IT STARTED WITH EVE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 133, 9 January 1942, Page 10

IT STARTED WITH EVE

(Universal)

[N my younger days, which roughly corresponded with those of cinema _ entertainment, it was the custom

to release a Janet Gaynor film at Christmastide and an Eddie Cantor opus at Easter. A similar custom seems to have developed with pictures starring Deanna Durbin, and for several seasons now, Deanna has been served up as a Christmas and New Year attraction in many New Zealand theatres. I can think of nothing more suitable, for the Durbin films, from Three Smart Girls onward, have maintained a fairly consistent (and rather remarkable) level of gaiety and good melody. The latest, Jt Started With Eve, is no exception, though this time there is less emphasis on the melody. Universal’s precious little song bird (she has been the studio’s biggest money-maker for the last (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) half decade), sings three numbers only, but as compensation, we are treated to a rich exhibition of character acting by that master exhibitionist, Charles Laughton, who does not attempt to sing, but amiably lumbers off with the acting honours from his young co-star. Not since Ruggles of Red Gap has Laughton cavorted so blithely through a comedy role. What it was that started with Eve remains something of a mystery, but what starts the picture is the spectacle of Laughton as a fabulously wealthy old financier on his presumed death bed, insisting that* his playboy son (Robert Cummings), shall lighten his last moments and set his mind at rest about the future of the family by producing his new fiancée. But the fiancée is not immediately available, so the distraught young man grabs the first’ girl in sightfortunately it is Deanna-and yanks her along to the bedside as a very temporary substitute. Whether it is the sight of comely Deanna that puts new life into the old man is not revealed, but next morning he is not dead: he is bellowing for a breakfast steak, a cigar-and another look at his son’s "fiancée." Apart from the fact that she is being paid 50 dollars a visit, the deception suits Deanna very well, for she has operatic ambitions, and the old man knows all the best musical people (including Stokowski,

"though they don’t agree about Brahms"). It doesn’t suit the young man half so well, for he has a real fiancée who is becoming increasingly perturbed about the continued presence of the nightingale in her nest. The rest of the story concerns the wily manoeuvrings of Papa Laughton, who has discovered the deception, to make his son do what every member of the audience knows he will do eventually — marry Deanna. They involve, among other things, a visit to a night club, at which the old man so far forgets his weak heart as to caper like a baby elephant through the lively steps of the conga. Such horseplay may account in part for a genuine reduction in Laughton’s Waistline since we saw it last, a condition to which, in his character of the grumpy old invalid, he is continually calling attention. There is no reduction, however, in his ability to dominate any scene with the Laughton mannerisms.