THE CINEMA
" L'Homme au Chapeau Rond." (Academy.)—" The Unfinished Dance." (Empire.)—" Uneasy Terms." (Warner.) I HAVE had the opportunity of seeing the first Chinese feature film to be shown in this country since before the war, and the first Chinese film to be shown to me ever. For the benefit of its first f audience this modern comedy was cut from four hours to one hour and a bit. With the best will in the world, and indeed my will was at its very best, I cannot truthfully say I enjoyed it, for its success evidently depends on its humorous dialogue which frankly, owing to my abysmal ignorance of Chinese (there were no captions), escaped me. I feel all the same it has been a salutary experience inasmuch as it has jolted me out of a cherished belief that China is all mandarins and paddy fields, whereas it is really all Homburg hats and chromium
*office furniture. I confess I preferred its accompanying colour- documentary showing Professor Chang Shu-chi painting an exqui- sitely beautiful picture in the classic style with a boldness only matched by its delicacy. * * * * L'Homme au Chapeau Rond, an adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Eternal Husband, is the last film in which Raimu appeared before his death. Here no breath of comedy is allowed to stir the sombre air, and we see him, like some huge symbolic figure of revenge, pursuing his dead wife's lover with such implacable purpose that he is willing to sacrifice the life of a child so that the last farthing may be paid for his lost illusions. Raimu is magnificent, and if it is sad that he takes leave of us without a smile, at least he goes as a master. * * * * At the Empire we have a colourful distortion of what was once a sincere little French film called La Mort du Cygne in which the Schtoarmerei of a pupil at a ballet school for a prima ballerina caused her to open a trap-door on the floor of the stage so that a rival ballerina should fall through it and do herself irreparable injury. With its flair for inflation Hollywood has trebled everything both good and bad. The ballet dancers, both adult an childish, number legion, and the camera does everything but stand on its head to catchl the myriad pirouettes and entrechats of this regiment of women, There are moments of astonishing beauty and moments of blinding ugliness, moments when the dancing is exquisite and moments when it is kinder not to look ; there are some terrible back- stage scenes in the juvenile dressing-room and some charming back+ home scenes with Margaret O'Brien. This child is so simple and natural I cannot bear to see her assuming the unnatural postures oi the incipient ballerina.
* *
I do not believe Mr. Peter Cheyney ever intended his exotic females to resemble human beings, and in the film Uneasy Terms the glamorous Alardyse sisters, played by Miss Moira Lister and Miss Faith Brook, are about as real as mirages. This is not a good film. It is scrappy, staccato, and demands too many verbal explanations as well as containing some irresistibly funny serious moments.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
Previous page
