Babies and Cowboys
FRUITS D'ET6. (Marble Arch Pavilion.)—Trin GIRL IN THE RED VELVET SWING. (Rialto.) —Gtoay.,(Gaumont.) IN the shadow-play world 1956 started off on a brisk risque note with a very French French film called Fruits (fete. In this the incompar- able Edwige Feuillere plays the part of an easy-going mother of a wildly undisciplined daughter, Etchika Chourcau. This rather un- attractive girl finds she is going to have a baby. As she steadfastly refuses to marry its father, her maman decides to pretend the child is hers, but logically, of course, she too has to find it a father. For this role she chooses her estranged husband, played by Henri Guisol, and most of the film is devoted to her attempts to get him into bed with her. His reluctance to do so places him high in the lunatic bracket. Directed by Raymond Bernard, this film is not a very good one, but Mme. Feuillere's touch is so delicate, her voice so dulcet, her personality so compelling, one is bound to give a purr or two.
By the way, while on Latin matters, may I urge you to see Villa Borghese at the Continen- talc? This film possesses every engaging quality —kindness, humour, gaiety, freshness, senti- mentality, and cynicism. It is the most enjoy- able thing imaginable, an enchantment under which all should try to fall.
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Now for America. There is a 'true-life' murder case at the Rialto, and a good-looking horse at the Gaumont. The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing revives a 1906 Floradora scandal in which the wealthy architect Stanford White was shot dead in Madison Square Garden by millionaire playboy Harry K. Thaw for love. or rather crazed obsession, for a chorus girl. Richly produced in appropriately lavish set- tings, smoothly directed by Richard Fleischer, and admirably acted by Ray Milland, Farley Granger and Joan Collins—Miss Collins has firmly seized her first real chance to show her paces—this is an excellent film of its kind. The stars arc well supported by trusty old pros such as Luther Adler and Glenda Farrell, and the Champagne Charlie atmosphere is accu- rately breathed into every hole and corner of this low tragedy in high places.
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As for going to Glory, it depends entirely on whether you like horses or not. For this is one of those Kentucky sagas buried deep in blue grass, in which the heroine, ears pricked and brown eyes glazed with dreams, canters over many a heart before she wins the Ken- tucky Derby. As her lovers, gladiators, and arch-ostlers, Margaret O'Brien, John Lupton, Walter Brennan and charlotte Greenwood cir- culate round their darling like jodhpured planets round a chestnut sun. They are familiar types, and none More so than Miss Greenwood, who plays with tremendous gusto one of those loud-mouthed, soft-hearted, battered-homburg- on-the-head, don't-give-me-that sort of woman so beloved of American horses.
VIRGINIA GRAI4A M
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