ST. JAMES THEATRE.

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 85, 12 April 1939, Page 5

ST. JAMES THEATRE.

"Little Tough Guys."

Smartly paced by three talented comedy stars, Mischa Aver, Mary Boland, and Edward Everett Horton, Universal's ruffian gang of kid actors appear in "Little Tough Guys in Society," which opens on Friday at the St. James Theatre. Away to a swift start in the initial scenes, the picture quickly reveals itself as superb entertainment and affords endless opportunities for hilarious comedy as the touch guys ride rough-shod through the realm of frosty socialites on a Long Island estate. Lifted from their usual tenement environment, the boys cavort, dance, cfiid clown in a way that adds up to potent screen fare. The screen play by Edward Eliscu and Mortimer Offner is smoothly designed for maximum laugh content, and swiftly paced through the expert direction of Erie Kenton. The producer. Max Golden, who scored with the popular Jones Family series, may well find that he has in the Little Tough Guys another group destined to continue long in box-office favour. Telling performances are turned in by every member of the Little Tough Guys group, including Frankie Thomas as the leader and Harris Berger, Hally Chester. Charles Duncan, David Gorcey, and William Benedict. The theme of the story lends itself ideally to a wide variety of comedy situations. Mary Boland. a socialite mother, is worried because her spoiled son, Jackie Searl, wants to spend his whole life in bed. Upon the advice of Mischa Aver, a stupid psychiatrist, she invites a group of under-privileged boys from an eastside settlement house to be guests at her fashionable home. The idea is that the boys will awaken her son to the joyous possibilities of youth. In a thrilling climax when sa thief tries to rob the place, the alley kids capture the robber and prove their regeneration.