CINEMA
The Thief. (London Pavilion.)—Made in Heaven. (0 Marble Arch.)---The Lion and the Horse. (Warner.) IN order to give the jaded cinema-goer something new, something different, something which will lure him away from the hypnotising influence of the television screen, Mr. Harry Popkin has turned b k the clock and produced a film, The Thief in which not one wor • is spoken. The sounds of'everyday life, traffic, telephones, foots and so on are audible, but Mr. Ray Milland, atom-scientist tu traitor, in his dealings with enemy agents, in his killing of a detec t on the Empire State building, his preparations to flee the coun and his final voluntary surrender to the law, is permitted only express himself orally by breathing. This breathing ranges fr sighs to hysteria, and it is extraord.nary how effective, how sub in timbre and shading are Mr. Milland's exhalations. It cannot easy to mime in the modern idiom, even the strongest emotions su as fear being subject ao under-statement, and, though the emotio Mr. Milland is asked to display are fairly limited, he must - complimented On drawing a very solid and convincing picture a man torn by inner conflicts, a man who, having taken the fi step to ruin, knows he can never retrace it and must walk alone in darkness. .- - The verbal silence, of course, emphasises the traitor's lona: to an absurd degree. Mr. Milland never answers the tclepho though it rings incessantly ; never, by great good lot tune, m a colleague in the passage or, as so many of us do, an aunt in t subway. Even when he encounters Miss Rita Gam, looking Ii e Eve and the serpent rolled into one satin neglige, he is content wi a look. Sometimes his feverish pac:ngs from one room to anoth his chain-smoking, his long battles with himself become te dio but on the whole he manages very well to keep the need for vccabulaty at bay. Naturally a heavy burden is placed upon musical score, and this, by Mr. Herschel Gilbert, is mastetly a musically onomatopoeic style. In sum this is a good n,yehologi thriller and an interesting experiment, though not one wh.ch shou be repeated too often.
• Made in Heaven is not at all expsrimental, being a modest I:t Engl:sh comedy about the inhabitants of Dunmow and t absot piion with the yearly allocation of the Flitch. Written Messrs. George Brown and W. Douglas Home, and directed Mr. John Paddy Carstairs, it is extremely pleasant and amusin Mr. David Tomlinson and Miss Petula Clark, Mr. A. E. Matthe Mr. Charles Victor and Miss Sonja Ziemann provide an equ I balance of beauty and humour, and dear Miss Athene Seyler s passes even herself as the Vicar's sister. As a "caller "at a villa square-dancing beano she takes all the cakes that ever were bake So, in another sphere of values altogether, does the horse in T Lion and the Horse. Ostensibly a wild stallion upon whose Nish man has laid a hand, it shines with so dazzling a polish, is grew d up to its long trailing eyelashes with such meticulous care, that o e is absolutely stunned by its blue-black elegance. I doubt if t human eye has ever rested on a creature more beautiful. It al acts with that easy naturalness s.0 rare among stars, and its histrion range is vast. It is fierce and furious, pounding the wicked to death it is gentle and helpful, pulling Mr. Steve Cochran out of a and then kissing him ; it poses splend:dly on the skyLne, hea proudly arched ; and it defeats a lion in equal battle. It is true thit in my synopsis it was stated that the lion was wearing a chest toupee from which I deduced that it was an old one, but even so Wildfire's victory cannot but be applauded. Whether being captured, broken in, cruelly treated at a rodeo, saved by Mr. Cochran to whom it is palpably grateful, peering at him round corners like a velvet-eyed nanny unostentatiously guarding her brood, Wildfire plays all out. And oh its beauty ! Really, we should all try to look more like
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