CINEMA
Go, Man, Go. (London Pavilion.)— Carnival Story. (Leicester Square.)— The Living Desert. (Studio One.) A SERIOUS fault in either the sound-track or the amplifying system at the London Pavilion made Go, Man, Go even more painful than it is by nature, which is painful enough. Relating the story of how the Harlem Globetrotters, the renowned US basketball team, reached the .top of their particular tree, the film would, at best, be verging on the incomprehensible, both the jargon and the driving ambition being foreign to us; but when, as here, the coloured team and their coach, played by Dane Clark, sound exactly like bears trapped by some unforeseen eventuality a swimming bath, it is frankly out of the question to grasp anything but the essential rudiments of the plot. If only one were allowed to see the Globetrotters, whose mastery of the ball is fantastic, play their game at any length, the film might be supportable, but the minute these black wizards start showing us a trick or two they are interrupted by bears growling about receipts, crooked promoters, fame and the future, not to mention love and, incongru- ously enough, Heifetz. Perhaps as a mere woman I have missed the finer points of this picture, and yet I feel, in its present condition, only Brumas could genuinely appreciate it. Pt like the man she loves. All the same the emerges a bit of a tramp, and neither she for her three suitors invite anything but a Superficial interest. The picture is well directed by Kurt Neumann, the accents resting on noise, passion and high dives, all of which seemed a bit overpowering on the file May morning I saw it., Continuing his series of True Life Adven- tures, Walt Disney has turned his attention to the American desert, to the colourless animals which live in its sand, to its few birds and unprepossessing insects, to the weird architecture of its giant cacti and their brief magnificent blossoming. This is a harsh god forsaken strip of the world and its Inhabitants pursue their task of eating one another with more than usual ferocity; yet in the midst of battle scenes between tarantula and wasp, rattlesnake and hawk, peccary and bob-cat, Mr. Disney has inserted softer scenes played by softer creatures. Some people may dislike his Way of investing animals with human qualities and of accompanying their antics With affectionately humorous documentaries, but personally I find it appealing, and his scorpions' courtship, set to the music of a Square dance, is irresistibly funny.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM
Previous page
