STATE AND ORPHEUM

On the whole, the program at the Loew's State and Loew's Orpheum this week is pretty flat. William Powell, Joan Crawford and Robert Montgomery are amusing enough in "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney," of course, but the companion piece, a thing called "Dangerous Number," is nothing less than colossal, daring and stupendous in its badness. And the second feature detracts from the first.

Why the theatre owners continue to think they have to serve up a piece of boring tripe as a second feature on every program, when the first would draw well enough, is beyond comprehension. The dish at the Loew's is triply unpalatable. It is a bad plot, full of silly situations which aren't very amusing, and too long. It is poorly acted by Robert Young and Ann Sothern; Young is one of these boys who finds that looking peeved, frowning, flouncing about and shouting too loud is the only way he can impress personality on you. And last, it's an attempt at the type of comedy the Crawford-Tone, Loy-Powell successes have made popular, and consequently it spoils the effectiveness of the main feature.

"The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" is from the old play by Fredric Lonsdale, and its theme is really a rather hackneyed one. As the Loews publicity sheet puts it, the heroine "takes London society by storm, is the recipient of proposals of marriage from millionaires and peers;" in fact, the shopgirl's dream. You've seen it done before, but the present cast and Boleslawki's direction make it sufficiently diverting. It is not up to some of its predecessors, but compared to "Dangerous Number" it is brilliant--or will be if seeing "Dangerous Number" first doesn't make you made and spoil it for you. "The Last of Mrs. Creyney" is perhaps a bit overlengthy, too, but it keeps you laughing most of the way.