CONTEMPORARY ARTS
CINEMA
L'Ingenue libertine." (Cameo-Polytechnic.)—“The Lavender Hill Mob." (Odeon, Marble Arch.)—" Mr. Universe." (London Pavilion.) THE distinguished French authoress Colette has, in her many delight- ful books, pursued love through every phase, aspect and peculiarity of its existence. From amour propre to amour not at all propre she has covered the field with a delicate and understanding pen, and it is no wonder that the screen, ever on the alert for love motifs, has turned to her for advice. As far as the English public is con- cerned, however, much of Colette's insight into the mysteries of the heart and body must remain a mystery, owing to the fact that at all crucial moments the censor intervenes, breaking the sequence of events at the first sign of a bedpost.
L'Ingenue Libertine has an X certificate, which means that it is improper, but though the heroine, played enchantingly by Mlle. Danielle Delorme, is a young girl whose search for true love leads her through disillusioning physical experiences back to her husband's arms, the film, tenderly directed by Mlle. Jacqueline Audry, would barely raise the eyebrows of a nanny. Because of its many cuts it is certainly somewhat confusing—indeed my colleagues' conceptions of the heroine's character vary so much that one wonders whether any of us had the faintest idea what was happening—but it has all the charm and that slightly melancholy cynicism with which the French take their love, and I, personally, enjoyed it very much.
Not a breath of love sullies the pure comedy of The Lavender Hill Mob. an Ealing production directed by Mr. Charles Crichton and written by Mr. T. E. B. Clarke, a team from which one has learned to expect first-class entertainment. The film does not fulfil these expectations, and there are no especially precious moments to bring those delightful laughs of ours bubbling spontaneously to our lips as, for instance, in Ealing's Passport to Pinzlico; but both Mr. Alec Guinness and Mr. Stanley Holloway, as two respectable citizens turned crook, squeeze some quiet humour from their parts and keep us perfectly happy. Aided by Messrs. Sidney James and Alfie Bass, these dignified gentlemen steal bullion from a bank van and con- vert it into Eiffel Tower paperweights which they take to Paris for disposal on the black market. Some of them get sold inadvertently to a party of English schoolgirls, and it is in pursuit of these inno- cents that our heroes meet with a variety of Waterloos. Although consistently light-hearted, the film lacks, I think, imagination, there being only one sequence, when Messrs. Guinness and Holloway in a stolen police car direct their pursuers down all the wrong roads, which shows the expected touch of brilliance.
Mr. Universe is an American comedy which, as it is written in New York dialect and concerns the ignoble art of wrestling, tends to bewilder a woman almost as,much as it bores her. The plot is quite an amusing one ; that of It young and upcoming wrestler, the golden-haired and muscular Mr. Vincent Edwards, who wrestles so cleanly as well as so ably that he always defeats his opponents in twenty seconds, thereby ruining trade at the box-office. As he refuses to fight crookedly, it is the business of his agent. Mr. Jack Carson, to weaken his physique so that he loses naturally, but in the course of this devitalising routine Mr. Carson almost kills himself. If one was an American boy in the best of health and the highest of spirits, one might enjoy this picture enormously ; and indeed I suppose if one was a middle-aged Englishman with remarkably good hearing and a love of sport one might also ; but as a mere Scottish woman I must be permitted to yawn loudly, to wriggle in my seat and to despise men from the bottom of my heart.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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