THE CINEMA
" Storm in a Teacup." At the Leicester Square—" Mister Flow." At the Curzon
" COME home to men's business and bosoms," wisely remarked Bacon, who knew very well that it was not impossible to combine the box-office and the genuine. For some years novr we have been peering through the jungle of luxury films and stagey farces and unmentionable " quickies " in search of a film which will rely on such a simple precept. Storm in 12 Teacup ends our search for the moment, for it is certainly the first genuinely British comedy to appear from an English studio. Here at last is a reasonable humanity presented with humour and understanding. It may well be rated as the best British film to date. True it starts with the initial advantage of Mr. James Bridie's sense of dialogue and his intimacy with the Scots character ; but the stage piece has been not merely adapted, but re-created in screen terms without losing any of the original qualities of the story.
The story, indeed, is slender enough. The directors, Victor Saville and Ian Dalrymple, in presenting the discomfiture and reformation of a swollen-headed small town provost—all through a fuss over a poor woman's dog licence—have in general nobly resisted the temptation to exaggerate, except when they succumb not unamusingly to the filmic attractions of a cataract of yelping dogs invading a dinner party, or a fantasia on the well-worn court scene with a wise-cracking buffoon of a judge.
For the rest, we may well be thankful for a film which moves with a certain grace, which creates an atmosphere and sticks to it, and relies for once on the virtues of simplicity. With the one exception of Sarah Allgood, who is in training and technique too brilliantly redolent of the theatre, the film is admirably cast, and achieves something one had hardly dared to hope for just yet—the give-and-take of teamwork in the acting. The chief laurels go to Rex Harrison, a com- parative newcomer, Vivien Leigh, and Cecil Parker, whose superbly sensitive and consistent study of the Provost puts him in the first rank as a screen-actor. The whole cast, indeed, works quietly and sensibly together, and the small part players are all admirable : each one is a person, never a type.
There is one scene which well indicates the quality of the production. The overbearing Provost is howled down at a meeting he had thought to dominate. Amid the catcalls and general turmoil, his bitter humiliation is indicated only by a slight quivering of the lips—masking the tears of rage or disappointment that he will never allow to flow. This is the true stuff of comedy, in the full sense of the word, and it is a pity that it is followed by a false note. The hall is besieged by a mob of angry hooligans, and the Provost steps out and quells them by sheer force of personality. This clashes with the character of the man. Brave he is, but not so powerful. Far better to have had him leave hurriedly by the back entrance ; or better still, to have made him face the mob, and retain his essential dignity even among the hail of eggs and vegetables. Or is that too much to ask of a medium so ingrained in the traditions of slapstick ?
But against all the criticisms one may make, the false notes, the lapses into farce, one final impression remains, of a film which is, perhaps for the first time, genuinely British. If it is overpraised no harm will be done, for it is not merely unpretentious ; it is, more importantly, sufficiently simple, sufficiently kindly, to ring true. -
Meantime the Curzon presents Mr. Flow, just another
frothy offering from the Continent. It will have the usual strong snob-appeal to those who succeed in understanding occasional sentences of Henri Jeanson's amusing but super- ficial dialogue. Others may get great pleasure in seeing a superimposed sub-title translate Edwige Feuiare's seductive utterance of the word " Champagne " into the more prosaic phrase " Tinned foods." The plot is complicated, part farce and part thriller. The lounges and boudoirs, the gambling rooms and beaches, the restricted and unenter- prising actors and actresses are all as familiar as a dub bore's greeting. They may be continental ; they art also stale.
BASIL WRIGHT.
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