The Road to Reno

Lilyan Tashman is leaving this husband and will undoubtedly be marrying again. It's been her pattern for a long time, and as long as she looks as young as her daughter, Peggy Shannon, she can keep doing it, despite the protests of her son, Tom Douglas. But her self-indulgence has its price, in the rejection by Douglas of her easy-come-easy-go attitude towards spouses. Judith Wood may love him, but he starts to get dictatorial about it.

It's not a Bob Hope-Bing Crosby buddy comedy, but a serious drama about the effects of liberal divorce laws on the children. Director Richard Wallace may never have risen higher than programmers, but he was a capable studio director, and this one makes its points, a trifle melodramatically but sincerely. The capable cast that Paramount could assemble for a movie like this handles their roles well. Still, the only thing that surprised me was that Reno was already the acknowledged divorce capital of the country.