REGENT THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 298, 13 September 1941, Page 12

REGENT THEATRE

With Hedy Lamarr to provide the beauty aud the romantic angle, and James Stewart as the quiet-spoken hero,

"Come Live With Me,” now screening at the Regent Theatre, is bound to be a success. Even the minor parts are excellently played, and lan Hunter, Verree Teasdale and Donald Meek make sure that the acting and action are neat and effective in support of the leading parts. Barton Kendrick (fan Hunter) and his wife (Verree Teasdale) have formed a domestic ami a business partnership which, at the opening of the film, seems ideal. Kendrick ae the publisher and Mrs. Kendrick as his chief reader, have built wp a lucrative business. And their home life seems equally felicitous, yet unfortunately Kendrick has met and fallen in love with a beautiful Viennese refugee, "Johnny” (Hedy Lamarr), who is hiding from the immigration authorities. When the Government men catch up with her, she finds that her only way to stayin the country to which she is so much attached is to marry an American citizen. Kendrick ie not available, and she therefore picks Bill Smith (James Stewart), unrecognized literary genius, out of a coffee-shop brawl, and marries him “on a purely business basis." As the weeks go by Bill finds himself in love with his wife and wildly jealous of her wealthy admirer, Mr Kendrick. The story then resolves itself into Bill’s fight to win the love of his own wife. A “lucky” break with a novel he has written op the basis of his own recent situation, and bis consequent ability to repay the money he has received in payment for the “purely business” arrangement with his wife, gives him his first opportunity. In au idyllic country setting, in the home of his torefathers, Bill does win the love of the girl who is his wife in name only, and the film ends happily and romantically, as anv such story should. Stewart is very good indeed as the author-hero, and in a small part as tramp-philosopher, Donald Meek setpasses bis many other excellent perform ances. “Come Live With Me is a cheerful, quick-moving, romantice comedy, nicely played, well produced and directed with the deft, sure touch of Clarence Brown.