THE CINEMA
"Marie-Louise." At the Academy.—" Captain Eddie." At the Odeon.—" Duffy's Tavern." At the Carlton.—" Life on the Western Marshes " and " Chants Populaires." From the Canadian National Film Board.
Marie-Louise has one great advantage over other recent films. Having been made in Switzerland it shows us the war from a completely new viewpoint as far as films are concerned, the viewpoint of a neutral observer. Marie-Louise is one of the many French children who were fortunate enough to have a three months' holiday from bombed France in the peace of the Swiss Alps and Lakes. Thus we see the war, not as a matter of who was right and who was wrong, but simply as an appalling human catastrophe.- The film tells the story of Marie- Louise's rehabilitation from a bomb-scared unhappy child back into a happy girl. Unfortunately, after a brilliant opening sequence of an air raid on Rouen, the film devotes itself to what I think is entirely the wrong issue. Instead of telling us of the effects of peace and security on Marie-Louise and the other French children, we are told about the reactions of a Swiss family to Marie-Louise. As the family is made up of people who all have hearts of gold, and enough money, the results are inevitable. Everyone, including Marie-Louise, simply overflows with happiness and love. The film is so, almost defence- lessly, simple in its apprcach that it seems a pity to go into the matter
any further except to say that there are some nice directorial touches, an excellent piece of work by a small French boy and a fine piece of naturalistic acting by Margrit Winter as one of the Swiss sisters. It's pleasant enough providing you do not expect too much and, if given to tears, you have a clean handkerchief ready.
For the other two films you can safely leave your handkerchiefs at home together with your minds. Captain Eddie is another of those reverentially painstaking biographies which Hollywood turn out so competently and, it must be admitted, so dully. Duffy's Tavern is another of those Make and Mend films in which characters keep on saying : " Why, there's Paulette Goddard " ; or : " Why, it's Veronica Lake " ; and lo and behold! there they are. The first of two shorts from Canada is called Life on the Western Marshes and is in colour. I must admit to a lack of interest in birds which borders on antipathy, usually looking on them as beady-. eyed creatures of inexplicable habits, but I must also admit to having been entirely absorbed by this film which is mainly about them. Per- haps it was the staggering freshness of the colour or the feeling of far- off lands and fresh breezes. It appears that the life of a duck in Canada consists mainly of a series of threats on its life made by other birds, ground animals, predatory fish and man's neglect of irrigation problems. So an organisation, delightfully called " Ducks Un- limited," has been started to deal with this problem, and against a glowing background of water, plants and sky we see this organisation in action. We also see some superb shots of the ducks they deal with. This film is the next best thing to a real holiday. that I can imagine, and in case you share my feelings about birds there are a lot of animals such as moose and beaver on the marsh as well.
The other film is Chants Populaires, and in it the producers have taken two popular French songs and set out to make the audience sing them with the film. Judging by the humming and tapping being done by the two or three people at a private show, the effect on a large audience must be electrifying. The songs are accom- panied on the screen by animations devised by Alexieff (whose macabre film Night on the Bare Mountain you may remember) and Norman McLaren. The former illustrates " En Passant " with its oddly disturbing nightmare effects of changing shapes in light -and shade. McLaren uses an equally odd technique to create pictures for " C'est l'aviron," and succeeds in making a picture of a dream. At least that was how it seemed to me and I enjoyed it. It was good to see again some experimental work being done. The war has not left much time for anything except the immediately practical, and it is to be hoped that we shall be seeing a good deal of this important aspect of film work in the near future. Unfortunately, these two films are on i6 mm., but they can be seen by any non- theatrical organisation working through the Central Film Library.
ALEXANDER SHAW.
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