THE CINEMA
"Great Guns" and "Invasion At the London Pavilion.
" Louisiana Purchase." At the Plaza.—" March of Time." At the Gaumont.—" Land Girl." Generally released.
on all true admirers of Laurel and Hardy the setting in which y perform their simple antics is of scarcely more importance an a backcloth to a cOnjurer. A couple of army uniforms, a pet ten, some gunpowder' a very long plank and two glasses of Inter are ample material for their comedy, and if these properties. e to be found in a U.S. Army training camp who will complain that in Great Guns Laurel and Hardy are so unoriginal as to up? Army life provides occasion to antagonise the sergeant, o be inspected by hate and humourless geherals, to stray across achine-gun ranges, to co-operate in manoeuvres, and, most portantly of all, it provides plenty of opportunities for the oaring balloon of Hardy's dignity to be punctured by the znis- ing arrows of Laurel's witlessness.
In Louisiana Purchase Victor Moore demonstrates with the astery of a great craftsman a new and individual brand of screen omedy. As Senator Oliver P. Loganberry he is the victim of a cries of attempted 'frame-ups ", designed to ruin his reputation nd discredit his investigation of a crooked commercial organisa- 'on sheltering behind the embarrassed innocence of Bob Hope. tutor Loganberry's reactions to triumph and disaster move with
e pace and the inexorability of a glacier. To watch his mood tadually changing from child-like- innocence to serpentine cun- mg while his wrinkled old apple of a face performs acrobatics
f bewilderment, alarm and resolution is to enjoy a cinematic spectacle beside which the Mardi Gras in Technicolor is just piece of pompous padding.
Three short films about the war make interesting contrasts s week. Invasion ! reached this country from America last ugust but its showing has only now been approved. The frame- -ark of the film is a discussion between four American journalists ncluding Ralph Ingersoll and Major Fielding Eliot—about the lances of a Nazi invasion of Britain. The discussion (which at ints develops into a most realistic argument) is more convinc- ly done than any of the several earlier attempts at screen elute and the arguments adduced are intelligently present EDId mprehensive within the time-limits of the film. Yet the visual Rustration. consists of a selection of mediocre library shots of nt journalistic interest. America At War is similarly dis- ppointing. The first March of Time since America's entry into war was an event to be. keenly awaited. For years March of znie has not only reported the spread of war across the world ut has anticipated its ,future moves with uncanny accuracy. Yet menca At War consists largely of a long excerpt from The vans We Watch, and only the commentary does dramatic ustice to the arrival at America's own doorstep of the disaster .hich March of Time cameras had reported-so faithfully overseas. U remarkable contrast with this poverty of picture material in
erica's early war films is the visual sophistication of this eek's Ministry of Information's film called Land Girl. This m represents the only really successful attempt yet made to Women's war-time work into the pattern of the community.
EDGAR ANSTEY.
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