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Heartbeat (RKO Radio) takes the pulse of a studio Paris, troubled by nothing more portentous than thievery, domestic intrigue and light-heavyweight love. Ginger Rogers, who has escaped from a reform school, shows more aptitude in Basil Rathbone's school for pickpockets. Ambassador Adolphe Menjou, catching her redhanded, uses her for a bit of pocketpicking of his own: he wants to uncover evidence of his wife's infidelity. Dressed to the nines for the occasion, an ambassadorial ball, Miss Rogers falls for her victim, Jean Pierre Aumont. Further complications involve her in a marriage-of-convenience with pouchfaced Melville Cooper, a gentleman loafer, and bring, at length, a less convenient but more promising match with M. Aumont.
All this Cinderella business, which will seem to oldtimers like a Mary Pickford movie with a thick French accent, rolls out smoothly and amusingly enough under Sam Wood's direction. Miss Rogers mugs along to her heart's content and to the content likewise of probably 90% of her audience; Basil Rathbone does some well-cured hamming as the Professor; Mikhail Rasumny is very appealing as the kindliest of his pupils; Menjou, as always, is as smooth as a new foulard. Best thing in the show: Melville Cooper's supple portrayal of harmless, total worthlessness. If Hollywood is looking for someone to fill the shoes of its most likable bon vivant, the late Robert Benchley, Cooper is the man.