The Cinema .
"The Camels Are Coming." At the New Gallery Tam Gaumont comedy, featuring Jack Hulbert, starts with aii extract from a genuine news-reel showing a flight of sera. Wanes, bought for the Egyptian Air Force; about to leave Lympne. The news-reel effect continues until the machines Are seen landing' at 'Cairo, and it, is only when Sipfadron- Leader Jack Campbell falls backwards off the 'reception dais that the transition from realism to comedy is neatly estab- lished. There are possibilities, I think, in this notion of blending news-reel extracts with ordinary film narrative ; it might often be used to relate screen dramas to a background Of contemporary events. Unfortunately, though The Cant& Are Coming is a lively entertainment, sure to be very popular, the later sequences are less original, and the story exists mainly as' a framework for Mr. Hulbert's versatile talents. He is supposed to have come to Egypt to organize air patrols against drug smugglers, and naturally he gets into every kind of trouble before the smugglers are finally rounded up. A fascinating girl aviator, whom he chooses to regard as an innocent tool of the dope gang, turns out to be merely the publicity agent of a' cigarette firm, but she is handy enough with a'revolver, and eventually she and Jack are involved in a grand mix-up with the smugglers and their Arab allies in the middle of the desert. Jack, disguised as a sheikh, meets the real sheikh he is impersonating, and escapes only with the aid of a peculiar camel corps of his own invention—the men are dummies strapped to their steeds, and their marching song is rendered by a portable gramophone which the leading dummy wears under his burnous.
All this is quite good fun, but it would be more effective if the plot were more solidly constructed. However, Mr. Hulbert dances and sings and back-chats with unfailing zest ; and his new heroine, Miss Anna Lee, though at present a little too conscious of her smile, is' a promising recruit to British pictures. The supporting players are all competent, but the real star among them is the camel which Mr. Hulbert tries to ride after his aeroplane has broken down. Its bubbling grunts are ingeniously recorded to serve as an insufferably patronizing commentary on Mr. Hulbert's efforts to stay in the saddle.
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