THE LADY HAS PLANS
(Paramount)
HE lady is Paulette Goddard. The plans (of a_ secret weapon) are supposed to be drawn in invisible ink on her ad ~~ pares «2%
Shapely Dack. ACtUally they ae on the hardly less decorative back of another lady (courtesy title only) who is supposed to sneak them out of America to Lisbon, there to sell them to the highest bidder in the international market. But there is a hitch in her journey and Miss Goddard is mistaken for the international lady, with the result that when Miss Goddard arrives in Lisbon to take up a radio job she finds not merely that there is an expensive suite booked for her at the Bella Vista Hotel but that the foreign gentle-. men (one German, one English) who occupy the adjoining rooms, take an embarrassing interest in her epidermis, and calmly make the most outrageous suggestions. Her employer (Ray Milland), observing the suite and the attentive foreign gentlemen, also takes too much for granted. It isn’t until the real lady with the plans has turned up, and Miss Goddard and Mr. Milland have jested with Death in the cellars of a health resort where Nazi tourists are given Portuguese passports for Dakar, that the Axis is finally foiled and Miss Goddard’s reputation is shown to be as unblemished as her skin. This "skin game," which involves Roland Young among others, has its comic highlights, but most of those highlights are achieved by the use of the suggestive situation and the doubleentendre. This skating on thin ice is not new; what strikes me is that the ice is becoming thinner and the skating is being done with increasing daring in more and more pictures these days. I’ll admit that double-talk probably makes me laugh as heartily as the next man, but as a critic who is interested in the general trends of the cinema, I can’t say that I regard this loosening of standards as a healthy sign. And the reason for it? Well, open any newspaper at almost any page on any day of the week. I think you'll find it there.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19420731.2.36.1.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 162, 31 July 1942, Page 16
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355THE LADY HAS PLANS New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 162, 31 July 1942, Page 16
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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