CINEMA
As a weapon with which to defend the peace of nations, The Men is bitter sharp. It deals exclusively with half-paralysed war veterans and the hospital in which they struggle, or refuse to struggle, to regain some sort of pattern of life. It is a brilliant study, or I should say series of studies, of men's varying attitudes to disaster, and it gains tremendously by being completely downright and matter of fact, even cruelly so at times. The chief battle to be won by these shattered youths is a spiritual one. Medically speaking there is no cure for them, and it takes a brave man to face up to the fact that he cannot and will not ever walk again. Not only must he face up to it but he must accept it, be resigned to it. When he does so, when he stops detesting his dependence on others, becomes willing to get out into the world ignoring the repellent pity of the healthy and starting a new life as half a man, he can find peace of midd. As the doctor, Mr. Everett Sloane, who gives a snperb per- formance, allows no illusions among his patients. He refuses to nourish them on false hopes. He is determined they should accept the worst and make the best of it. Yet he loves them dearly, and is human enough to get thoroughly fed up when they adopt an attitude ,of cynical indifference to his ministrations. His job is to make alive those who would rather be dead—a thankless task at times. Mr. Marlon Brando who, with the assistance of Miss Teresa Wright, emerges from the conflict with triumph, also gives a notable performance. This is, in fact, a fine intelligent film, sombre and saddening perhaps, but not depressing. - * * Two Weeks with Love is the latest M.G.M. Technicolor in their long line of Happy Family musicals—Poppa, Momma and four jolly children. In this case the inevitable adolescent girl, though stereo- typed enough to wish for amour in a big way, does not believe she will attain it by going on the stage but, somewhat refreshingly, through the acquisition of a pair of corsets, a ,foundation hitherto denied her by her mother. This is, I must add, the year 1913. Miss Jane Powell, though mature in many ways, makes a charming seventeen-year-old, and as her unwilling suitor Mr. Ricardo Mon- talban treads delicately across an embarrassing part. It is pleasant, too, to see Miss Ann Harding again, and if, perhaps, Mr. Louis Calhern seems bothered and bewildered by the amiable vacuity of the script, he at any rate has one bewitched moment when he inadvertently sets off a dump of fireworks which his sons have put under his bed. This is the most glorious pyrotechnical display.I have seen since the Victory celebrations. A nice film for a family outing.
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is a confused, bidly-written, creaky, leaky and altogether unworthy vehicle for Mr. lames Cagney. He is his usual tough self, killing, blackmailing and seducing with great good- nature but, in this instance, tedious effect. The only breath of reality wafted across this picture is -blown by- Mr. Luther Adler– Bs a crooked lawyer: The rest is anaesthetic. VIR6INWCYA44P1M1-
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