In many respects the picture is very good. If the test for a film is its ability to make one forget his inhibitions, his preconceived notions and expectations, then "The Contant Nymph" succeeds. Any attempt to portray the life of a composer to the audiences which attend movies is not liable to be good but this one is definitely worth seeing. Whether or not one likes the picture depends largely upon his temperament and mood at the time he sees it. To the extreme cynic it would seem unduly emotional. The naive but delicate might enjoy it exceedingly. And it doesn't pack the wallop that "Gunga Din" or "Roy Ralston--Cowboy" did.

The novel, as is usually the case, has been considerably compromised. On one hand it has been purified and on the other it has been rather sensationalized to achieve the box office appeal.

Even the cynical will admit that this is an excellent satire on the pseudo-cultured elite of our present-day business civilization. And it goes even one step further: it strips a 1943 movie of all its cheap thrills and tries to portray an intensely psychological situation, almost a "Turn of the Screw" of its own. Such effort, if nothing else, is commendable. For it makes some effort to "legitimatize" the screen into a point where not only the Hays office but all the standards of movieland are strict enough to produce a film that holds the delicate pattern that is portrayed in "The Constant Nymph."