THE CINEMA
"Angelina." (Academy.)--" Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House." (Gaumont and Marble Arch Pavilion.)—" Cardboard Cavalier." (Odeon.)
IT is a wonderful experience to see an actress whose fame has been won by nothing but an ability to act. Mme. Anna Magnani is not beautiful ; she is not even charming, and to those whose knowledge of Italian is confined to remarks such as Quanto costa questa and Buona sera she is all but incomprehensible. Yet none of this matters. One is aware the moment she appears on the screen that she can and will act everybody else off it. At the same time it is hard to believe she is acting. .Here is a woman who enters into a part so completely, loses her own identity so entirely, that it becomes impossible for one to conceive of her living outside her role. In Angelina Mme. Magnani is a mother of a large family living in the slums of Rome, and being of a fiery temperament she heads a revolt of housewives against the corruption and negligence of the Government, leading her monstrous regiment of women to loot a grocer's shop, to take over an unoccupied block of fiats and in general to make a deal of highly diverting trouble.
M. Luigi Zampa has directed this film, showing as he did in Vivere in Pace his affection for poverty and the brave hearts that beat therein ; and certainly his background of appalling squalor adds poignancy to his Angelina's courageous effort to enter the field of politics. Yet in spite of his skilled direction, it is to the players that we are Most indebted. Never once playing for effect, unaware of her humour or pathos, fighting her battles, nursing her baby, haranguing her troops or slumping in utter weariness and disillusion- ment, Mme. Magnani gives a memorable and moving picture of a woman of the people. And to the other dozen or so actors and actresses who support her, vivid of face, extravagant of gesture and tireless of tongue, must due honour also be paid.
With Miss Myrna Loy, Mr. Cary Grant and Mr. Melvyn Douglas gathered together in one film one could not, being mortal, expect it to be anything but divine, so it is in the natural order of things that Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House should be a disappoint- ment. Not a terrible disappointment, but the sort experienced by a cook when her soufflé doesn't rise. This film though, like many a flat soufflé before it, tastes good, and for those who have bought houses on impulse it will be especially palatable. It is fun watching
this happy trio locking themselves into cupboards, sleeping on the floor of a windowless house, struggling with architects, builders and a gentleman who digs a 200 feet well a few yards away from a natural spring which eventually bursts through the cellar floor ; but I, personally, want more than fun from these three. Or is it perhaps that the fun is too much on the same note ?
It is hard to know what to say about Cardboard Cavalier, for in a way it is too awful for any words and in another way it isn't. The year is 1658, Miss Margaret Lockwood is Nell Gwynne and Mr. Sid Field a gentleman called Sidcup Butterfield, and it would be unnatural in the circumstances if one did not start the film with grave misgivings. Speaking for myself, I think one would have to have a consuming passion for Mr. Field to be able to endure one third of it with any pleasure, but then with me a little farce goes a very long way. Here there is practically no moment when anybody is vertical, no moment when somebody is not throwing something at someone else or falling into a moat or getting knocked down by a collapsing bed or buried in a fall of snow. Custard pies, oranges and eggs whizz through the air, and Mr. Field runs into every door and trips over every hazard. He is immensely endearing, but I would not say he was at his best. The dialogue, which is of the "Dost thou love me ? Yes, I emphatically dost " order, I found, to my slight shame, extremely funny at times, and I was also impressed by Mr. Jerry Desmonde, Mr. Field's stage stooge, who shows he has a talent for serious acting. Let me add that the audience laughed itself into fits.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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