GOODBYE DARLING -- BE HAPPY

This has a much better scenario than The O'Conners--it's full of surprises--and Mary Astor who handles the literature of feminine despair with a professional touch keeps it moving very nicely. Dee who is thirty, very fat, and not at all Jolly, takes a world cruise after leaving Matt, with the envoi of the title. He had been her lover for five years; he had also been married to the alcoholic Edna who has just died. The sea air does very little; Matt is everywhere. So is Edna, whom she thinks she sees at one stop-off. And so is Carl Bannister, the only attractive, unattached male aboard who is protectively interested in and puzzled by her. But then he leaves. Finally Dee starts blanking out and after an offshore visit to Singapore where she sees Matt (or does she?) she completely goos to pieces and the end of the book puts all of (them together.... It's like a midweek matinee and for Just that audience. They'll stay right in their seats--enjoying every minute of it.