Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1948)

p 12 Yes, hands can scour a coal-black stove and still be milk white If you think that housework must leave your hands all roughened up, red, and scratchy dry ...you’re wrong! Use greaseless Pacquins. . . this snowy, fragrant cream helps keep hands looking whiter, romantically softer and smoother. Pacquins was first made for Doctors and Nurses Pacquins was first made for doctors and nurses, who scrub their hands 30 to 40 times a day. They had to have something that would help keep hands softer, smoother. And Pacquins proved effective ... as it will for you too! AT ANY DRUG, DEPARTMENT,' OR TEN-GENT / STORE ( Continued from page 10) ning. Everyone’s sad but the handsome cop on the beat, Dick Foran, who makes the most of this chance to woo and win Diana. Just about then, Fitzgerald’s brother, Arthur Shields, engaged in the romantic profession of deepsea diving, turns up after twenty years’ absence. The brightest bit in the whole picture is the scene in which he demonstrates his prowess in the East River and Brother Barry tries his hand at it, coming up with a bagful of bills at the first try. The inconsequential story doesn’t lead anywhere especially, merely giving Fitzgerald an opportunity to strut his stuff. U.ana Lynn handles her part pleasingly but Sonny Tufts trails behind sadly, having little to do except look glum and wait for a break. Your Reviewer Soys: Barry Fitzgerald plays the horses. PV' This Happy Breed ( Prestige-U ni versal ) ST OEL COWARD gives us another one of 11 his cavalcades, this time covering the two decades between wars: 1919-39. You’ll wipe away a tear or two as you view the trials and triumphs (in Technicolor) of the little man on the street, symbolized by the middle-class Gibbons family. Adult audiences of Coward’s generation will applaud his glorification of the common man, but the younger crowd may find it overly sentimental, their patience taxed by too much tea-and-talk. By Hollywood standards, the picture pokes along at a snail’s pace, the gals looking anything but glamorous in those droopy dresses and hideous hats. The acting, however, is among the season’s best. As Frank Gibbons, Robert Newton is a beautiful blend of simplicity and wisdom; the scene in which he proffers advice to his about-to-be-wed son (John Blythe) is particularly well done. Celia Johnson registers as the hard-working wife and mother and so does Stanley Holloway as a friendly neighbor who enjoys a bit of tippling. But the chap destined to win the bobby-sox brigade is attractive John Mills. A few more pictures and this handsome lad will be offering real competition to Rex Harrison and James Mason. He acquits himself admirably as the sailor boy, deeply in love with Kay Walsh, headstrong daughter of respectable parents. Not a great picture, perhaps, but a worthwhile one in the “there’ll always be an England” tradition. Your Reviewer Says: Hail Britannia! V Swell Guy (Universal) JUST as there’s a little bit of bad in every good little girl (as the old song hit had it), so there’s some good in every bad boy. That’s the point made here with Sonny Tufts, the big, broad-shouldered guy with the gorgeous grin, giving a colorful characterization of half-hero, half-heel. Petite, pert Ann Blyth, as a girl who pays the penalty for her mistakes, has a role tailored to her talents, matching her masterful performance in “Mildred Pierce.” She’s quite as wayward in this, and when she meets up with Tufts there are some fancy fireworks. At the war’s end, broke and jobless Tufts, whose newspaper pals shun him like the plague, visits his people, taking everyone in town by storm except his mother (Mary Nash). She knows her son’s weaknesses and dreads his appearance in their midst, aware that behind those grandstand gestures is a man strictly out for himself. The infatuated Ann finds that out too, after ( Continued on page 119)