THE CINEMA
" Lucky Partners." At the Gaumont.
THERE are indications, including indeed an opening title, which suggest that this film is based on Sacha Guitry's Bonne Chance— in itself not one of the master's best screen efforts. Its trans- lation into the language of Hollywood has by no means improved it, though this is probably due more to the astonishing miscasting of the principal parts than to the directorial efforts of Lewis Milestone, who is apparently taking a rest from more considered works like Mice and Men. The tenuous story tells of a mock honeymoon indulged in by a discredited artist and a girl from Greenwich Village on the strength of a lottery ticket shared and won. The treatment is farcical, and culminates in a court room scene of fantastic improbability which—thanks to Henry Davenport as the judge—is by far the most enjoyable part of the film.
But the hero and heroine are played by Ronald Colman and Ginger Rogers, and they are by no means equal to the task. A special polish is needed for this type of production—a polish which was seen at its best in the old silent days, as in D'Abbadie d'Arrases The Grand Duchess and the Waiter, with Florence Vidor and Adolphe Menjou. The latter indeed might have given Lucky Partners the brilliance and subtlety that it needs, whereas Ronald Colman carries too much of the auras of Ruritania, Raffles, and Shangri La to convince us as an artist who has served three years' imprisonment for publishing indecent pictures. Needless to say, the said pictures are regarded as classics at the end of the three years, which somehow takes a lot of point out of the whole proceedings. Then there is Ginger Rogers, who surelY should return to the dance, and who, despite the promise she showed in Primrose Path, fails signally to give her part in this production that scintillation which would make it lively enough for our enjoyment. Some alarm will probably be caused among the cognoscenti by her hair, which is now a raven and disturbing black.
On the whole Lucky Partners depends for what charm it has on a fine selection of Hollywood's best small-part players, un- honoured and unsung in the credit titles, but none the less the backbone of the film. There is one brief study of a plain-clothes detective which is so exquisite that it is almost worth the whole of the rest of the film, stars and all. BASIL WRIGHT.
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