MELODY

by Elswyth Thane ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 23, 1950

A frothy confection, made to order for dramatization as a Noel Coward vehicle. Adrian Locke, approaching seventy, is a successful and popular portrait painter, a bachelor who is constantly getting himself ""misunderstood"" by designing females with an eye to matrimony. His old friend, Madge Forbes, extricates him time and again, but the publicity attendant on the Caroline is almost too much for both Adrian and Madge. Into the midst of it a bomb falls. Monica, daughter of his long lost love, his one vital romance with Alison, wife of an erratic and selfish violinist, turns up in London. She is an awkward, ill-adjusted echo of her mother, not seen for twenty years-but disturbing at that. And on her second visit, on which Madge and the gossipy Mrs. Gordon impinge, her overwhelming desire to see Adrian again, her unwillingness to reveal herself as free and still loving him. It is almost too late. Adrian has committed himself to Madge, out of loneliness intensified by ""Monica's"" statement that Alison is dead. But the almost is not quite enough. Madge has overstepped the line of his bachelorhood too soon -- and even chivalry can't sustain the fiction of their elderly friendly agreement. And Alison wins the last throw. Good summer fare -- but little more.

Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1950

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Duell, Sloan & Pearce

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1950

Categories: FICTION