THE CINEMA
Desert Victory." At the Odeon, Tivoli and New Gallery.- -" The a Magnificent Ambersons." At the Astoria. "Star Spangled
a Rhythm." At the Plaza.
esert Victory is a very moving film. In an hour it tells the story a the Eighth Army's advance from Alaniein to Tripoli and it owes ost of its success to the fact that in the course of that epic mpaign Generals Alexander and Montgomery and their men wrote chapter of history which happened also to be a near-perfect film cenario. We begin with the grave threat to Alexandria and Cairo ; r men have fallen back to the last possible line of defence, all a even conceivably the result of the war) is staked on the possibility if defending the Middle East with fortifications which we see log feverishly dug in the .sand. In the background the remnants our sadly depleted transport still stream east. The mood is esolute but not very hopeful. From this gloomy beginning the film aahfully depicts the improvement in our fortunes ; maps reveal C strategy, newsreel scenes (some captured from the enemy) show he opposing leaders making their promises and plans ; then at at the night sky is split with the fury of our opening barrage and h.: procession to Tripoli has be3un. In all history the turning of
the tide of war has never been so clear for all to see, and the editors of this film have been wisely content to leave the pictures taken by many brave Services cameramen to tell their own story. The Army and R.A.F. Film Units have been responsible for the pro- duction, and the great victory is reported with a soldierly reticence.
In the night episodes it is scarcely surprising if it has proved necessary to amplify the material with a few scenes photographed in the studio, but these are perfectly in keeping with the material shot under fire. There is a sequence in which the ghostly sweeping of the mine-detectors through the darkness (slow and methodical although all Hell is loose around them) is followed by lines of tight-
lipped infantry illuminated by the constant shimmer of gun-flashes. Then through the dust and smoke we dimly see a Scottish piper playing his men into action. Scarcely a note is audible above the barrage, but there will be few spectators of this scene who will not wish to cheer and who find themselves hindered only by a lump in the throat. The brave be-penncmed cavalcade of following tanks becomes a Churchillian symbol of a nation rearmed and gaily confident. The climax of the film is the entry of the victorious forces into Tripoli. Perhaps one wishes for a shot to remind us that the achievement belongs to the dead and wounded as well as to these swinging rows of cheerful conquerors ; perhaps one looks in vain for the news-reel shot of Churchill leaping in delighted congratulation from his Liberator to clasp Montgomery in two outstretched hands ; it is easy to be critical of a finale which has the prodigious task of celebrating our first major land victory of the whole war. This is a film made great by history, but the film- makers have earned our gratitude and respect for their courage in the field and for their precision and fine simplicity of approach in the cutting-room.
The Magnificent Ambersons is at the opposite pole of cinematic achievement. The story is artificial and banal. A wealthy and proud American family is ruined by its own pride and selfishness which, in the years before the Great War, has become concentrated in the person of a spoilt youth who destroys—up to the point of a cheap last-minute reformation—all the love and finer feeling around him. Yet Orson Welles has taken the formula (no worse as a plot than ninety per cent, of the hackneyed narratives that find their way to the screen) and given it life. He has taken camera and micro- phone and lights and used them to probe not merely into the period of miniature-spattered drawing-rooms and plush upholstery (though this he does exceedingly well) but also to probe into the minds of a generation which felt that time was about to move on and betray it. So the film is concerned less with what its characters do than with what they say, and less with what they say than with how they say it. The dialogue defies the usual convention of crisp clear-cut phrases carefully projected with a smooth professional articulation ; instead the characters scream, gasp and whine at each other in moments of passion with an alarming realism. The film contains domestic quarrels played with an intensity of tortured feeling normally reserved for the privacy of the home. The style is more mature than Mr. Orson Welles employed in Citizen Kane ; there is less extravagance of angle and perspective with a consequent loss in novelty and gain in realism and lucidity. Some of his effects are achieved with an astonishing economy of means. Some- times an enormous static close-up of a face seems to carry us beyond the superficial appearance on into the brooding mind beyond it ; sometimes the camera will follow a character from room to room in the enormous ornate Amberson mansion so that the restlessness of the picture conveys the squirming uncertainty of the character's mood. Mr. Welles' methods may be over intellectual but there can be no doubt that he brings to the screen an un- surpassed intelligence—a quality with which the medium is scarcely over-endowed. In The Magnificent Ambersons he has been loyally supported by an excellent cast, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorhead and Ray Collins being outstanding.
In Star Spangled Rhythm almost every Paramount player appears to sing a song, to do a dance or to act in a comedy sketch. Such musical variety-shows designed for sensational or prestige purposes seldom provide much entertainment but thc present example must be counted an excz.ption. The plot is as negligible as usual, but there are three sketches each of which is funnier than anything I have seen on the screen for many a year. The rest of the material is agreeably spectacular and is held together by some good comedy The fact that goods made of raw materials in short supply otimig to war conditions are advertised in this journal should nor be taken as an indication that the') are necessarilli 'available to, export
Previous page
