THE CINEMA
"Green for Danger " (Gaumont, Haymarket and Marble Arch Pavilion). —" School for Danger" (London Pavilion and Tivoli). " 42nd Street " (New London Film Society).
COMEDY-THRILLERS can be exceedingly boring, if their perpetrators fail to distinguish clearly between the comedy and .the thrill ; only too often this distinction does not take place. Griffith, in One Exciting Night, brought it off superbly, and in Green for Danger Sidney Gilliatt almost repeats the success. The film moves at a good pace, and seldom becomes leisurely. Moreover, its plot is based on an almost documentary exposition of the method of anaesthesia carried out by the continuous-flow administration of nitrous-oxide, oxygen and ether, with carbon dioxide as a standby. This technical elaboration, with all the accurately observed trimmings of the operating-theatre thrown in, gives the story an absorbing interest. How the murder was committed is for you to find out; it would be unfair to reveal it.
The film is scripted and directed with considerable wit. The Scotland Yard inspector, whose skill and intuition are beclouded by an overwhelming but not unattractive conceit, is played most amusingly by Alastair Sim, who once again proves himself to be, in the best sense of the word, a droll. A bevy of competent nurses is presented by Megs Jenkins, Rosamund John and Sally Gray ; and the males, in the persons of Trevor Howard as anaesthetist and Leo Genn as surgeon, have voices as well as characters. In fact Green for Danger succeeds in being an efficient and amusing film, which is what, without any other pretensions, it sets out to be.
School for Danger was made for the Central Office of Information by the R.A.F. Film Unit. It reveals in some detail the methods and activities of our agents who were parachuted into occupied France during the war ; and by its under-emphasis on the melodramatic aspects of the work it succeeds very well in depicting truths stranger than any fictions. Two of the actual agents—Harry Ree and Jacqueline Nearne—re-enact the duties they carried out in France, and they do it with ,onsieWable acting skill. Acting is not the strong point of others who appear in the film, and one is not un- frequently reminded of the still unsolved problem of combining a pure factual technique with the construction and style of the feature film. Nevertheless, School for Danger is both convincing and exciting, not only because of the authentic quality of the scenes in occupied France (which were re-staged on the spot) but also because of its revelation of the 'prolonged training, the elaborate precautions and the ingenious tricks and deceptions which were involved in carrying these dangerous missions to a successful conclusion. It is a pity that the film could not have been released earlier.. It was completed nearly a year ago and then entitled Now It Can Be Told —on the whole a better title than the present one, which is liable to be confused with both School for Secrets and Green for Danger.
The revival of 42nd Street by the New London Film Society was a brisk reminder of those possibilities in making a good musical film which, since then, Hollywood has apparently been at some pains to forget. The most notable thing about it is that one can believe in the main characters (played by Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, Ginger Rogers, Ruby Keeler, George Brent and Dick Powell, to name but a few) as real and living people. In addition, the well-timed dialogue has a gusty vigour which the supply of hearing-aids to film-censors has since eliminated. All in all, the Film Society's revivals continue' to raise doubts in one's mind as to the progress of the film—doubts -which are only countered sporadically by the appearance of films like Les Enfants du Paradis and Odd Man Out. The latter film, by the way, gains in stature at every seeing and on
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