CINEMA
"People Will Talk." (Odeon.) a Tale of Siberia." (Berkeley.) WRITTEN and directed by Mr. Joseph Mankiewicz, whose All About Eve brought us to such close grips with the eternal feminine, People Will Talk has, as its central theme, a doctor's determination to mix humanity with his medicine. Mr. Mankiewicz believes that the modern doctor's clinical detachment from his patients and his bigoted faith in instruments and potions have taken him far off the road on which the profession first set its feet. He thinks that healing without heart, like butter in a tub as opposed to butter in a sterilised wrapper, is flavourless, and that to cure a man one must know his life as well as his body, taste his thoughts as well as sample his blood.
To save a young woman, Miss Jeanne Crain, who has tried to commit suicide because she is having an illegitimate baby, Mr. Cary Grant, as her doctor, goes to elastic lengths to exploit this idea, for he first assures her, untruthfully, that she is not pregnant, and then he marries her. It says •much for Mr. Grant's persuasive charms and Mr. Mankiewicz's direction that when Miss Crain discovers the truth neither she nor we believe she was married out of pity.
All this is well devised with sound adult arguments which give ample food for thought. There is a second variation on the main theme, however, which is slightly tiresome though it enables Mr. Hume Cronyn to give a vivid interpretation of malice. As a jealous rival he endeavours to dig up injurious information con- cerning Mr. Grant's past, and the fact that the latter never moves a yard without a sinister character called " The Bat," played in complete silence by our own Mr. Finlay Currie, encourages him enormously in his task. Needless to say, though Mr. Grant once practised in Goose Neck under the disguise of a butcher, thereby, through reliance on the faith of his flock, healing a far greater number of them than when he called himself an M.D., no charges are brought against him, and Mr. Cronyn retires muttering just in time for Mr. Grant to conduct Brahms at. a students' concert.
Although there are too many hares and herrings about, this is. an interesting picture and a controversial one, for, though it seems reasonable enough, few people will conform to the theory that as long as you heal it does not matter how you do it. .
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Owing to stupidity or, as I like to think, my extreme youth, I have never seen a Russian film until this week. It is extraordinary, really extraordinary, to see animated photographs of Russians walking about in Russia, to note the clothes they wear and the interiors of their homes, to look at Moscow and Siberia in action. For the fact that Russians do actually exist has, in spite of the papers, always seemed to me to be in the nature of a myth. Directed by Mr. I, Pyryev, Tale of Siberia tells the story of a young pianist who, crippled by the war, renounces music and love, goes home to Siberia and. there, inspired by a mixture of blizzards and the sons of the soil, becomes, after, all, a successful composer. The film is in colour, and this in itself is a novelty, so utterly different is the range of hues from that of Technicolor. These seem to be grounded on a dark sepia which makes everything strangely but pleasantly tinged with khaki.
Badly edited, this picture is nevertheless notable for its groupings, for some of its close-ups and for a splendid snow-scene with horses, sleighs and fur-capped singers. Its greatest fascination, though, lies in the wonder of -its simple revelations—the dowdiness of its heroine's clothes, its utility furniture and huge gay teapots, the way, men 'kiss each other full on the lips when they say goodbye and the completely circular faces of all women under seventy. It is like discovering another planet. At the end to thunderous music there is an ode to Stalin, practically none of which is translated, so that our hearts can rest quiet ; otherwise it is all music, love and snow. VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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