Evening star., 1952-05-16

4ne duCnOf failure 10 DO this
new screen feature at the Warner
view of the circumstances that
the film starring Loretta Young
keeps suggesting that it might
have been good. Or if not actually
good, considerably better than
most of its tearjerker type.
1t involves characters not usu-
ally encountered in soap opera
circumstances and had they been
permitted to behave a bit more
fntelligently, one could legitimate
ly have pitied them.
AS Paula" works out, however,
one suspects that the good cast
including Kent Smith and Alex
ander Knox quietly resigned
themselves to the odds against
them and got it over with.
This should not happen to a
group of competent players deal
ing with such material as frus-
trated motherhood. the guilt COM
plex and the miracle Of modern
treatment for cerebrally palsied
children. An honest, realistic and
moving screenplay could have
come of these things. Paula"
might we'll have been it with more
plausible basic writing.
4 X X
Miss Young is the principal
figure in the Columbia picture,
directed by Rudolph Mate.
She plays the wife of univer-
sity English professor (Smith
who is asked to face the harsh
truth that she cannot have a
child. So crushed is she by this
edict that she runs down a small
boy while driving home from her
specialists office.
She shock of this compounds
the effect of her earlier bad news
and in her hysteria, she let's the
case go into the records as hit
run accident. Although this un-
convincing decision permits her to
escape detection of her crime, she
cannot escape the guilt that at
taches to it. 1t is this guilt that
drives her to adopt the injured lad
and to undertake the slow and
painful process of teaching him
to speak and write.
It is all more pat than plausible.
X 4 X
There is a contraStingly docu-
mentary flavor about those pas
sages in Paula" which deal with
the methods of teaching the
cerebrally palsied. There is
heartening revelation in these
that the tragic child suffering
from brain injury need not be
total loss to himself and to
society.
Miss Young and a small boy
named Tommy Rettig make con-
incing drama of these passages in
Paula" incidentally. they make
1t evident that these teaching
methods are relatively simple, re-
quiring primarily an extraordi-
nary amount of patience and
love.
It is the excellence of it's treat
ment of this theme that makes it
regrettable that the rest of the
film is not up to the quality of
this area. The palSied child and
his redemption are worthy of an
other and better film than
Paula"
Miss Young, normally a con-
vincing performer. does her best
to suggest that her abnormal con-
duct is due to her own physical
and emotional travail. There is
not doubt that this is pretty
shattering but her reaction to it
does not match up in any way the
sanity and courage she shows in
her other human relationships.
The same lack of conviction is
to be found in the performances of
Smith, as the husband, and Knox,
as Miss Young's family doctor.
That the former could have been
so dense as to overlook his wife's
hysteria is no more plausible than
that the physician should have let
1t go unchecked to such limits.
This leaves the really sincere
performance in Paula" up to the
young Rettig lad. He produces it
but with much more help from the
script writer's than the latter gave
to the adults in the picture.
BULLETIN BOARD: Speaking
of cerebral palsy. you can do
handsome thing for it by attend
ing the 1920s Benefit. Ball at the
Shoreham Terrace Room to-
night. 49,. Tickets are available at
the UCP offices, 1880 I street. {.
A new ballet. Masquerade" will
have its world premiere at the
concert of the National Ballet
Company, Lisner auditorium, on
May "a :. The company is under
the direction of Miss Marion Ven-
able The Mills Brothers.
Woody Herman, Dinah Washing
ton and host of other entertain
ers will participate in the Caravan
of Stars show at the National
Guard Armory Sunday night 5.
"Quo Vadis," playing two local
neighborhood theaters, the Hiser
and Highland, will get a second
week at each A new summer
policy. operation from Friday
night through Monday night, will
prevail at the Pix theater. :.
Clarence Days Life With Mother"
will be presented by the Foundry
Players tonight and tomorrow
night at the Foundry NJ E. church,
18th and P streets . Jane Plum
mer Rice is directing.
Chase Survives