THE CINEMA
"Cloak and Dagger." (Warner.)—" Boomerang." (Tivoli.)
WHAT a born film-maker is Fritz Lang! His mastery of the medium, and of the human puppets which it is used to portray, is complete, in a sense that is probably untrue of any other director save Hitchcock. But Hitchcock (with the possible exception of his unsuccessful Rich and Strange) has never moved outside the range of thriller-melodrama. Lang, though now known largely for his thrillers, has essayed with success wider and deeper approaches to filmic expression, not only in his early German films, such as Siegfried, Metropolis, and M, but also, at least once since his translation to Hollywood, in Fury, that remarkable study of lynch-law.
Even when, as in Cloak and Dagger, he is dealing with the most superficial levels of impossible adventure and inconceivable coinci- dence, there is a richness of observation which places him head and shoulders above Hitchcock. His observation is deeply sympathetic ; and the stagiest sequences of the script are made convincing because Lang, as director, enters fully into the human feelings of the actor or actress who is to portray the part. Note, in this particular film, the direction of two excellent players, Sokoloff and Hilda Thimig. Their parts are not big, but their impact is enormous, just because Lang uses their acting ability in conjunction with camera-angle and lighting in such a way that we are still conscious of them, as integral to the plot, when they are not on the screen. All through Cloak and Dagger, which has as silly a story as anyone could think up, this quality of observation from the inside gives an extraordinarily strong illusion of reality to the most unreal incidents. Added to this is the fact that Lang is a master of every trick of suspense, including the extra unexpected twist which leaves you gasping. This film is, in fact, first-class entertainment on a very high level ; and it is perhaps typical of Lang that one concludes, as an afterthought, by mentioning that the stars are Lilii Palmer and Gary Cooper.
Boomerang is also a thriller, but it is not a melodrama. Using no
filmic tricks—other than a brilliant script and superb editing—it tells the actual story of a still-unsolved murder-case in a small American town. A well-loved clergyman was murdered in the main street one evening. It was sufficiently dark for the eye-witnesses to be sure of nothing save the colour and shape of the murderer's hat and overcoat. After a long police search a young man was arrested. The evidence against him was damning though circumstantial. The attorney prose- cuting on behalf of the community became convinced, in spite of everything, of his innocence. Although the darker currents of small- town politics threatened his career, he set out to secure an acquittal, and succeeded. The real murderer is still unknown.
This story has been re-created on the screen, just as it happened, by Elia Kazan under the producership of Louis de Rochemont. The latter founded the March of Time, and it is from the factual technique of that pioneer screen-journal that the treatment of Boomerang develops. No scenes were shot in the studio. Many of the small parts are played by the actual citizens concerned, while the protagonists are played by a cast of little-known or unknown actors, magnificently led by Dana Andrews. The result is engrossing, enthralling and deeply moving. There is no direct appeal to the emotions ; Kazan's realistic presentation of people and incidents is done with a skill (par- ticularly as regards the selection of significant detail) which causes the observer to feel with, rather than about, the characters. The dialogue is throughout really naturalistic ; it is indeed only in seeing a film like this that one •realises the artificiality of most screen dialogue—an artificiality which one has become content to accept as normal.
Only one flaw mars this remarkable film: The real murderer, or someone who might be the real murderer, is introduced ; and at the end of the film he dies in a car-smash. As the case is still, to this day, open, this thread, slender though it is, jars against the truthfulness of the rest of the story. This, however, is a minor criticism of a film which, though obviously using a sensational local happening, brings us closer to the ways of life of people in the United States than all the dressy social dramas put together, and they, as is well known, would, if laid end to end, reach from the Savoy Bar to the portico of Grauman's Chinese Theatre and back again. Boomerang, on the other
hand, lands straight in your sitting-room. BASIL WRIGHT.
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