Mississippi Gambler

Despite its Technicolor parade of sun-burned, gaudily-dressed couples, Mississippi Gambler remains a drab romance. Tyrone Power's discreet gambling and puritan manner would put a benevolent granny to shame, while Piper Laurie's reception of his passion stirs some deep psychological trauma--if you care to interpolate from an occasional tear runs Without damage down her lovely face.

The greatest problem in the script was apparently to keep the lovers apart long enough to have a movie. Piper Laurie's sense of guilt for her mother's death in childbirth is the shaky scaffolding that holds her un-swerving love for her degenerate brother who hates the gambler. Under her brother's influence, Laurie marries an old friend she does not love, who later turns out to be an embezzler and a wife deserter. A neuroses shedding climax in front of her mother's portrait releases Laurie's guilt, and minutes later she winds up safely abroad a riverboat in Tyrone Power's arms.

As Mark Fallon, the therapeutic gambler who gives a rapid fire Freudian analysis between kisses to Angelica Durean (Piper Laurie), Tyrone Power is insufferable enough to have even his love exclaim, "you egotistical ass." Having Piper Laurie around is never unpleasant, but if you come to see her act you had better stay at home. Probably the most creditable actress is Julia Adams, whose unrequited love of Fallon has moments of convincing tenderness.

The second feature, No Time for Flowers, boasts filming entirely in Austria, made possible only through the protection of the United States Army. An attempted satire on Communism, the film becomes unhappily serious whenever "the land of equal opportunity" is mentioned. The story, a continuous string of clumsy propaganda incidents, relates the seduction of a loyal party woman to the wonders of the West. The seduction is embodied in a handsome, disloyal Russian with a De Pinna sportcoat, a Hollywood apartment, and a stack of bourgeois magazines.