CINEMA
ci Golden Salamander." (Odeon, Marble Arch.)—" That Others May Live." (Cameo-Polytechnic.)—" It's a Great Feeling." (Warner.) BECAUSE much is expected of Mr. Ronald Neame, his Golden Salamander, though far better than the average film, is something of a disappointment. Starting slowly with the arrival in a remote North African village of a young archaeologist whose task it is to escort to England Etruscan treasures dumped there in the war, it accelerates into a full-blown thriller. There is no reason why it shouldn't, but one is so accustomed to suave gentlemen reaching stealthily out for revolvers, one is so familiar with cross-country chases, not to mention straight lefts to the chin, that, even if here they are set against a different background, they have a quality of staleness. Mr. Trevor Howard, whose dormant conscience, galvan- ised by an Etruscan proverb, causes him to take action against some local gun-runners, gives an excellent performance ; but his rapid metamorphosis from the shy non-co-operative Englishman into the dashing and romantic hero seems, though not altogether improbable, a pity. Anouk, struggling a little with a strange language, is appealing if not much else, and I do not doubt that her early budding will shortly flower up to expectations.
The direction is swift but secure, the tension, in the latter half, high, and my only regret is that Mr. Neame should have brought his considerable talents to bear on something as common as crime. * * * * That Others May Live brings us an even grimmer, more dire and depressing aspect of total war than we have as yet encountered. This is a Polish production, and it takes a handful of Warsaw people, some Jewish, some Christian, and shows the havoc wrought in their lives by the German occupation. Havoc is a modest word
to describe it. The Jews are rounded up and placed in appalling conditions in a ghetto, and it is chiefly their story, with its ultimate insurrection, as vain as it is glorious, with which we are concerned. The children are superb and, alas, heartrending I say " alas " because so many people nowadays, white eager to appreciate the qualities of a fine film, have not the stomach for cruelty. It is salutary, of course, to be reminded of the horrors we were so mercifully spared—the insults, the burnings, the shootings and the dreadful general cover of fear—but the truer the picture, the more authentic the suffering, the less inclined are we to share it This is not a film one will• easily forget, for it stirs one into a passion of rage as well as casting one into the depths of melancholy.
It's a Great Feeling to enjoy a musical from first bar to last, and I compliment the Warner Brothers for striking such a number of new notes that the success theme, so vital to musicals, is not only altered, but non-existent. Miss Doris Day, in fact, does not succeed in pictures, and this inversion of the usual tale is vastly refreshing. Mr. Jack Carson and Mr. Dennis Morgan wisecrack and sing up to their usual standards, and there are some brief but effective scenes, touched with a sardonic brush by the director, Mr. David Butler, when stars such as Mr. Gary Cooper and Mr. Danny Kaye pass rapidly by, making the appropriate signals of recognition.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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