Cinema: Mothers and He Men

Jack Benny (born Benny Kubelsky) was winding up a smalltime career in vaudeville when bigtime Comedian Eddie Cantor (born Izzy Iskowitz) was taking vaudeville through new Cantortions on the air. This year Jell-O's Jack Benny nosed out Ventriloquist's Dummy Charlie McCarthy as No. 1 man of the air (TIME, Feb. 12). Cantor was not in radio at all, had had no air sponsor since last June.

But he had made a new picture—Forty Little Mothers (M.G.M.). So had Comedian Benny—Buck Benny Rides Again (Paramount). This coincidence was the more curious because both comedians' last...