CINEMA
"Another Man's Poison." (Gaumont and Marble Arch Pavilion.)-- "Scrooge." (Odeon, Marble Arch.)--" Encore." (Plaza.)
IN Another Man's Poison, Miss Bette Davis's first English film, her almost limitless resources are noticeably strained ; for it is not asked of every actress to Orody herself, to coalesce and caricature all the roles she has ever played, and though Miss Davis manages, by sheer determination, to maintain an air of plausibility, it is evidently no easy task. In the course of this high melodrama set broodingly in lonely Yorkshire moorland, it is her misfortune to have to assume her familiar attitude of nonchalant disdain, of cool clipped sophisti- cation, while engaged in murdering her husband, blackmailing and subsequently arranging for the murder of Mr. Gary Merrill, seducing Mr. Anthony Steele, bamboozling Mr. Emlyn Williams and loving with, suitably enough, unbridled passion, a large chestnut horse. Flaunting briskly about in an unbecoming riding-habit, she strives unremittingly to encompass the incredible character placed in her charge, a character so inhumanly wicked that only reverence for Miss Davis's endurance keeps laughter at bay. No exigencies of plot, however, can prevent this actress from giving a fine performance. To be with her is ever a revelation, so lost does one become to self and surroundings. The only other object of light in the gloom comes from Mr. Reginald Beckwith, whose miniature of a Yorkshire shopkeeper is exquisite.
I never realised before how unethical a tale is Dickens's Christmas Carol. Only because Scrooge is shown a preview of the hell awaiting him in the hereafter—in this instance by a spirit straight out of the Crazy Gang—does he mend his poisonous ways. Many of us, if we knew for sure that our mode of life was leading to immortal disaster, would, for expediency's sake, change it, but we would hardly expect to be commended. Fear is a great reformer, but the results, I feel, lack virtue.
• Scrooge is not a good film largely because the story is singularly unsuited to adaptation ; but Mr. Al ;stair Sim, staunch as a lighthouse in a sea of dartings and dissolutions, flashbacks and foreshadowings, in a jumble of spectres and Tiny Tims popping this way and that, stands beaming a splendid radiance. He is truly magnificent, filling his part to the brim with every drop of energy, pathos, humour and intelligence it demands. Round him the moths, Mr. Mervyn Johns, Mr. Jack Warner, Miss Rona Anderson and a very miscast Miss Hermione Baddeley, flutter somewhat forlornly, the chance of spreading their wings being denied them by the jactitations of the script. Only Miss Kathleen Harrison gets her antennw firmly fixed in the celluloid.
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Three more of Mr. Somers& Maugham's short stories, this time adapted by Messrs. Eric Ambler, Arthur Macrae and T. E. B. Clarke, directed by Messrs. Harold French, Pat Jackson and Anthony Pelissier, produced by Mr. Anthony Darnborough and scored by Mr. Richard Addinsell—in fact awash with talent—can now be seen at the Plaza. The first, a bit of puff-pastry about a sponging playboy, Mr. Nigel Patrick, who battens on his brother Mr. Roland Culver and finally makes a fortune through the simple expedient of marrying an heiress, is pleasant and unexceptional. The second, a chronicle of a female bore's holiday cruise, is superb—superbly funny and superbly acted. Miss Kay Walsh's coy cameraderie never once steps over the line of credibility. As a hearty, maddening, talkative but thoroughly nice woman she is the prototype of a million tea-room proprietresses, and her performance cannot be commended too highly. Mr. Ronald Squire and Mr. John Laurie give added point to Mr. Macrae's divinely witty -script, and the whole thing is a rare joy. The third, starring Miss Glynis Johns, is a blue print of a stunt diver's nervous system, and personally I thought it failed in every way to be convincing. Miss John's fears, her husband's, Mr. Terence Morgan's, disregard of them, the manners of their Riviera clientele, the old vaudeville players, the gambling sequences, even the dive into a flaming tank seemed stagy and false.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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