CINEMA
NA Walk in the Sun." (Plata.)—"Rocky Mountain." (Warner.) Pool of London." (Odeon.) IT is with some trepidation that I recommend to you yet another American war picture, for heaven kn6 you must be tired of the blood and thunder, those long philosophisings in the landing-barge, the hideous noise and terror of the beach, the inevitable snapping of somebody's nerve, the shallow pools of sentimentality. Sick and tired of it all are we, and longing, now that history is so swift to repeat itself, to bury our sad escapist heads in the sand and to have no part of it.
Nevertheless, though the familiar ingredients are all there—the lone platoon, the cracking sergeant, the jest, the dead hand pointing upward—A Walk in the Sun,has a particular cachet in that it is directed by Mr. Lewis Milestone, director of Al! Quiet on the Western Front. The years between the films have not robbed Mr. Milestone of his cunning,-neither have they altered his style. He is still enamoured of sharply defined contrasts—sudden noise, sudden quiet, darkness and light—and he still finds room for the little beauty in the big desolation—last timg it was a butterfly ; this time- it is a leaf—to which man turns for' comfort in his anguish. He takes a group of impossibly introspective, clean-spoken and un- licentious soldiers, played by Messrs. Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Herbert Rudley, George Tyne and many others, and by a stroke of genius gives them a plausible coating of earthiness, so that they seem both human and divine, a curious mixture of symbol and salt. The result is disturbing and entirely gripping. This is a film which should be seen, however violently the soul recoils from the bomb and the bazooka, for on it is photographed the hand of a master.
This cannot be said of Rocky Mountain or Pool of London. but both are good exciting films. The former stars Mr. Errol Flynn as a Confederate Captain hiding in enemy territory with a small patrol, who, by chivalrously winkling Miss Patrice Wymore from a coach attacked by redskins, exposes his position. The fact that Miss Wymore has a fiance on the opposite side and remains true to him adds a shower of freshness to fairly corny situations, and
when Mr. Flynn rides to his death courageous but unkissed, one can scarce forbear tos_weep tears of gratitude.
•
Pool of London comes from Ealing Studios and stars Mr. Bonar Colleano, a coloured a?tor Mr. Earl Cameron, Tower Bridge, ships, cranes, the River Polick and, for brief moments, the Misses Renee Asherson, Susan Shaw and Moira Lister. It is directed by Mr. Basil Dearden, who hai, with an adroit professional hand, poured this pot-pourri of crime, love and the colour problem into a sort of documentary rose-bowl. The odour is quite pleasant and very
Previous page
