The Cinema
[4° ATLANTIC " AT TILE ALHAMBRA.] Mucn more has been attempted and much more has been achieved in Atlantic, British International Pictures Limited, than in any British talkie so far made. Mr. E. A. Dupont, the director, with his admirable cast, which includes many eminent film and stage actors, has created as near an illusion of reality as could be endured.
The theme is terrific : the striking of an iceberg by the liner Atlantic. We watch the ordinary activities of a handful of ordinary first-class passengers, a newly-married couple, an author, who " makes fun of everything everyone else thinks beautiful," a middle-aged woman and her daughter, her philandering father, a young man, appropriately named " Dandy." We see glimpses of the life led by the other inmates of the Atlantic : the Captain on his bridge giving orders to the second officer, the stokers, carrying on their odious task ; we see a magnificent shot of the ship's side cutting through the ocean, and another of the funnels sil- houetted against the cloudy sky. All these people—or, rather, the passengers—are frivolling through life, when the three bells signal is sounded : an iceberg has been sighted. A moment later, a crash, and the ship's side has struck the ice- berg. At the first the gravity of the situation is only realized by the ship's company, but when the order is given for all women to put on their lifebelts and come on deck, the joke of the iceberg rather loses its humour, and when the second officer confides in the novelist that the ship will sink in three hours, and that only the women who can be taken away in the lifeboats will survive, the terror in the situation increases. The most moving moment is perhaps when the ship's band breaks into a bagpipe tune in order to prevent panic. When all the women have been taken away, the Captain gives the order of " Each man for himself " ; free drinks are served, rich men empty their pockets of their notes, the first-class saloon is filled with men of all classics facing death as best they can. And so the minutes pass away until the end comes, and dawn breaks over a deserted sea.
As the crisis of the disaster reached its height, so one would imagine the action at least of the ship's company would have speeded up. But no, even the second officer did not bestir imself in carrying out his duty. Throughout this
film, the action is far too slow, again and again one's emotional sequence is held back and broken, because the actors will not get on with their job quickly enough. But the acting is on a high level. Donald Calthrop is particularly good as the novelist's valet, who never " forgot himself " until the end. Franklin Dyall, as the novelist, played an interesting part admirably, and Miss Joan Barry looked charming.
Atlantic is a film well worth seeing : a most moving experience.
CELIA SIMPSON.
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