Cinema: Also Showing

Sally, Irene and Mary (Twentieth Century-Fox) lacks the timely zing that makes most Darryl Zanuck cinemusicals seem a little better than they are. Comic interludes are contributed by horn-beaked Jimmy Durante, startled-looking Fred Allen. Of a half-dozen tunes shared by Songstress Alice Faye and Crooner Husband Tony Martin, the Gordon-Revel Sweet As a Song is best.

A Slight Case of Murder (Warner Bros.) is the riotous cinemaversion of the Damon Runyon-Howard Lindsay play about four uninvited, neatly plugged corpses in the Saratoga mansion of a Broadway beer baron (TIME, Sept. 23, 1935). With cinema’s No. 1 Hoodlum Edward G. Robinson as the beer baron. Warners people the play with a cast of stylized plug-uglies who are authentic Runyon to the very toothpick. Best scene: Baron Robinson and associates deciding whose lawns to decorate with the corpses, making crestfallen Henchman Allen Jenkins stay home and miss all the fun.

Current & Choice

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Tommy Kelly, Ann Gillis. Jackie Moran, May Robson; TIME, Feb. 28).

Of Human Hearts (Walter Huston, Beulah Bondi, James Stewart; TIME, Feb. 21).

The Girl Was Young (Nova Pilbeam, Derrick de Marney; TIME, Feb. 14).

Wells Fargo (Joel McCrea, Frances Dee, Bob Burns; TIME, Jan. 10).

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (TIME, Dec. 27).