“LUCKY PARTNERS”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24525, 6 February 1941, Page 9

“LUCKY PARTNERS”

Bracketing two film favourites for the first time. “ Lucky Partners" will bring Ronald Colman and Ginger Rogers to the Octagon Theatre to-morrow In what is said to be one of the sprightliest comedyrnnances of the past year. From the pen of Sacha Guitry. “ Lucky Partners casts Colman as David Grant, an artist with a secret past, and Miss Rogers as Jean, a clerk iif her aunt’s Greenwich Village book shop. .Jean is engaged to an unimaginative insurance man whom she plans to marry. Circumstances cause Jean to believe that David brings her good luck, and she urges him to join her in the purchase of a sweepstakes ticket. Intrigued with the idea, David agrees, but on the condition that Jean shall accompany him on a platonic honeymoon before she weds. Her fiance, it seems, believes that honeymoons are a waste of time and money, whereas David considers the event essential. This honeymoon, David assures Jean, will be strictly makebelieve. They draw a horse, and Freddie, Jean’s fiance, secretly sells the ticket, which yields 6000 dollars. They make the journey to Niagara Falls on the first leg of their trip, hotly pursued by Freddie, who has come to the conclusion that he does not trust David after all. How David and Jean fall in love with one another without daring to reveal it, the complications caused by Freddie’s arrival. and David’s solution of the problem by running off and starting back to New York only to be arrested on a charge of car theft, all lead up to the hilarious climax of the picture. A scene during David’s real identity and the secret of his odd behaviour is revealed, and the satisfactory conclusion of the romance are featured In this fast-moving ending. As the erratic and gallant David. Colman has his best screen role in years. Miss Rogers’s interpretation of Jean is delightful. Jack Carson has his best opportunity to date as the self-satisfied Freddie. Spring Byington as the heroine’s aunt, Harry Davenport as a judge, and Cecilia Loftus and Brandon Tynan, as an elderly married couple, enact the orinelpal support- *-** roles.