Cinema
GOOD SHOOTING.
MOST of us have given up hoping that the American film industry will come to its senses. The next best thing is that it should come to somebody else's ; and this it has long shown signs that it is ready, and even eager, to do. For years Hollywood has been paying cheerfully through its nose for talent which the outside world has acclaimed. From successful London dramatists to winners of the Pulitzer Prize--from Mr. van Druten to Mr. Dreiser—the cream of the culture of two continents has been skimmed : but only to turn sour in the oppressive atmosphere of. Los Angeles. The intellectual Lilliputians of the studios have failed, almost always, to exploit the services of their imported Gullivers.
Mr. Rouben Mamoulian, the young Armenian who directed City Streets (at the Plaza), is an exception to this rule. He is a recruit from the theatre, where he made a reputation with the New York Theatre Guild (London saw his pro- duction of Porgy). The first film he directed for the Para- mount Company—Applause—was largely experimental and pleased only the discerning. Now City Streets establishes him as a commercial as well as an artistic success. It is the most exciting film seen in London this summer. I need not retail the plot. We all know, by now, how gangsters behave ; and, like the Swiss Family Robinson, they have only to be characteristic to please. Suffice it to say that the film is as thick with incident, as lurid, and as irresistible as the cover of a Sexton Blake novelette. Mr. Mamoulian has wisely made his subtlety a saleable commodity. Like a good conjuror, he quickens our perceptions ,by including a few apparently obvious tricks in his repertoire. For instance, the pouncing shadow of a stuffed hawk cast on the wall above two lovers conveys menace crudely enough ; but it makes the audience alert for more casual hints by initiating them into his methods of suggestion. Mr. Gary Cooper personifies resource with his usual engaging truculence, and Miss Sylvia Sidney is given, and takes, the opportunity to act extremely well as the heroine. A very satisfactory film.
Le Chemin de Paradis, at the Rialto, is an amusing and original French film directed by Erich Pommer. The plot is slight and irrelevant ; it centres round three young men who are partners in a petrol station and rivals in love. M. Pommer, like M. Clair, has realised the value of fantastication, and— again like M. Clair—he knows that extravagance, like any other component of an art, must have its conventions. It is a pity that he has chosen as his own dramatic code that of musical comedy, though it becomes in his hands a wonder- fully fluid and acceptable medium. The trouble is that we can never be sure whether his intentions towards this particular comic muse are strictly honourable—when she is his inspir- ation, and when his butt. All that delightful inconsequence— those unjustifiable interludes of song and dance, those serried choruses, costumed and conjured up by nothing more than an antic sense of the appropriate—how much of that was parody, and how much the refinement of fantasy ? But, whatever the ratio, the film offers diversion with a rare and individual flavour and is very adequately acted, especially by Miss Lilian Harvey and M. Rene Lefebvre.
Far be it from me to say a word against those Russian films of which Eisenstein's The Gc v'ral Line (lately shown at the Academy) is a shining and splendid example. If their sincerity did not disarm, their artistry would overawe criticism. But— perhaps it is only the time of year—there are moments when I find it harder to sit through them than I should like. The sculptural dignity of those exquisitely photographed peasant faces still commands my respect and admiration ; I am still vaguely moved by their steady, uncomprehending gaze, their slow, rare, and usually rather unaccountable smiles. Yet, though I know it to be irreverent, I cannot help remarking that, from what I have seen of it, the entire agrarian population of Russia appears to have been dropped on its head in childhood. Also it seems to me that the dens ex machina business, when the god and the machine are one, has been about played out. Rescue by tractor is beginning to pall. However pressing the needs of a collective farm, the day is past when I could have cheered the advent of a reaper-and- binder. But there is no denying the brilliance of Eisenstein's work. Probably I do wrong to jest ; only I think we should all like to see the Russians tackle some new themes.
PETER FLEMLNG
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