The Crimson Playgoer

Even in Boston the English sense of humor as portrayed by Anna Neagle and Fernand Graavey in the Herbert Wilcox production, "The Runaway Queen" attracts a mere handful of people, and deservedly. The picture fails to ring the bell in every department of motion pictures but one.

He who goes to the picture will be pleasantly surprised by mountain scenery which is obviously not a Hollywood machination. The alpine views, those of the chalet dotted lake, cannot be taken otherwise than as actual photography of real places. In this respect, and unfortunately in this one alone, the picture justifies itself.

As the film opens, we find Anna Neagle as a poor stocking saleswoman in New York, and from here the blonde, heavy featured actress walks from kingdom to exile. The former position is due to the death of the other heirs to the throne, the latter to the fickleness of the people who are incited to revolt by Fernand Graavey, who becomes their President, and, by strange coincidence takes a rest cure at the same watering place as that at which the Queen is in exile. From there the picture goes to its logical and too obvious conclusion.

Graavey's appearance is twofold, at some times he looks like Dick Powell, at others like Harold Lloyd. But at no time is he either attractive or an actor. The leading lady's profile was her one asset. She having nothing but a run of the mill figure and a Sten-like full face. The lady's acting was nothing to make Mr. Josse Laskey catch the next boat for England.