Annabelle's Affairs (Fox), taken from a play by Clare Kummer which Arthur Hopkins produced in Manhattan 14 years ago, will have an immoral influence, since it shows extravagance rewarded and makes insobriety seem an Arcadian adventure. Nonetheless, it is hilariously funny comedy of a sort rarely seen in cinema. It tells a story in which the chief characters are a scatter-brained girl (Jeannette MacDonald), her husband, who is a rowdy millionaire from Wyoming (Victor McLaglen), another millionaire who remains intoxicated (Roland Young), and the second millionaire's butler. The two millionaires are engaged in a wholly ridiculous struggle for 50 shares of valuable stock. The fact that the story makes no sense at all adds immeasurably to its gaiety since all the characters seem well aware of this and at all times obey, with nonchalant enthusiasm, the most unlikely impulses. Funniest of them all is the second millionaire at whose elaborate country estate the story, such as it is, develops.
A depraved but sunny personality, Roland Young orders his butler to get a captain for his yacht, says: "Get one who can dance the horn-pipe." Sly, peremptory and puzzled he makes love to his cook in a squeaky voice, smashes his possessions so constantly that when he falls into a stupor his servants put some chinaware beside him for him to break when he wakes up. Indignant at the captain, the drunkard orders four servants to throw him out, and mounts a chair, clapping his hands & popeyed with excitement, to see them do it. When he learns that his cook is the captain's wife, he becomes sad and has a drink.
European papers have been buzzing for weeks, still buzz, with the preposterous story that Crown Princess Maria Jose of Italy shot Jeannette MacDonald on the Riviera last winter, blinding her in one eye. Gullible European editors did not (U. S. editors promptly did) wire to Hollywood and discover that Miss MacDonald was at that precise moment cinemacting undamaged.
The story still goes on and on, despite the facts which are:
Near Bruges, Belgium an automobile with two occupants ran into a tree last August. The man and the woman were taken, badly injured, to a hospital which refused to tell reporters who they were.
The Italian Ambassador called at the hospital, went away mum. Recently all Belgium had been hearing stories (TIME, March 16) of how Belgian Princess Maria Jose had quarreled in Rome with her bridegroom, Crown Prince Umberto of Italy. Press-guessing began.
Soon "the mysterious man and woman" were "a certain Italian prince and an American movie actress, we are reliably informed." Next, it was certain that the man was Crown Prince Umberto. Actually he was a grey-haired Italian banker, Signor Nardi Beltrami. The woman soon became Cinemactress Jeannette MacDonald—actually she was the banker's mistress, one Signorina Lodigiani. When banker & mistress recovered sufficiently to slip away to parts unknown, journalistic rumor ran riot, especially in France. The story now was, is, that Jeannette MacDonald was injured not in an auto accident but by Crown Princess Maria Jose. In French papers the ideal set for such jealous pistol work is, a hotel bedroom on the glamorous Riviera.