THE CINEMA
"Volga-Volga." At the Tatler.—" Holiday Inn." At the Plaza.
" Eagle Squadron " and" The Art of Skiing." At the Leicester Square.
It is interesting to remember that Soviet film chiefs were once so doubtful of the ability of their local film propagandists to produce light entertainment that they inaugurated a period of intensive study of selected Hollywood models. Today, judging from Volga-Volga and The New Teacher, it is in the lighter films that the most telling Soviet propaganda is implicit, whilst the serious, overtly propa- gandist stories (such as Red Flyer) nowadays fall far short of the standard of such solemn early classics as Earth, Potemkin, Turksib and The General Line—representatives of a film genre in which Soviet studios' once led the world. It is from the gay anecdotes of slight but lively stories of Soviet life that we are now learning to love a country which previously had concentrated in its propa- ganda in winning our somewhat awed admiration.
Volga-Volga, considered simply as entertainment, has a lot to teach America in return for any past benefits derived from Holly- wood example. Holiday Inn provides a fair comparison. In the latter film no one is expected to pay too much attention to the plot. The questions of moment are restricted to whether Fred Astaire is adequately partnered and whether Bing Crosby has songs to sing which will sufficiently display the wide range of his emotions. The answer to each (following some necessary consideration) is in the affirmative, and the critic's task is over. Volga-Volga, on the other hand, takes its responsibilities much•more seriously and discharges them with much more hummir. The story is of local pride and national pomp and of the ludicrous attempts of a parish bureaucrat to win fame in Moscow. The snobberies are deliciously interwoven THEATRE with the musical rivalry of the village " classical " group, on the one hand, and the workers who favour homespun melodies, on the other. The satire is often on a Gilbertian level and the visual humour worthy of Rene Clair at his best. From the moment when the delivery of a vital telegram is completed by the concerted shout- ing of the message from the stranded passengers of an ancient Volga ferry-boat to the anxious recipient on shore, there is an under- current of warm tolerant humour based on the contrast between ancient and modern Russia. The bulk of the film is taken up with a journey from the village to a musical Olympiad in Moscow. The competing musicians travel along the Volga from misadventure to misadventure with the sound-track always delightfully busy. The situations are highly ingenious and the jokes by no means all at the expense of the older generation ; it is the self-seeking bureaucrat crusading for soulless efficiency who is everyone's butt.
Eagle Squadron is no less exciting than the common run of Hollywood war films and no less machine-made in style and effect. It attempts perhaps to combine rather more of the usual ingredients than it is customary to compress into one film—we have a commando- raid as well as air-battles and the usual blitz on London. The film and its actors are, however, strongly overshadowed by the appearance at the beginning and the end of the film of portraits of real members of the. Eagle Squadron who have, in fact, experienced those actual excitements of war beside which the thrills of the film become a romantic caricature. In the same programme is an excellent new Disney. The Art of Skiing is similar to the very successful " how to ride a horse " episode in The Reluctant Dragon. Hollywood when burlesquing itself is always at its most effective, although the thrusts at the conventional sports instructional film are not so wickedly clever here as in the earlier example. This is
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