Evening star., 1948-05-07

bara Stanwyck, heroine of the
screen version of Marquands f1c-
ton, which is the Capitol theater's
new feature.
Miss Stanwyck, possibly through
no fault of her own, is hardly the
girl man might expect looking
back up the hours of his quiet read
ing when the novel first was pub
lished. The Polly she creates is
somewhat larger than life, whereas
in Marquand's tidy mind, she re-
manned quite recognizably human.
The change rather makes the
Capitols picture a caricature of the
book on which it is based.
The screens Polly Fulton is al
most perfectly true to the poor little
rich girl type. She has everything,
a palace in Connecticut and an
other on Park avenue in New York.
Only the animal kingdom has more
fur coats and, at Heatherbloom,
where she went to school, she was
expertly educated for a life of use
lCSSllSSO. All Illlo AloNS hSPN
her contented were it not that she
is a chip off the old block, B. F.
Fulton AS such she has an enor-
nifty of physical and intellectual
energy but, unlike him, she cannot
enjoy the excitement OF building
an industrial empire.
Mr.. Marquand's original managed
- hi Dal1u ninO nf
plausible girl, but the picture OF
her storming about New York,
Washington, and other centers OF
industry and politics constantly lets
her slip out of focus.
~ k*
Nevertheless, in spite of this
quality of caricature, Luther Davis
screen script follows the main out
line of the novel and brings into its
re-telling a slew of significant per-
formers. Among these are Van
Hefin, Charles Coburn, Richard
Hart, and keenan, Wynn.
Polly has achieved adulthood
when the picture opens. Her main
problem is trying to reconcile the
inner conflict she feels in her love
for Bob Tasmin. Tasmin Is the young
George Apley type, the somewhat
stuffy scion of poor but highly
placed family. Polly figures that
with her energy and the Fulton
money, she might make something
wonderful Of man so well born.
This Is a generous mistake on her
part, but also a regrettable one. In
making 1t, she discovers that young
men like Bob Tasmin either get
ahead on their own impetus, or re-
main where they are.
1t is at this time that she meets
young Tom Brett, an experience
which is to keep her busy, if it does
not make her happy, for the hys-
terical years leading up to World |
War II.
Brett is an intellectual and an
idealist. He teaches economics at
Columbia, dresses like any dilapi-
dated young professor should in a
movie, patronizes speakeasies, and
thinks and writes exactly like a !
young man who eventually will be-
come member of the Roosevelt |
brain trust.
1t takes virtually no imagination
TO see that two people of such di-
verse origins and PHILOSOPHERS are
going to be perpetual surprises to
each other Unhappily, they are
pleasant surprises only until the
honeymoon is over. Afterward they
become increasingly unpleasant.
X X X y
There is the material here for
considerably better movie than "B.
F. Daughter" turns out to be. Un-
der the direction of Robert z.
Leonard, it more or less continuous
ly gets out of perspective. The class
struggle, intimated in the relations
of Polly and Tom and old B. F., a
crack-brained columnist-commen-
tator and everybody, becomes rather
an overdone joke.
Everything in the picture is ex-
cessively Hollywood, but most Of all |
the Georgetown rendezvous in which
Tom Brett sets up-purely platon- |
ically-a beautiful young displaced
Dutch woman. This Is George
town which no one ever saw, and |