She Was Only a Landlady's Daughter

The most hilarious double feature I've seen in years inexplicably ran only a week at the Paramount.

In "One Thrilling Night" newly-weds on a one-night honeymoon suffer a maddening series of intrusions and frustrations from the moment the young husband climbs into bed alongside what he fondly imagined is his soul-mate coyly wrapped in blankets but is actually a male corpse. Naturally he regards it as a poor substitute but it is nothing compared to the indignities he has yet to suffer.

"Banana Ridge" began where the other left off. In parts it was unashamedly bawdy. The world's most improbable plot hinged on the dubious paternity of a young man who grew up to be as seductive as apparently his mother had been in her youth. Several men had been billeted on her mother's farm during the Great War and all of them had a finger in the pie, as it were. Alfred Drayton and Robertson Hare (cuningly disguised as Jim Winchester) having both been starters, endeavoured to meet their possible obligations by sending the young Cassanova to "Banana Ridge," Drayton's rubber plantation in Malaya, as assistant manager to Hare. There he would have no contact with their womenfolk except Mrs. Hare, "the most scrupulous men in Malaya." The plan is a flop, but the picture is a riot.

Hare and Drayton, veteran campaigners of stage and screen, were excellent. It mattered little that the women were the usual English producers' misconception of "aloorin," and the young man about as seductive as Mahatma Gandhi, for they were merely incidental to the antics of the two comedians. Finally, it was pleasing for once to hear the English language used and spoken correctly.