19 DECEMBER 1941, Page 10

FHE CINEMA

" Judas Was a Woman." At the London Pavilion.—" Birth of the Blues." At the Plaza.

Judas Was a Woman is Jean Renoir's La Bite Humaine with a new and rather stupid title and English captions superimposed to explain the French dialogue. The story is by Zola, and the players are headed by Jean Gabin and Simone Simon. The partial anglicising has resulted in a few deletions being made in the original film (even after two years as the champions of European liberty, the British public must not apparently be allowed too formidable a display of Continental intelligence) ; but the film under its gaudy new title remains a masterpiece which should be seen and seen again. Completed in 1939, it represents the magnificent climax of a brief period of French cinema in which a sombre realism of style yielded also such memorable films as Quai des Brumes and Hotel du Nord. Over a period of little more than two years, which was brought to an end by the outbreak of war, French film-makers established a virile link with the highest traditions of realism in French literature. Now the French cinema is dead. Jean Renoir, who directed Judas Was a Woman, and Jean Gabin, its star, are both in America. Only a very few figures in the French industry are collaborating with the Nazis.

Jean Gabin plays the part of the engine-driver who is periodically overcome by brainstorms and murderous impulses. Simone Simon appears as his lover, the station-master's wife, who fails to persuade the engine-driver to murder her husband, but is herself finally murdered during one of her lover's seizures. Gabin gives a brilliant impersonation of this intelligent sensitive man, anxious to enjoy the simplicities of life, but driven on to tragedy by the affliction which he knows may pounce upon him at any moment. This contrast between the simple pleasures of everyday life and th .t tortured human being has been the theme of most of the outstanding French productions, and it has never been used to better advantage than by Jean Renoir in this film. The engine-driver finds an escape to sanity in the roaring speed of his express train, and this is beautifully established by first- rate photography and cutting and by the sensitive acting of Gabin, whose assurance is always belied by a haunted gentleness. Jean Gabin is probably the screen's greatest tragedian.

Unfortunately, The Birth of the Blues is not the story of jazz music. This great screen-subject is at present occupying the attention of Mr. Orson Welles, and in the Meantime we have

Mr. Bing Crosby singing and playing his way through a period- piece about a band that went " hot " before its time and tried to get to Chicago where its worth would be appreciated. Bing Crosby is more at ease on the screen than any actor has a right to be. He sees no need to act at all—is just his singing, whistling self—and so comfortable about it that for many people his films must represent the least exacting forrn of relaxation that