CONTEMPORARY ARTS
Conflict of Wings. (Leicester Square.)— Make Haste to Live. (Gaumont.)—The Pearl and The Sea Around Us. (Rialto.)
A GROUP 3 production, directed by John Eldridge and written by John Pudney and Don Sharp, Conflict of Wings is concerned with a peacetime battle between the R.A.F. and a Norfolk community, the former wish- ing to requisition some marshland for a rocket firing range, the latter to preserve it as a bird sanctuary. Both sides of the case arc presented fairly, but cushioned in a good deal of sentimentality, the R.A.F. appealing for patriotism and the future, and the village for their feathered friends and the past with more emotion than the occasion warrants; and yet it is a pleasant film in many ways, especially to look at. Eastman colour seems particularly suited to the soft tones of the English landscape, and the eye travels happily from fen to windmill, from white sails to white swans, from Vampires leaving their cottonwool trails in the pale blue sky to dunes lapped by soapsuds. There is a hot summer smell about it which is very appetising. Gunning for the gulls is Muriel Pavlow as a girl entranced by local legends, by tales of Roman babies' souls becoming birds, and beside her, in varying stages of rebellion, are Niall MacGinnis, Bartlett Mullins and a goodly cast of villagers dressed in British national costume. For progress and war preparedness stand John Gregson and Kieron Moore. All cleverly avoid the pitfalls which a film of this rural
nature provides, and nobody, thank heavens, is true to type. The problem is undoubtedly an interesting and a tricky one, but although the authors try hard to be objective one feels that at heart they are on the side of the angels-one-five. People who appreciate quiet punctuated by a little bird-song deserve sympathy, of course, but time is marching on and only under the cover of aluminium wings can England safely build her nest.
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Make Haste to Live is a psychological thriller remarkably well acted by Dorothy McGuire as a woman with a past, personified by Stephen McNally, rapidly overtaking her and her daughter, and directed with unrelen- ting tension by William Seiter. In so many thrillers there is a plethora of red herrings, a glut of clues and corpses, but here the theme is of the utmost simplicity, merely showing us an ordinary woman preparing, with as much courage as she can muster, to be killed by a man who has just left prison after serving eighteen years for having supposedly murdered her. The setting is New Mexico and the final chase, inevitable as the sun setting in the west, takes place in the underground excavations of old Indian caves, which makes a nice change from roofs and sewers. The film is triumphantly frightening and Miss McGuire so genuine a person she draWs one into her troubled waters as a whirlpool does a twig, so that ears strain, nerves jangle and hearts thump in harmony with hers. Mary Murphy and Ron Hagerthy, Edgar Buchanan and John Howard give firm support, and if Mr. McNally is a shade too melodramatic, a trifle over-sinister, he plays his part with admirable gusto.
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