Is too amiable for its own good in
Its hospitality toward alien enemies.
In getting aggressive about the
absence Of laws to safeguard us from
spies, saboteurs, ETC., Warner Bros.
hired Joel McCrea to head a cast
which Is recruited largely from the
studios legion of villains who speak
with German accent. Standing
most conspicuously between Mr.. NC
Crea and the ones who play char
acters named Mueller, Strawn, RAIDER
and Helm is newcomer Brenda Mar
shall (although this typewriter tried
three times to write it Frazier).
Dusky, slinky Miss Marshall in a
kind Of Mata Hari role gives the
impression that she will be around
quite while.
At the risk of being unjust,
Espionage Agent" must be de-
scribed as a kind of illustrated lee
ture on the Nations indifference to
espionage laws. The studio gets
right frothy about it and in the
course Of doing so tells the dramatic
(but not too awfully) story of a
young man who marries pretty,
helpless spy, gets kicked out of the
foreign service, then with his wife's
aid catches reckless band of alien
democracy haters.
One Of the less happy qualities of
the narrative is that in building up
suspense things become confused
to the point of chaos in certain
parts of the films movement. A
correlative flaw is that, in working
out of the chaos, designers of the
story fall back upon solutions that
are just a little too apt. Maybe
there was nothing else to do under
the circumstances, however.
The picture throws light upon
numerous operations of the State
Department in an interesting FASH
ion. The opening sequence, for ex-
ample, shows that Americans can
be an awful fuss-budget lot in their
demands upon consular agents
abroad. Also disclosed are the facts
that suspect aliens can sneer in the
faces of department agents with
out fear of penalty, that the for
eign-service school is a place. for
only keen-minded young men and
that some of the regulations gov
erning agents are stufty and out of
date. One catches close-ups, too,
of such aspects of the service as its
social life, the steps it takes to safe
guard its precious documents and
its fundamental importance to the
military and commercial agencies
in its sentry duty abroad.
These details are nicely illumi-
mated and should make one much
better informed host the next time
out of town guests insist upon
sightseeing with elaborate explana-
tions of everything One could
sound mighty smart remembering
only a small fraction of the pic
lures information.
The part of that female spy, first
innocently employed against this
country then very much in its be-
half, gives Miss Marshall rather
thorough test as an actress. She
could everyday some of those situa-
tions, but in the main she keeps
right in step with McCrea, who is
kind of specialist in understate-
.ment, as movie audiences long ago
discovered. On the whole, the op-
portunities given the villains are the
richer from the acting standpoint
and they bring to their various parts
the skill of long experience in doing
evil deeds for Warmers.
In keeping with the season in
which young America resumes its
furious Zone hopes pursuit of
higher education, the Earle's stage
has been tagged college Daze," the
aptness of which each adult must
decide for himself. A last-minute
switch brought Lysbeth Hughes to
the program as vocalist, change
dictated when tonsiitis won a
sweeping victory over Garfield
Swift, Harry Anger's flnd-of-the-
month. Miss Hughes, who sang verJ
sweetly for q long time with Horace
Heidt's Band, now sings very sweetly
as substitute for Mr.. Swift.
AS might be expected in q show
with such q theme, the Roxyettes
turn vigorously coed to carry q