Soothing Mixture
FRIENDLY PERSUASION. (Empire.)—LOSER TAKES ALL. (Carlton.)—THE LAST WAGON. (General release.) WILLIAM WYLER'S Friendly Persuasion is in a particular Hollywood, but not really Wyler, tradition: It is frankly a charmer of the homeliest sort, exploiting domestic jokes and neighbourly rivalries, the endearing foolish- ness of girls on the brink of romance, the engaging downrightness of small boys, the tussle of wills between affectionate parents, a splendid green countryside, a histrionic goose, and the picturesque speech and customs of the Quakers in Indiana, 1862. At a deeper level, seriously but never very deeply, it dis- cusses the problems raised in the non- combatant Quakers when a battle reaches their doorstep. The acting is the best thing about it. Gary Cooper and Dorothy MacGuire as the Parents—he so mild, so wry, she so rigid yet to gentle-faced--are in every way suitable and
sensitive to the atmosphere, the comedy, and the pathos; and as the children Anthony Per- kins, a sombre youth with extraordinary eyes, and Phyllis Love, a girl who looks fifteen but is no doubt a bit older, make memorable what might have been quite routine characters and performances—he beautifully conveying the pangs, she the radiance of adolescence. Rather too long (at two hours and a half), it is still, if you are feeling leisurely, the sort of film to improve your temper for the day.
Loser Takes All, Graham Greene's tale of a gambling honeymoon at Monte Carlo, has a lot of pleasant picture-postcard scenery, a business tycoon in his best vein from Robert Morley, a moderately amusing script (Graham Greene's own), with something of an individual voice about it, a delicious short performance, of the sort called 'vintage,' from Joyce Carey as a gambler in a variety of stupendous hats, and some good mad moments from Peter Illing as another casino loony trying to sell a foolproof 'system.' It also has a new young man called .Tony Britton, who is almost the first British actor of the jeune premier sort I have seen on the films to look and behave like a person, not an actor; a fair piece of casting in Rossano Brazzi, to whose celebrated charm I am immune but who has a flair for light, rather heartless, comedy; and, as the excuse for some corny bedroom jokes, Glynis Johns playing, as always, her husky and agreeable self. Director : Ken Annakin.
The Last Wagon, which was press-shown some weeks back, missed a West End showing, and is generally released this week, is a better- than-average Western with Richard Widmark as a white man brought up by. Comanches, who beats the Indians at their own game lead- ing a group of youngsters, the survivors of an Apache attack, to safety through the horrors of hunger, thirst, rattlesnakes and Indian skirmishing. Delmer Daves's direction has enormous gusto, Richard Widmark conveys the divided loyalties of his situation with some subtlety, and the scenery is superb. So, for those who like battle-scenes, are the pitched fights with what look like thousands of
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