CINEMA
,,So Young and So Bad." (London Pavilion.)—"Born to be Bad." (Odeon, Marble Arch.) THE film-industry in America has of late become so aware of the world's callousness, notably in the field of women's institutions, that one could almost say its reformatory spirit had become an obsession. Having been racked by the prison and the lunatic asylum, we are now asked, in So Young and So Bad, to share the tribulations of young girl delinquents in a corrective home. Need- less to say, this home is under the aegis of a stupid superintendent and a sadistic matron, and when the girls are not engaged in lifting enormous sacks of potatoes or working in an underground steam- laundry, they are being subdued by hoses or incarcerated in stygian dark cells. Mr. Paul Henreid, arriving on the scene with fresh ideas such as lots of love and bags of understanding, not to mention gay clothes and jolly dances, has a very tough time reforming the reformatory ; but, as the subject is approached in a novelettish manner, his virtue is rewarded, and the flowered curtains get hung in the dining-hall after all. The girls, notably Miss Anne Francis, give good performances, and Miss Grace Coppin as the bullying matron is exceedingly terrifying ; but unfortunately, as we now expect all American institutions, save perhaps their hospitals, to be run on mediaeval lines, the message goes astray.
* * * * Whereas the above film deals with the reform of those in lowly circumstance, Born to be Bad is concerned with the correction of a woman in high society, a foolish creature who has failed to observe that on the films, if not in life, it is impossible to worship riches without coming an almighty cropper. Miss Joan Fontaine, who is _perfectly beautiful but not conspicuously talented, plays the part of a woman who is determined to have and to hold as many sapphires and mink coats as possible, and though she loves a writer, Mr. Robert Ryan, marries the opulent Mr. Zachary Scott, ‘Aho belonged to somebody else anyway. A double life, with its
attendant web of lies, finally loses for her both husband and lover, though she does manage to hang on to half-a-dozen fur coats and doesn't seem too despondent. Everybody looks very clean and nice in this film, the script is moderately convincing and at times amusing, and the direction by Mr. Nicholas Ray is smooth ; but in the final judgement it must be admitted that the picture adds up to singularly
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