CINEMA
"Edward and Caroline." (Academy.)----“ When Worlds Collide." (Plaza.)--,, Rhubarb." (Carlton.) M. JACQUES BECKER'S Edward and Caroline is enchanting. Its sim- plicity is ravishing. It has no message, no moral and practically no substance—a gossamer web spun by a brilliantly gifted spider with a charming and talented company of flies dancing to his tune. The story, if it can be so called, tells of how a struggling young pianist and his wife, M. Daniel Gelin and Mlle. Anne Vernon, start to get dressed for a party given by a rich uncle, M. Jean Galland ; of how M. Gelin finds he has no white waistcoat and Mlle. Vernon ruins her dress by snipping several feet off its hem • of how they quarrel ; of the party itself—and oh how beautifully M. Becker here observes the attitudes and facial expressions of those who listen to music at parties, and oh that skiful capture of a moment so often here encountered, when a clock strikes lengthily and discordantly against a Chopin etude! M. Becker observes everything from the scouring of a bath to the stifled agony of a host whose soirée is being wrecked, from the donning of shoes to the eyework-of a flirt. He eschews fantasy and yet promotes an atmosphere of fairy-tale, a sort of down-to-earth magic. In a cast of uniform excellence there is an unnamed actor who plays the part of a Russian waiter hired for the evening. His performance, poised on the edge but never falling into caricature, is truly exquisite • and he adds that little extra polish to this miniature masterpiece. Ah, but what a joy it is to see a film one can love wholeheartedly 1 When Worlds Collide gives us a glimpse into the catastrophic, future. Disdaining the atom bomb as the means of our annihilation, Paramount have discovered a star named Bellus which, on a given day, will crash into the world. As if this were not tiresome enough, the star is to be preceded by the planet Zyra which, being a less accurate aimer, merely brushes the earth's surface to produce earth- quake, fire and flood. Aware of impending doom, a professor, Mr. Larry Keating, proposes evacuating the nucleus of a new world by rocket—a sort of aluminiurif Ark—whizzing through space with men, women, cows, chickens, serums and seeds until he hits Zyra. (Presumably Zyra, exhausted from its travels, is waiting in limbo for its first inhabitants.) The dreaded day arrives, and as per schedule the floods engulf New York—and very spectacular they are too— fires rage through the Texan oilfields, hurricanes roar. It is all splendidly elemental. Then when all is chaos and Bellus looms over the horizon like a giant Jaffa, up go the elect in their rocket and bang goes the world. Depressing, but let no one despair. Zyra is a delightful spot with winter snow and green lushness growing side by side ;r! skating on the left, swimming on the right and some peculiar petunia-coloured trees in the middle. Pseudo- scientific, pseudo-humanitarian, this film is nevertheless echt enter- tainthent.
*• * As a food rhubarb leaves much to be desired, but at its oldest and brownest it can never be as unpalatable as the Rhubarb at the Carlton. This tasteless film is about an alley cat which is left a vast fortune by a millionaire. Mr. Ray Milland is pronounced the cat's guardian, a task he does not relish because, amongst other com- plications, his fiancee, Miss Jan Sterling, is allergic to the beast and sneezes violently when within sniffing range of it. During the scratchy length of this tedious mew, there is no choice between being bored by the same catarrhal joke or saddened by the cat. I am not -an ardent lover of cats, but I admire their dignity and that arrogant air of aloofness which so annoys dogs. I feel they should not be made to look foolish. What this cat endures would turn its Egyptian forebears widdershins in their tombs.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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