June Bride

In spite of a routine comic framework, Robert Montgomery and Bette Davis have a moderately intelligent script in "June Bride," and that's all they need. Montgomery is an accomplished wisecracker, and on occasion he can make even a standard line something to be remembered. Bette Davis, of course, is an actress, and although she seems a bit bottled up in a role that doesn't require lots of emotion, she can handle light comedy without much effort.

The plot is of little substance. The principals carry on their highly-conversational love affair as employees of a House Beautiful-type magazine. They go to Indiana to write a feature story on an average American "June wedding," and get mixed up in the romantic affairs of two young couples. Everything ends happily--but not stickily, as the antiseptic tone of half-seriousness which characterizes the performances of Montgomery and Miss Davis is fortunately maintained throughout.

Montgomery has more of a chance to spread himself than his leading lady. He gets drunk twice--once on hard cider. He staggers past a group of "proper" Hoosier matrons and topples into a snow-bank, in an episode that is frankly slapstick. But Montgomery isn't a hammy drunk, nor is he an actor pretending to be drunk; he manages to get drunk in a delightfully individual and convincing way. And in his sober moments, he's always in complete command of his part, that of a flippant and roguish magazine writer.

Bette Davis is Montgomery's straight man for the most part, and has to waste a lot of time unraveling the plot (which, although flimsy, is rather intricate). But she is a good straight man, and does a creditable job of sustaining "June Bride" in its dull spots. Although there are a number of these low pressure areas in the film, they aren't very damaging. The Montgomery-Davis combination far out-balances them.

The second movie on the double-bill is "Rose of the Yukon," and it's awful. But it is interesting in that it shows how producers of "B" pictures have jumped on the "hate-Russia" bandwagon. Instead of cattle rustlers or foreign baddies of obscure allegiance, this touching and horrible little epic of the far north has a real live Soviet Union as the agent of evil. One Russian thug is even made up to look just like Stalin, to clear up any doubts the audience might have.