The Cinema
• r, SECRETS OF NATURE " FILMS. AT THE LONDON PAVILION.]
Tim public does not only demand films of wild and impossible adventure, or films saturated with " sex appeal," as most
exhibitors seem to imagine. Where is the sex appeal about ' Dean Inge fir" traced Mr. Bernard Shaw of his audience of cinema exhibitors and " film fans " at the London Pavilion, where the first of a series of " Secrets of Nature " films was being presented. Dean Inge has a great and growing audience because people want to hear what he has to say. Similarly, our cinema audiences want films that have some real purpose in them and would appreciate a greater variety of interesting pictures. Close-ups of the final kiss are to many, including Mr. Shaw, tantalizing, if not embarrassing. Exhibitors " should be men of business, men of the world, men of sense," not incurable romantics, as they appear to be.
• The Pathe Gazette films are always popular because they deal with things that actually happen. Mr. Shaw does not himself want to see instructional or educational films, but interesting films. He considers that most people have an instinctive love of nature, and that one or two nature films included in every cinema programme would be universally apprediated, and in this we fully agree with him. When a flower falls in love, it opens its arms and invites an embrace, which is more beautiful than what we usually see on the screen.
Mr. Shaw was at his best, atune with reality, succinct and witty, but the films wilich followed his admirable introduction were so good that it seemed hardly necessary to plead their cause. The programme presented by Pro Patna Films, Ltd.; and British Instructional Films, Ltd., consisted of Plants in the Pantry, showing an almost incredible jungle of mould-
• plants growing on our food ; a delightful film of The Nursery of the Cormorant, including a photograph of its dive for fish— the very epitome of grace—and, besides others, an unfor- gettable picture entitled The Romance of the Flowers. The chiming and forethought expended by the flowers over the protection of their pollen, for the insects which fertilize them is shown in intricate detail. The various flower devices, such - as the snowdrop's habit of hanging its head for fear of storms, the Poor Man's Ore.ticl shooting its pollen on to the bee's back by ineans.of a catapult worked by the insect's weight, and the snapdragon's trap-door opening to its treasure store, are quickened for us; Sti that' we' can perceive theM2 Surely these secrets of nature are more interesting and fascinating
than the flirtations of a flapper ? C. S.
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