Three of the first four films made at the instigation
of the Ministry of Information—they were given a private showing on Tuesday, before M. Frossard and Sir John Reith —are exactly of the sort to be encouraged. (The exception is a feeble contribution to the anti-gossip campaign, entitled Dangerous Comment, which is dismally conventional and merely a commercial spy-story in miniature with a warning message rather ineptly tagged on.) The other three were quite admirable, both as films and as propaganda. I liked best the one entitled Squadron 992, dealing with the Balloon Command of the R.A.F., which had some of the finest photo- graphy I have even seen on the screen, but Anneau d'Acier and La Cause Commune—these two with commentaries in French and dealing respectively with Allied sea-power and the manufacture of munitions—were little less impressive. I should like to see these—together with a brilliant experiment called Musical Poster, in which abstract figures in colour were set dancing to music—exhibited in every cinema in the country and in as many abroad as can be reached. Dangerous Comment I should like to bury decently but deep.
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