Three for Bedroom C Reviews

Pure malarkey, and made even more so by the fact that Swanson had just come off one of her greatest roles in SUNSET BOULEVARD. This was a dreadful follow-up to the 52-year-old star's Norma Desmond role. Swanson is again a movie star. She's going from New York to Hollywood aboard a cross-country train with her young daughter, Perreau, a precocious child who should be gagged. The studio wants Swanson back right away to star in a film that she doesn't much care about. She and Perreau have no train reservation and inadvertently occupy the compartment assigned to Warren, a Harvard professor who is shy and scholarly and specializes in biochemistry. Warren gets on board in Chicago and there is no other compartment available. Also on the train are Conried, the studio's nervous press agent and Clark, Swanson's long-suffering agent. Brodie plays a part not unlike the rage of the day, Marlon Brando. Swanson manages to convince Warren that she and Perreau need the compartment and he sleeps in a jerry-built bed in the train car's men's room. Margaret Dumont is also around, but without the antics of the Marx Brothers, she hardly registers. After a few very ordinary complications, Warren and Swanson wind up in a clinch by the time they reach Pasadena. Swanson herself designed the clothes she wore and they are as bad as the rest of the movie. The story came from a novel by a renowned musical figure, Goddard Lieberson, the man who ran Columbia Records for many years and was responsible for many hit albums. THREE FOR BEDROOM C was photographed in a process known as "Natural Color," which did nothing for the movie. The only real humor is strictly "inside show business" stuff, with Conried and Clark managing to snap off a few good gags that won't be understood by anyone east of Burbank. Warren was discovered by Swanson when she met him in an art gallery in Los Angeles and was taken by him, although she denied this later. After this film laid an egg, Swanson returned to New York and the stage, appearing in "Nina" with David Niven.