7 FEBRUARY 1936, Page 15

The Cinema

"Dr. Socrates." At the Regal.--" The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo." At the New Gallery.-- " The Imperfect Lady." At the Tivoli TUERE are occasions when I envy dramatic critics ; Air. Agate after a bad week can fill up a column with what somebody else once said about Rachel. But Garbo, the screen's only classic, is alive, and frankly there is no film this week worth writing more than a few lines on. Dr. Socrates is a third-rate gangster film, The Man Who Brake 11w Bank at Monte Carlo is a mildly agreeable comedy marred by the intrusion of White Russians into the plot (I can never appreciate the pathos of princes who have become taxi- drivers and drink coffee essence instead of champagne ; unlike other taxi-drivers thay have had their champagne), awl The Imperfect Lady, Miss Cicely Courtncidge's first American film, is to be avoided at any cost.

Miss Courtneidgc's performances in revue I remember enjoying with some reluctance fifteen years ago : it was in the theatre that she learnt to fling her odd facial contortions to the back of the gallery, and no film director has proved himself capable. of softening the exaggerations she learnt then. Her last English film, the deplorable Mc and Marl- borough, revealed that Miss Courtneidge, like so many comedians, was going the Pagliacci way ; the smile in future would not, alas, hide the tear. Pathos has nearly ruined Mr. Chaplin, who is an artist of genius ; what it has done for Miss Courtneidge is rather horrible to watch. Needless to say, too, that before the end of The Imperfect Lady Miss Courtneidge is given an opportunity to dress up as a young soldier and sing a patriotic song. Gallantry is out of place in a review, but I will content myself with suggesting that Miss Courtneidge's career has been a longer one than Miss Jessie Matthews' and that male impersonation is really only permissible to the young.

Mr. Ronald Column, who breaks the bank on behalf of his fellow White Russians and whom the directors of the casino feel it necessary to lure back to the tables by any means and at any cost for the sake of the advertisement, is an actor of the opposite type. He is an excellent director's dummy. He has no personality of his own, only an appearance, and for that reason he is an almost perfect actor for the fictional screen. There was a time when Russian directors made a great point of using non-professional material and Mr. Colman may be said to have all the merit of the moujik and this advantage as well : that he can obey with a rather more lively intelligence.

• I say the almost perfect actor because there is still room in the cinema for the actor of genius, for.the great personality, for Garbo as well as for Joan Crawford. I sometimes think that Mr. Paul Muni, the " star " of Dr. Socrates, is of this rank. As with Garbo, you get an impression of immense force in reserve, an unexpressed passion of life. It, is a quality of character rather than of acting. Miss Courtneidge acts, acts all the time ; it is as tiring to watch her as to watch- the defeated boat-race crew strain raggedly after Cambridge- up the Thames. Neither Garbo nor Muni acts in this sense ; they exist vividly and without apparent effort. This is the old romantic style of genius, one feels, not the infinite capacity for taking pains, but a luck, a gift, a passion they were born with. Dr. Socrates is not one of Muni's successful films ; it is not another .1 am a Prisoner (that performance of agonising power- he has never quite repeated), nor even a Black Fury, but a trivial themeless film about a small town doctor who, by persuading them that their leader has typhoid, puts a band of gangsters out of- action with morphia injections. This climax should have been exciting, but there were too many beds. too many doped -gangsters, it was only funny. But -even in this poor, film Muni establishes ' a background : the accident • and death which shook his nerve and ruined his career. That is what a director's dummy cannot do : he exists in the action mid not outside it ; though the chief problem for the film writer, just as much as for the novelist, must always be to represent " the dark backward and abysm of tune."

GRAHAM GREENE.