THE CINEMA
" Brighton Rock " (Warner.)—" Easy Money " (Gaumont and Marble Arch Pavilion.)
THE Boulting Brothers have produced a masterly adaptation of Mr. Graham Greene's novel, Brighton Rock, and if this is not the best nasty film we have made in England it comes to within a razor's edge of being so. Frankly I think Mr. Richard Attenborough is miscast in the part of Pinkie, the seventeen-year-old race-gang leader who neither drinks nor smokes nor goes with women, who without vices is yet vicious, who cannot bear a kiss but will not flinch at murdering a friend. Mr. Attenborough is a fine young actor, but try as he may he cannot altogether drive the soul away from his face. It lurks there, too close to the mask he imposes upon it for us to believe in his utter gracelessness, and because there is just this little hint of humanity about him one cannot understand how he dominates his older and tougher subordinates. He is admirable in many ways—his hands, for instance, could make a picture on their own—but somehow incredible. Miss Carol Marsh as the waitress, whom Pinkie marries with reluctance and loathing simply, so that she cannot give evidence against him, is perfect. Innocent, tender and unquestioning, her love flowery in this wilderness of corruption like a rose on a manure heap. From the fresh air of the sea front, from the world of pierrot shows and jolly glasses of port with dear old pals, comes Miss Hermione Baddeley seeking justice. Blonde, blowsy, with a fat !wry laugh, she noses about among the bristling razor blades, intent upon rescuing the innocent from the guilty and giving one of the most brilliant performances of her brilliant career. Incident- ally, at this juncture, I would like to invite anybody to name me a stage star who has not proved an instantaneous success on the screen. Brighton plays her part a merveille, displaying her sun- kissed Regency front and her squalid posterior shades with equal unselfconsciousness. Familiar as we are with the sight and sound of her, the tale unfolded seems doubly unpleasant and adds a spice of danger to our humdrum lives. The only thing that worries me, a thing of no consequence I admit, is that I have no idea what the rival racecourse gangs are fighting about. But then I am nearly as innocent as Miss Marsh, although her other qualifications elude me.
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After the Boultings comes the Box family with a nice friendly little film giving us an insight into the lives of four people who have won money in the football pools. Mr. Frank Bundy, whose first production this is, has been responsible in the past for directing documentaries, and he has not been able to resist incorporating into Easy Money a record of the machinery that motivates football pools. This is interesting, even though it is seen from a highly moral and benevolent angle. As servants of the public the promoters, it appears, walk as chastely as their Civil counterparts, and he who dives into such a pool with a dirty heart will merely be rewarded with a mouth- ful of chloride. Each of the four sketches has a self-contained.plot, the first of-which is the best, if the oldest. Mr. Jack Warner, living in suburbia with his wife, Miss Marjorie Fielding, and family, proves with conviction and, may I add, great kindness and good humour, something I have always found hard to believe, that money brings instantaneous unhappiness. Mr. Warner has almost persuaded me. In this episode Mr. David Tomlinson can be especially commended for his portrayal of a high-minded over-scrupulous suitor. Episode two features Mr. Mervyn Johns who dies of fright at the thought of resigning from his job, literally dies ; the third episode stars Miss Greta Gynt, Mr. Dennis Price and Mr. Bill Owen, and deals with the forging of a coupon ; and the fourth givesus Mr. Edward Rigby having fun with a lot of double basses in an orchestra.
This is a pleasant light-hearted film, but for my part I would have liked one small sequence in bad taste showing a man grown suddenly rich enjoying the fruits of his wickedness and dying, at
a ripe old age, from a surfeit of caviare. VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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