THE CINEMA
" The Lion Has Wings." At the Leicester Square Theatre.
A LION with wings would be no odder an exhibit than this documentary picture of the Royal Air Force constructed by Mr. Alexander Korda with the help of little fictional scenes acted by Mr. Ralph Richardson, Miss Merle Oberon and others ; of irrelevant shots from Mr. Korda's unfortunate historical picture Fire Over England, and of sequences, show- ing the Central Control Room of the Air Defence, from the admirable recruiting picture of two years' back called The Gap. All the first half of the picture is excellent, from the opening words of the commentary, " This is Britain where we believe in freedom," with the shots of oast houses and country churches and grazing cattle, on to the new workers' flats and the new hospitals and the new schools and the words: " Is all this to stop because one man wants to domi- nate the world? " It is propaganda of an intelligent kind: England at peace is contrasted with Germany preparing for war ; there are amusing cuts from beach donkeys to German cavalry ; from the mathematical ranks of the Brownshirts, the guardians of one life, to the King strolling unprotected down a Scottish country lane. One cut is magnificently dramatic and a fine example of reticence: from the small dapper Dollfuss with his pale puzzled waxen features, like those of a tailor's dummy, as he pronounces in broken English " Good- baye " into the microphone, straight without explanation to the coffin and the bearers and the aftermath of murder. The management of sound, too, is excellent : over the shots of swimmers in a bathing pool suddenly breaks the music of a military band before we cut to the goosestep and the grey lines ; Hitler, in close-up, addressing a Nazi rally, is cut quickly in and out with bookies hurling their impassioned advice, hucksters wheedling. From England at peace we go to England arming: superb shots of the Ah Force—shadows racing across tarmac, lifting on to the roofs of hangars and racing on ; grey planes moving in formation over a whole watery countryside ; planes diving and twisting among the cumulus, carrying smoke like carnival ribbons straight across the sky ; the making of the guns ; the balloon barrage ; the war.
With the war the film loses force and authenticity : we soon begin to tire of the fake elocutionist voices of trained actors. The Germans, I believe, have remarked that the Kiel battle was fought in the Denham film studios (rather tamely fought, it may be noted), and we become aware of some point in the jest as we watch imaginary battles between fighter squadrons and raiders (who for some reason are called " bandits "), in which all the deaths are German and all the heroics English. It would be a serious error, I think, to exhibit this film in the United States until we have shown in the air as well as in the studio that we can save London from the raider : imaginary battles are all very well in a thriller—they are unpleasantly out of place in a documentary, and smack of bravado. One curious effect of using an old propaganda film may be noted : the shots from The Gap contradict the whole theme. The Gap was made to show that unless recruit- ing improved the raiders must get through : so now we watch an actor frenziedly biting his nails in a control room which has become part of a picture preaching invincibility. This dreary unconvincing fictional battle, however, is only the worst failure in tact and taste : almost as bad are scenes which intro- duce Mr. Ralph Richardson as an Air Force officer, Miss Merle Oberon as a voluntary worker and Miss June Duprez as a nice boy's sweetheart. Americans are unlikely to laugh at the massed salute of the Nuremburg Rally—power and discipline are seldom humorous—but they will not, I imagine, restrain their laughter when Miss Oberon pulls Miss Duprez to attention in the drawing room beside the radio set as God Save the King follows Mr. Chamberlain's announcement of war or hide their smiles when Miss Oberon whispers to Mr. Richardson, " Darling, are we ready? " The film ends on a note as false as the opening was true. Miss Oberon in nurse's uniform is speaking for all the women of England, telling the world, through United Artists, that we are fighting for " Truth, and beauty, and fair play, and—" with whimsical hesitation and a professional quaver, "kindliness." As a statement of war aims, one feels, this leaves the world beyond Roedean still expectant.
GRAHAM GREENE.
Previous page
