CINEMA
gt Sands of Iwo Jima." (Carlton.)—" Annie Get Your Gun." (Empire.)—" Cairo Road." (Warner.) 'Sands of Iwo Jima is an American war`picture, and as far as war is concerned it is one of the finest the U.S.A. has sent us. Rarely has one been forced to enter so whdleheartedly into the taking of a Japanese-held island, and the more shattered and worn-out does one become in the comfortable plush of one's seat the more humbly does one lay one's heart at the feet of the common soldier. Or, in this case, the United States marine. Although there may be many who feel that war films have had their day, and that yet another hour of noise and death is not to be supported, they should, if only for their soul's sake, land on the sands of Iwo Jima. How men faced ordeals of this kind is inconceivable, and that they may quite soon be asked to do so again unthinkable. So it is salutary to think about it. Mr. John Wayne and Mr. John Agar are both excellent, and if there are some moments of nocturnal. thoughtful- ness amongst the troops which cloy a little, and some romantic attachments which bore they can be forgiven. For this picture, magnificently directed by Mr. Allan Dean, is a worthy tribute to the courage and folly of mankind.
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Here is a minor tragedy. Annie Get Your Gun, my favourite musical comedy, has been partially wrecked though not wholly sunk by my favourite lunatic, Miss Betty Hutton. Miss Hutton extends Annie's rough eccentricity until it verges on the painfully abnormal, and she sings " You can't Get a Man with a Gun " with such a sort of obscene exuberance it is positively distressing. Later on, when she doffs the wild disorder of her garb for neater garments, Miss Hutton calms down and becomes much more en- dearing, but even so compared to Miss Dolores Gray she is sadly disappointing. Her hero, on the other hand, Mr. Howard Keel, is all that he should be—tall, handsome and singing those splendid songs splendidly. Indeed, the film has no special virtue save in that it joins the tunes together in brilliantly-coloured patterns, and if Miss Hutton is not messing them up, they are satisfying enough in themselves.
Cairo Road is one which should be avoided; for though its foundations are laid on the factual cases in the files of the Egyptian Anti-Narcotics Bureau, and though the road curves through the correct scenery, the pot-holes are formidable. Mr. Eric Portman, as one of those stern disillusioned policemen so beloved of film- producers, and Mr. Dennis Harvey, as his lieutenant, do all in their power to seem Egyptian, and do not succeed in the least. This would not matter save for additional confusions such as the brothers Pavlis, one of whom is Mr. Karel Stepanek talking with•a foreign accent and the other Mr. Ha.rold Lang, talking cockney.; for the lieutenants wife who is French and for the camel-boy who speaks in agitated Wimbledon. The confusion' of tongues spreads to the plot itself, and while there are certain sequences which are exciting, there are an equal number which are merely bewildering.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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