21 SEPTEMBER 1956, Page 18

Intrepid Victorian

THE KING AND I. (Carlton.)—EVERY SECOND COUNTS and THE GREEN MAN. (Gaumont.) .—LETTERS FROM MY WINDMILL. (Curzon.) TWO Rodgers and Hammerstein mtisicals in two weeks invite comparison and of the two I prefer this week's The King mud I to last week's Oklahoma! First, because it is better directed—more shapely and distinguished, visually more satisfying and aurally at least as good. Secondly, because though Oklahoma fifty years ago may be different enough from London today to satisfy anyone, Siam a hundred years ago is a lot more different from either, and the exotic—the far-fetched scenery and yet more far-fetched manners—is handled with taste, lightness and even subtlety. Thirdly, there is the acting, and although, for some reason, one hardly expects remarkable per- formances in a musical, here there is, in Yul Brynner's as the half-westernised, half-puzzled, and wholly likeable king, something quite out of the ordinary: round, whole, human, fallible. And fourthly, something quite per- sonal but a good enough reason, to my mind, for seeing the whole film again, there are the Siamese royal children, whose grave Oriental grace on so miniature a scale (they range from about two years old upwards) is one of the most enchanting things I have seen on the screen for a long time. Nor does the film, like Oklahoma!, sag at all: though the tunes are rather less catchy—perhaps, to most people, less exhaustingly familiar, too—and the length (two hours and a quacter) is much the same, the end comes, not as a relief, but just about where it ought to. As the intrepid Victorian Mrs. Lconowens, governess in the harem, Deborah Kerr has a part that really tits her, and deals charmingly with it : friendly, humorous, gentle, with that skeletal steeliness women of the sort so often suggest, she makes one properly believe in the extent of her influence over the king. Rita Moreno makes a delicate thing of the unhappy Tuptim, Terry Saunders a dignified and rather beautiful one of the head wife, Lady Thiang. Director: Walter Lang.

Every Second Counts is one of those tightly made films that France, when it puts its mind to it, turns out very well; with the particular sort of waspish realism so alien to, yet so much respected in, this country. A garage mechanic leaves a vital screw unscrewed in a Mercedes he is mending and the owners ride off, giving lifts to various people (including two bearded and knapsacked Englishmen of the auto-stop school) on their way. A race between the screw's unscrewing and the mechanic's conscience follows, against the background of a village fete and one of those dispiriting continental bicycle races, with the screw in close-up as a very effective leitmotiv. Fast, exciting, small-scale. Director: Alex Joffe. In the same programme, Alastair Sim in his normal fruity style in a suitable piece of skullduggery called The Green Man. Director : Robert Day; screenplay by the producers, Launder and Gilliat, from their play Meet a Body.

Letters From My Windmill has a quaint sound to it in English and Marcel Pagnol's direction leans, for my taste, too far on the side of quaintness too. Remembering the great days of the Raimu-Pagnol films, it is sad to find the master's hand grown so slow, so lumbering and self-conscious. The white sun-

light, the splendid landscapes; the air of heat and humming stillness, are still there, but the characters have become, alas, something of a bore. Or is it Daudet? Three stories, one about a gluttonous priest, the next about a bibulous lay-brother, and the third, appropriately enough, about a windmill, take a very long time to tell, particularly number two, which, though Rellys's performance as Frere Gaucher is out- standing, goes on and on and on till you feel (or I did) you never want to see another monk, or hear another clerical joke, ever again.

ISABEL QUIGLY