'Man and Boy' Puts Boyer on Bad Behavior

By William Glover

Associate Press Drama Critis

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NEW YORK (P) Charles Boyer, noted actor, is involved in a good deal of melodramatic malarkey in "Man and Boy" which has arrived on the stage of Broadway's Atkinson Theater.

The French star's fans will find their man in peak form, delineating one of those international wheeler-dealers who periodically crash through the headlines to disaster.

But Terence Rattigan's script is a broken-backed combination of sentimental nonsense, fantastic finagling and for a while an excursion into sexual deviation.,

That title concerns the flim-flam wizard's reunion after five years with a rebel son in the latter's Greenwich Village walk-down. Wily dad has looked him up merely to have a safe hideout for final all-or-nothing confab about a merger. When the visiting tycoon reveals a homosexual streak, pop is prepared to sacrifice the lad to clinch his business deal.

Well that brings down the second act curtain, but instead of pursuing the problem he has set up to some sort of conclusion, the playwright shies off for a facile wrapup that defies both credibility and characterization.

All the way, Boyer is magnificent in the meaty role of a Rumanian rascal who denies himself only the luxury of loving any person. Individual scenes stand out for sudden flashes of warmth and perception, but the prevalent tone is mechanical sleekness.