The Crimson Playgoer

Considerably dressed down for the cinema audience and even with its name changed. "Biography," that stage success of last year now appears as "Biography of a Bachelor Girl." Much of S. N. Behrman's theme of the struggle between mature tolerance and impulsive youth has been scrapped. In its place is a story more suited to the specialized talents of Ann Harding and Robert Montgomery. Most unfortunate is the demise of the character Fedyak, that charming cosmopolitan and Bohemian, as played by Edward Arnold, Still, it must be said that snatches of Behrman's intelligent wit remain in the dialogue. But why, oh, why, wasn't Ina Claire contracted by MGM to speak them?

As you recall, the story revolves about the biography in the making of Marion Forsythe. (Ann Harding), the self-styled "female Casanova" and "institution" in the eyes of the American people. Editor Richard Kurt (Robert Montgomery) contracts this lurid tale for his magazine and then proceeds to fall in love with the writer, though she represents all the tolerant decadence of the society which he is fighting. A bombastic Senator with the heart of a child (Edward Everett Horton to us, "Bunny" to Marion) and an athletic publisher, Bernarr McFadden in caricature, would prevent the diary's publication. Marion might recall some facts about Bunny which would not make good reading for his constituents. In the play the clash of personalities is found irreconcilable with love, but in the picture--well, all is resolved happily.