Hansel and Crete!. (Tivoli.)---Long John Silver. (Carlton and Odeon, Marble
Arch.) Drum Beat. (Warner.) AT Christmas it is sometimes the good fortune of parents to be able to take their children to films which they themselves can enjoy. Not that their darlings, restless and talkative as sparrows, make for relaxed film- going, but in the intervals of pressing them back in their seats, calming tneir fears and stopping up their mouths with chocolates, parents have been known to look at a film and like it. This year they are out of luck and must concentrate on finding their child- ren delightful.
Hansel and G'retel introduces a new kind of puppet, a rubberised electronic little horror which it has taken Michael Myerberg fourteen years to evolve. The Kinemins' are undoubtedly engineering mosterpieceS, each face, supposedly capable of 800,000 difl'ereat expressions, being controlled by electrical impulses, whatever they may , be, each limb compounded of intricate armatures, each inch of skin concocted chemically. No one can deny that Mr. Myerberg's invention is frightfully clever but unfor- tunately its exponents arc frightfully ugly, indeed repulsive. Toothless, with flesh which moves and eyes which do not, the puppets give one a feeling of genuine queasiness, and this is not dispersed by any beauty or imagination in the decor. Less electricity and more illumination is what is required, a couple of Disney's bluebirds tying a bow of ribbon in the sky, a little touch of fanatasy among the flowers.
• • • As for Long Jahn Silver, it is very long and not at all silvery, but because it is a simple straightforward story it should please a lot of boys, none of whom will think it out- rageous that a sequel to Treasure Island has been written by Martin Rackin, none of whom will care if Robert Louis Stevenson revolves like a top in his grave. Robert Newton has a whale of a time shivering his timbers and belaying there, and he is evidently enjoying himself so much one cannot help becoming infected by his good spirits. Even so, many a mother's mind will wander to other things such as brandy butter and cotton-wool snow, and she will be fortunate if her offspring's minds do not occasionally become detached as well. It is curious that entertainments de% ised for the young should always be of immense length—pantomimes, if I remember rightly, last about four hours—and over two hours of bloodthirsty bashing about may stretch the patience of the most enduring child.
tround, and in his efforts as an emissary of General Grant to make peace between the White man and the Indian, is extremely
lactive in the approved fashion. The Indians, ed by Charles Bronson, are treacherous beyond belief, and hardly a moment passes When, with promises of peace scarcely dry on their lips, they are not mowing down troops, sniping at women and firing home- steads.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM
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