THE CINEMA
THIS week we are again reminded that the greatest power of the whole mammoth appprRtus of movie-making lies in the ability of the camera to transport us to the .scene of great events at the living instant of their greatness. A compact little camera up in the nose of the second Boston bomber on the Philips factory raid brought back a three-minute newsreel picture of modern war which HollyNtood has never equalled in all its years of expensive wrestling with fiction rather than with fact. The film begins with the take- off and we fly low across the flat lands of East Anglia; over the sea the water rushes under us like track under a train ; over Holland the countryside is just as one remembers it from a K.L.M. plane before the war—the glass-houses, the fragile churches, the wind- mills, and long, straight irrigation ditches—but this time the plane is so low there is no time to look but time only to get a breathless impression, and to notice that for this war-time trip there are many other planes rising and banking and falling with us as they fit their flight to the undulation of trees and houses or to the sudden streaking threat of a factory chimney. In front, the leading Boston weaves on and suddenly the factory is on the horizon ahead and tracers from our trent gunner are streaming out towards the Nazi defence posts on the roof. It is only an instant before we are past and looking back with the camera to see our bombs explode amongst the buildings. A camera in a later bomber shows vast destruction beneath great columns of smoke. Back in England we see the planes coming in again, the leading Boston badly shot up and damaged by a belly-landing. Allied camera-men are these days improving upon the early achievements of the Nazis in front- line reporting and we have lately seen in the news-reels a sensational account by an Australian, Damien Parer, of the horrifying condi- tions under which the war is being fought in New Guinea. We see the plodding, sweating, begrimed columns of weary men picking a way through almost impenetrable jungle in humid heat and pelting rain ; we see volleys of shots poured into huts which may conceal Japanese, yet the gaunt Australian soldiers seldom see any sign of their elusive enemy save in the evidence of wounded men being painfully carried to the base by Papuan bearers—four days jolting torture before they can reach a hospital bed and proper medical care. Never before has the eerie atmosphere of this country of steaming mists and lowering skies or the appalling discomfort of war been more forcefully conveyed.
By contrast the week's fiction' releases are remarkable for riotous comedy rather than realism. Apart from the welcome revival of Peter the Great at the Tatler (Soviet historical films always manage to avoid the musty flavour of the costume-ball which attaches itself so faithfully to historical dramas of other origin) the facts of life are represented by Ginger Rogers impersonating a twelve- year-old guest at a military academy, Jack Benny falling through the floors of his derelict residence, and a third film which accom- modates a number of characters from the pages of Damon Runyon. The last, entitled The Big Street, is the least satisfactory of the three but contains some of the best comedy and certainly some of the most polished acting.
The Major and the Minor tells how Ginger Rogers, as a dis- illusioned New York scalp masseuse, decides to go back home to mother. At the station she can only scrape up enough for a half- fare so she retreats into the ladies rest-room and re-emerges as a twelve-year-old. Circumstances, including a night spent sharing a sleeping compartment with an avuncular major, render it impossible for her to resume adult status (and marry the major) until she has suffered the youthful attentions of the cadets of the Wallace Military Academy, aroused the jealousy of the Major's fiancée and wound up impersonating her own mother. Miss Rogers and Ray Milland (who plays the part of the Major) are at the top of their form and the film is beautifully directed and edited, with first-rate perform- ances in the supporting parts. Miss Rogers is surely ready for a
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