COMEDY AND THRILLS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22318, 4 February 1938, Page 18

COMEDY AND THRILLS

Zasu Pitts in "Forty Naughty - Girls"

A wealth of comedy and thrills is provided in "Forty Naughty Girls," with Zasu Pitts and James Gleason heading the cast as Hildegarde Withers and Inspector Oscar Piper. It begins at the Crystal Palace to-day. This film, the sixth of Stuart Palmer's engrossing stories to reach the screen in the last five years, is said to be the most baffling of the series, and to give its two principals their best opportunities to date for film detective work. With all its exciting action talcing place backstage in a big Broadway theatre during the evening performance, the story gets away to a fast start. The press agent of the show, who turns out to have been both a blackmailer and a Don Juan, is found murdered in the ingenue's dressing room. When Oscar and Hildegarde arrive on the scene they encounter a bewildering number of suspects, all with excellent motives for killing the victim, and the situation becomes highly complicated. Just as Oscar thinks he knows who the murderer is, that suspect is in turn a victim —shot down on the stage in

full view of ,the audience — and the complications grow even more hectic before Hildegarde manoeuvres a surprise ending that produces the real killer. With its deft alternation of comedy and thrilling moments, including two attempts on the inspector's life and a hair-raising chase through the dim labyrinths of the theatre's basement, "Forty Naughty Girls" offers excellent entertainment to film-goers. The picture marks James Gleason's sixth portrayal of the Inspector role, while Zasu Pitts played the Hildegarde in the preceding film of the PiperWithers series, "The Plot Thickens." Supporting the two favourites is a notable group of players, with Marjorie Lord and George Shelley in the romantic leads, Edward Marr as the luckless press agent, Joan Woodbury as the star of the show, Alan Edwards as the producer, and Frank M. Thomas, Alden Chase, Ada Leonard, Barbara Pepper, and Tom Kennedy in imDortant roles. Engaging glimpses of a Broadway revue in action.- with two score "naughty girls" who give the film its title 'in their intricate chorus routines, add to the attractiveneess of the picture.