DANCING CO-ED

Lana Turner and Richard Carlson

DANCING CO-ED (1939). Director: S. Sylvan Simon.

"She stinks!"

Just when the Dancing Tobins are to begin a new film, Toddy Tobin (a barely-seen Mary Beth Hughes) gets pregnant, and the search is on for someone to co-star with her husband, Freddy (Lee Bowman sans mustache). Learning that the studio is to conduct a talent search on college campuses, Freddy protests that he needs a professional, so it is decided to fix the contest, send talented Patty Marlowe (Lana Turner) to one of the institutions, and make damn certain that she is the winner. Patty gets involved with the editor of the school paper, "Pug" Braddock (Richard Carlson), who figures there has to be a "plant" and decides to ferret out who she is even as Patty assists him as a way of hiding the truth. Will Patty go to Hollywood, or will her scheme come undone? The movie begins well, but the fun peters out halfway through or earlier, and you'll find that you couldn't care less how it comes out. The script lets down the players, who are game and enthusiastic throughout, with Turner [Love Has Many Faces] and Carlson [All I Desire] swell in the leads, Ann Rutherford perky as a secretary who helps Patty, Leon Errol his usual fun self as Patty's father, and Thurston Hall and Monty Woolley also briefly on hand as well. I think I spotted drummer Buddy Rich a couple of times. Band leader Artie Shaw, playing himself, is third-billed but only gets one line of dialogue! He must have impressed Lana Turner, however, because she married him the following year [he also married Ava Gardner and Evelyn Keyes, among others]. Hal Le Sueur, Joan Crawford's brother, plays a handsome college student but has no lines. S. Sylvan Simon also directed the far superior The Fuller Brush Man.

Verdict: Picture could have been cute but it turns into a stink bomb.**

SCARLET O'HARA'S YOUNGER SISTER Evelyn Keyes

SCARLET O HARA'S YOUNGER SISTER: My Lively Life In and Out of Hollywood. Evelyn Keyes. Lyle Stuart; 1977.

Evelyn Keyes was one of those innumerable Hollywood starlets who managed to have a few major roles in minor pictures, and small parts in big movies such as Gone With the Wind. When these "also-rans" write their memoirs they fill the pages with notes on the important people they knew and worked with, and do what they can to convince everyone that their life was fabulous even though Hollywood rejected them [or they rejected Hollywood, which sounds better]. Generally these books are about settling scores and perhaps there's a little of that in Scarlet O'Hara's Younger Sister, but what sets the book apart is that Keyes can write. This is not an "as told to" book where everything is interpreted by somebody else, but Keyes' story in her own generally well-chosen and witty words; it reads like a good novel where you're anxious to see what happens to our heroine next. The book is frank -- Keyes makes no bones that she slept with and married powerful men in the industry [directors Charles Vidor and John  Huston, among others] -- although she claims it was a daddy fixation. The book, full of amusing anecdotes, explores the sleazy underbelly of Hollywood and the crappy way that women, instantly disposable, were treated by most males in the industry. The most interesting passages deal with Keyes' several-years affair with Mike Todd, which almost led to the altar [except he met Liz Taylor], and her marriage to nutty chauvinist bandleader Artie Shaw, whose punctilious behavior would have driven anyone crazy. [Keyes was still technically married to Shaw when this book was published. When he died several years after their 1985 divorce, Keyes successfully sued for half of his estate, but she herself was gone only a couple of years later.] If you're looking for behind-the-scenes stories of the movies Keyes appeared in, look elsewhere; she doesn't even have that much to say about The Killer that Stalked New York, in which she gave an excellent performance. Keyes also gave notable performances in The Face Behind the Mask and Ladies in Retirement.

Verdict: Absorbing life of a Hollywood insider. ***1/2.