THE CINEMA
"Just William's Luck." (London Pavilion.)—" The Road to Rio." (Plaza.) Just William's Luck is what is known as good family entertainment, which means that it is enjoyable if shared with children but pretty dreary without them. The Crompton books and the B.B.C. serial have taught us what to expect of William, and what is expected of him cannot be taken very seriously, which is a great relief, at any rate from the film critic's point of view. In picturing William's latest escapades Mr. Val Guest has made no effort to serve art, nor has he striven for anything as prosaic as truth, except, let me be fair, in the immediate domestic circle. Mr. Garry Marsh and Miss Jane Welsh are admirably real as the parents of their wicked curly-headed boy, and that fulcrum of cosiness, Miss Muriel Aked, as their maid, is so alive one could, touch her ; but on leaving their side to seek adven- ture with Master William Graham and his Nites of the Square Tabel we plunge into a land best explored in the company of those under twelve. No boy or girl could fail to love this film, and on the occa- sion of my visit to the London Pavilion the screams of joy hit the roof like rockets, to explode in a shower of high-pitched laughs of un- paralleled infection ; but the fact that Just William's Luck is billed as the healthiest film in town may prove, alas, a little daunting to the unaccompanied adult, health surely being the last thing he seeks at the cinema.
The Road to Rio is not quite as neatly paved as other roads trodden by Mr. Crosby, Mr. Hope and Miss Lamour, although it is patterned with a familiar craziness and tarred with the same slap-happy brush. It is just a little less good all round, a little less funny, a little less tuneful, a little less spontaneous, but nevertheless it will give adequate joy to those amongst us who worship the trio of unregenerate nitwits it exposes in all their nitwittery. For my part I would have liked more than one sentimental song from Bing, although perhaps this omission was made good by Bob blowing bubbles through a trumpet; and I would have cut a tedious sequence about and with hats, although again perhaps this was balanced, in every sense of the word, by Bob riding a bicycle across a tight-rope. All the same this film, though it has its precious moments, I might almost say its divine moments, brings a sense of lack. The apex of humour is constantly within grasp but only sometimes reached, and the laugh stays all too often poised on the ready lips, never to be air-borne.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
Previous page
