THE RICHEST MAN IN TOWN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 123, 31 October 1941, Page 17

THE RICHEST MAN IN TOWN

(Columbia)

[N the original stage production of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town the part of the narrator around whom most of the action revolved was taken by the

veteran Broadway actor, Frank Craven. When Sol Lesser transferred the play to the screen, many of the stage actors went along with it, Craven included. Having received a large share of the critics’ praise for his work in the picture, something about the Hollywood atmosphere would seem to have attracted Craven, for he has since appeared in several more pictures of the homespun Our Town type. I won’t say that The Richest Man In Town is one of his best, but in its own quiet, sentimental way it is pleasant. It moves along slowly, taking its own time over everything, springing no surprises, and eventually arriving at a ‘perfectly obvious and logical conclusion, The story concerns a banker and a newspaper editor in a small country town who have exchanged recriminations since youth, but have remained friends. When crooks turn up and start a racket in town there is nearly a split between the banker and editor, but they are reunited in the end. From this very unoriginal and filmsy material the direc-

tor has salvaged enough originality to make the story presentable, mainly by playing down the romantic interest, and at the end by leaving rather more than usual to the imagination. By so doing he almost lifts a C class picture into the B class. at * * ARRANGEMENTS are being made, I was reliably informed last night, to exempt domestic servants from the industrial call-up for women. The decision has been taken because certain highly-placed people realised that they would be servantless if their household staff were to be drafted into the war factories.-Sunday Pictorial.