The New Pictures, Oct. 20, 1947

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Good fun: the oafish, back-country bears who watch the Bongo triangle square itself. Top-drawer Disney: various dreamlike bits of flowing, beautifully planned motion (notably Bongo's love-dream and the climax of his fight); the marvelously oily thrusting and gropings of the magical plant as it grows & grows through the night; Donald's transcendent Moscow-Arty performance as a medieval duck driven mad by malnutrition.

The Unsuspected (Curtiz; Warner] is suspected too soon by the audience and too late by most of his fellow actors. The result is a long, lame melodrama about a radio star (Claude Rains) whose secretary is the first to be murdered, and various other people, pleasant and unpleasant, who hang around Rains's mansion hounding the culprit, or just waiting their turn. Among those present: Joan Caulfield, Audrey Totter, Kurd Hatfield, Constance Bennett, Fred Clark.

Magic Town (RKO Radio) is another of those seriocomic fables in favor of the American way of life which, it appears, cannot be made without James Stewart.

This time, Mr. Stewart is a sort of Gallup pollster. Pretending to be an insurance man, he descends on an unsuspecting U.S. town and pumps the townspeople dry of their opinions on everything under the sun. As he pumps, he falls in love with the town and some of its inhabitants, notably Jane Wyman. In turn, everyone trusts, likes or loves Jimmy. But much as it goes against his conscience, he must be true to his job.

It appears that Grandview is The Absolutely Average U.S. Community. The commercial and political implications of being dead average are, of course, enormous. With Jimmy's help, the town gets a swelled head and frantically markets its opinions, which soon become worthless. Eventually, Jimmy shames the financially ruined community into civic pride and resourceful action.

Although Magic Town is not worked out with much acuteness or grace, it views with a wholesome if very mild disapproval: 1) the overwillingness of many Americans to play guinea pig with their private lives; 2) their ugly and pathetic capacity for materialistic vanity; and 3) the ease with which affection and rust can be abused in dedication to a job.

Where Magic Town eventually gets gainfully out of order is in sounding its Note of Hope. Know-how, self-respect and daring are traditional American virtues, but this movie suggests that they can be aroused only by deceit and the pressure of public opinion.

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