"SPRING MADNESS."

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 32, 8 February 1939, Page 12

" SPRING MADNESS."

COMEDY FOR MAJESTIC. Far livelier , than aiiy other college comedy that has come from Hollywood for eeveral eeasona is "Spring Madness," which will have its local premiere oh Friday at the Majestic Theatre. Every member of the cast gives a sparkling performance, with Maureen O'Sullivan excelling all previous efforts as a college girl in love, Lew Ayres at hia best ae the unwilling but devoted object of her affections, and Burgess Meredith winning himself a permanent home lil Hollywood as his adventurous and sophistically eccentric room-mate. The laet-nained will be remembered by those who saw "WinterSet lor hie Wonderful dramatic performance in that film. He is seen in a far different Jight in "Spring Madness," but he is just as convincing, and is likely to wm more supporters with his amusing performance than with his "heavier" portrayal in the earlier production. S. Sylvan Simon directed the film and he shows A masterly totich in keeping a large number of evenly-emphasised characters moving steadily and swiftly from a running start to the final fade-out. His characters are college etudfents, but he never lets them become merely collegiate. The story deals with two Harvard men who quit college before graduation to take a long-planned trip to Russia. One of them goes to a New England giris' school to say good-bye to hie girl-friend, but her friends, by some intricate plotting, manage to make him change his plans and go back to college.

- The film is clean, fresh, modern and essentially human, and should be appreciated by all classes of audiences.

Women will be particularly attracted by the associate feature, "Woman Against Woman," a ariory revolving rouna problems of divorce. Herbert Marshall, Mary Afitor and Virginia Bruce are the tirincipala.