EMPIRE

Evening Star, Issue 23354, 25 August 1939, Page 3

EMPIRE

Supported by three comedy stars— Mischa Auer, Mary Boland, and Edward Everett Horton Universal’s ruffian gang of boy actors makes its debut into the charmed circle of the socially elite in ‘ Little Tough Guys in Society,’ which will be shown to-night at the Empire. Lifted! from their usual tenement environment, the boys clown in a way that makes entertaining screen fare. The screen play by Edward Eliscu and < Mortimer Oft'ner is 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. 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, Jaskie Searl, wants to spend his whole life in bed. Upon the advice of Mischa Auer, a psychiatrist, she invites a group of under-privileged boys from an east-side 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 a thief tries to burgle the place, the alley boys capture the robber andl prove their regeneration.