THE CINEMA
"Dead of Night." At the Gaiunont. "One Against Seven." At the Tivoli. —" The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry." At the Leicester Square Theatre.
MANY films have grimly embarked on an adventure into the super- natural. Few have survived the journey with any success. The people who figure on the almost overburdened credit titles of the new Ealing Studios production, Dead of Night, have set them- selves one of the most difficult jobs of film making that there is. They have succeeded so admirably that there will be few people who will not get a great deal of pleasure out of seeing this strange and entertaining film. The story concerns an architect who is in- vited by a prospective client for a week-end in the country in order that he may suggest some improvements to the accommodation. The architect arrives to find a small house party, all of them strangers to him, gathered round the tea-cups. He gradually realises that he has met them all before in a dream which he has had many times, and that a series of trivial events will lead to some terrible disaster at that very party. One of the guests, a mental specialist, deals with the matter by giving a scientific explanation for it, but the others refuse to accept this, and, during the course of the film, four of them tell of stories of similar phenomena within their own experience. In between the telling of these stories the main plot is developed, the incidents foretold by the architect occur and, after the doctor has related a terrifying incident from h:s case- book, the climax of the film is worked up to and then explained. Just when we think it is all over, the story takes a sudden twist and we are given a sharp and satisfactory stab of doubt. One false step on the part of anybody concerned in the making of the film would
have ruined the whole thing. There could have been no going back and regaining our attention. All the more credit is therefore due to the makers, that in a subject of which practically every incident was scattered with pitfalls, everybody kept his feet and head. Per- haps the film succeeds so well because it has avoided all the mumbo-jumbo traditionally associated with such subjects. No mists rise from dark marshes, no dark strangers knock at panelled doors, there is not even a bristling cat or a whining dog. From such an excellent whole it seems a pity to single out any parts for special praise, but I thought that the direction, acting and writing of the tale of the ventriloquist's dummy was superb ; that the mysterious affair at the children's party was most tactfully and convincingly handled ; that the acting all through was better than I have seen for a long time, and that the music (by Auric) added enormously to the uncanny atmosphere.
If the film has not often been successful with the supernatural, still less has it been so with the psychological subtleties of domestic life. The screen story of Uncle Harry, which tells of a young woman's possessive and obsessive love for her brother, her break- ing up of his prospective marriage and his subsequent attempt to poison her, just isn't convincing. With the exception of Moyna Macgill, who gives a splendid performance as the sister who gets murdered by mistake, all the actors seemed completely lost and thoroughly worried about the whole affair. When it came to the actual poisoning, they were all experienced enough to give us a very neat and gripping sequence, but by then it was too late. The final sequence of the film, which the audience is asked not to reveal is a direct insult to one's intelligence.
One Against Seven admirably succeeds in its not very important ends. It is exciting and entertaining while it lasts, and when it is over it is soon forgotten. Paul Muni as a Russian sailor turned paratroop scout, and Marguerite Churchill as a girl partisan, are, for quite a credible reason, trapped in a cellar behind the German lines with seven German prisoners whom they have taken during a raid. The film resolves itself into a duel of wits between Muni and the Germans. Each side knows that the other has important and accurate information. It is a good dramatic situation directed and played for all it is worth. Special honour should be paid to somebody for avoiding any hinvof a love interest ; the temptation
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