BEDTIME STORY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 163, 7 August 1942, Page 16

BEDTIME STORY

(Columbia)

SNUGGLE up, little ones, and Uncle Gordon will tell you a bedtime story all about a very beautiful young woman named Loretta Young and a

good-looking (but rather middle-aged) man named Frederic March. And she was a famous actress and was married to the man, who wrote and produced plays for her to appear in, but he was what they call married to the theatre. She wanted to give up being an actress and instead have babies, and live on a farm and keep chickens, but he wanted just to keep on writing successful plays and producing them. So of course they couldn’t stay married-though, of course, they were still in love-and so she went away to a place called Reno to get what they call a divorce, and he went to a place that they used to call a speakeasy to get what they still call qa hangover. Because he had just written one very special play called "Bedtime Story," but he knew that it would never be as successful as the others unless she appeared in it, but if she did, he knew that it would be what they call a wow. So even though she wasn’t any longer his wife and was even going to get married again, he did everything he could think of to get her into this play of his. And he was so upset about his beautiful play being spoilt, that I’m afraid he even told a dreadful lot of fibs and did a lot of other things that were really rather funny, but just as deceitful as telling fibs. But perhaps it wasn’t so dreadful, because, you see, he was beginning to realise that he loved her just about as much as he loved writing plays and producing them. And so it went on and on and on and on, with the poor man getting more and more upset and having more and more hangovers and being more and more of a worry to a funny friend of his called Robert Benchley. Because, you see, it was getting very near the time for the play

to open, and, almost as important, it was getting very near the time for her to be married again. And she was just as miserable as he was, because although she wanted to live in a house in the country and have babies and keep chickens, she still loved the man, and would have liked being married to him if only he had liked babies and chickens, too. And I think it must just have been because she wanted to Teach Him a Lesson that she really did get married to another man. But not for long, because _that very night after the- wedding she sent a message to her first husband, and he came along to the hotel and did the most surprising things. I’m sure you’d laugh if I told you about them, or better still if you could see them for yourselves. Anyway, it turned out that there hadn’t been a divorce at all, and so she wasn’t married to the other man. And then she did appear in the play, and it was indeed a wow, but while it was still running, she told everybody that they were going to have a baby. And I expect they had some chickens, too. And that is the end of this bedtime story, and this is Uncle Gordon signing off. Bye-byes now, and perhaps you’ll dream about how nice it would be if you were like Loretta Young and Frederic March in the story and were famous people and could have lots of money and nice clothes and divorces. (In fairness, let me add that, in spite of its thin and well-worn theme, "Bedtime Story" isn’t by any means likely to put you to sleep, though in parts it may make you drowsy with repetition. But the wedding-night interruptions in the finale will almost certainly wake you up. In fact, within its own inconsequential sphere the film, as you see, rates a handclzp).