Evening star., 1946-04-05
BY Harry Macarthur

The movies, bless 'em, are getting
so they look just like life sometimes.
This is not to be construed as an
implication that "A Letter for Evie,"
which opened yesterday at the
Capitol, is completely lacking in
the fanciful inventions of the script
writer's. But the film does wind up
with small and not 80 handsome
Hume Cronyn winning lovely
Marsha Hunt, who has to sit down
to look up to him. And 1t has a gay
and handsome heart-breaker, who,
instead Of being reformed by love,
continues his rakish ways and gets
his come-uppance at the hands Of
q French girls father.
The mistaken-identity theme, too,
must happen in life now and again,
even If it was a cliche Of the story
tellers when Shakespeare first
cribbed it. This time 1t is not so
much mistaken as misappropriated
Identity which becomes involved
when Johnny Mcpherson (Cronyn)
answers the letter found in a shirt
pocket by wolf" Larsen Uohn Car
rolD, who tosses it aside because the
writer seems to be the marrying
type. Johnny wants q girl to write
to just as much as Evie O'Connor
Miss Hunt wants a man in a size
1871 Army shirt.
X \ r
Aside from slight overlength, or
perhaps a tendency to drag bit
that gives the impression of over
length, "A Letter for Evie" is q
quite pleasant romantic tale, for the
most part leaning toward the comic
1t may lack a certain timeliness,
with the manpower shortage not
so acute as it was when some one
at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had this
idea to do picture about a couple
of soldiers and a girl, but that is
small item to quibble about.
The picture does accomplish what
it undertakes to do. This is to
point out to romantically inclined
young women that they may be
better off with a heart of gold in a
man who is not the glamour type
and to point out to young men
whose mirrors are not their best
friends that they, too, win girls like
Marsha Hunt. They could, that is
If there were more girls like Miss
Hunt, who keeps getting prettier all
the time.
The film makes its points with q
number of comic asides, most OF
them involving Mr.. Cronyn's at
tempts to protect Marsha from his
buddy, the wolfish type with whom
she thinks she has been CORE
spending. These efforts to keep the
girl he loves from playing post Of
flce with the wrong male just be-
cause her mail has turned her heart
reach some drastic heights. At va
rious moments, Mr.. Cronyn is forced
to impersonate drunkenness so his
chum will have to take him home
and to set fire to smudge pot sc
that Ewes honor will be protected
by the fire department.
"A Letter for Evie," incidentally
is the photoplay which you may
have heard of under the previous
title Of "All the Things You Are" in
which Pamela Britton was to play
the star pitcher of softball team
1t has much more to do with the
Jerome Kern song and the reactions
to it of Miss Hunt and Mr.. Cronyn
than it does with softball, but 1t does
have Miss Britton. An able young
comedienne, Miss Britton, though
she Is not shown in action on the
diamond.
All these others involved are able
too. Miss Hunt has become, through
a number of varied roles, a natural
and always dependable actress
though, to be sure, it does not cali
for much acting ability for her to
portray the girl young man might
like to come home to. Mr.. Cronyn
too, is of a dependable sort, who can
always be counted on for the best
in the manner of comedy for which
he is endowed.
On the Captol's stage this week
there is magnet for the young OF
the town in Vaughn Monroe's mu-
sic. The Monroe crew seems to be
one of the jukebox favorites at the
moment and reasonably enough
His arrangements are bright without