THE CINEMA "The Secret Garden." (Empire.)—" Diamond City." (Leicester Square.)—"
So Dear to My Heart." (New Gallery.)
The Secret Garden, adapted from the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, cleverly escapes from sentimentality into convincing en- chantment. In Margaret O'Bricn's hands childhood is perfectly sale, and though Master Dean Stockwell, as the crippled boy who is healed of his afflictions through communion with Nature, is a little out of this world, he cannot be unduly blamed. His part would tedse even Sir Laurence Olivier. Yes, the enchantment is there ; the gaunt Yorkshire house set in the moors, the long lawns and high clipped hedges of the grown-up world, and the little garden, closed for many a year, rediscovered by the children and made to blossom by their green fingers. All the same, I think it was a mistake to make it blossom in Technicolor, even though the wealth of flowers which spring, without recourse to the seasons, from the weeds, is a sudden joy to the eye. Perhaps the brief burst of colour was designed to give an atmosphere of fairyland, but to those who have not visited this realm for some time it merely looked as though M.G.M. were being careful with their pocket-money.
Mr. Herbert Marshall as the father-uncle nigh insane with grievous memories, Miss Gladys Cooper as the stern housekeeper, Miss Elsa Lanchester as the giggling Abigail, and Master Brian Roper as the farmer's boy are absolutely excellent, and to all those who have fond, nostalgic recollections of the book, The Secret Garden will not be a disappointment. It is directed by Fred. M. Wilcox.
* * * a Diamond City evidently set out to give us a semi-historical, semi- documentary view of the lives of South African diamond diggers in the 'seventies ; of how small communities lost in no-man's-land elected their leaders, solved their problems, imposed a rough justice on malefactors ; of how, in fact, before their land was annexed either by the Britons or the Boers, a polyglot crowd of bearded prospectors ruled themselves. Unfortunately this aim, or indeed any other aim, has been missed by miles, and the result is artificial, boring and incredibly noisy. Mr. David Farrar, in charge of a place called Klipdrift, where life it seems is one long meeting, does not make his voluble heroics sound very plausible, and neither does Mr. Niall MacGinnis convince us with his wicked observations culled, it would appear, from the penny dreadful. For the rest there is little but yelling crowds and feverish fights. It seems that in those robust days no one could pass a remark, be it merely concerning the weather, without giving offence. Mass hysteria, with hats flung in the air or 'bodies hurled to the ground, was the order of the day, and frankly I am too old for so much vociferousness. Or, to qualify, let me say that I like my noise to have a certain quality and dis- tinction. Diamond City has neither. * a * * Mr. Walt Disney has, for a long time, been hankering after flesh and blood, and in So Dear to My Heart he concentrates his attentions on the affection of a very human Master Bobby Driscoll for an immensely solid black lamb. This almost square animal cavorts through much pleasant scenery and through many an adventure, capping its animated career by winning a prize at the county fair. The tale is simple, sentimental, with a seasoning of The Yearling and a pinch of Louisiana Story, but there is nothing, I fear, very earth-shaking about it ; indeed, Mr. Disney has unfortunately under- lined its mediocrity by incorporating some cartoon sequences. These are so delicious that one yearns for the whole thing to be in cartoon form. The return from heaven to earth, from the owl in the mortar- board to the owl in the tree, from the lamb in the scrapbook to the lamb in the field, is great grief. To the lamentations of his worshippers Mr. Disney, it seems, pays no heed, but I am certain that, if he abandons the craft of which he is the supreme master, soon his worshippers will pay no heed to Mr. Disney.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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