THE CINEMA
"Sea Saps." At the London Pavilion.—" Untamed." At the Plaza.
IT wta not so long ago that a fell pronunciamento from Holly- wood announced the final dissolution of the Laurel and Hardy partnership. Millions of cognoscenti reeled beneath this blow; but there was a silver lining to the cloud, and since that black date there have been three full-length films, of which Sea Saps is the third. It is clear, however, that the vast crise des moeurs has had an effect. It is a far cry from Sea Saps even to Way Out West. The comedy technique is changing, and there is a ten- dency to rely more on Marxian craziness than on that almost cthereal simp:icity which was the keynote of earlier films. Purists, therefore, may cavil at this latest effort; they may, for instance, object to the emphasis on ingenious sound effects, or on phe- nomena too far removed from physical realities Yet, on a balance, much has been gained. The Laurel and Hardy tech- nique, whatever the innovations, still relies on a phantasy based on the assumption that our own commonplaces might one day turn and rend us. Observe, for instance, in Sea Saps, the appal- ling flat in which (owing to a defect in plumbing engineered by Ben Turpin), the hot tap only runs when you turn on the cold tap; the electric light plug gushes gas; and the refrigerator sup- plies, not ice, but the swing music which the frozen radio cannot
deliver. Observe, too, the concatenation of circumstances which involve Laurel and Hardy in the mastication of an ersatz meal under the eye of a ferocious gangster; a meal in which the spag- hetti is string, the bacon lampwicks, the meatballs sponge, and the biscuits toasted talcum powder. Add to this that the meal is eaten on a highly unseaworthy yacht which is only at sea owing to a goat's predilection for rope, and you have a pretty fair idea of the plot of the film. A pretty fair idea only, because the opening reels present, in considerable detail, the work of our heroes in a factory devoted to the testing of motor horns, and :he treatment of Hardy for a nervous breakdown by a doctor who turns out to be none other than the divine James Finlayson. All this presumably means that only true Laurel and Hardy fans will enjoy Sea Saps. To them, and may they be legion, it may be raid with finality that Stan's efflorescence here reaches its climax. With his ability to make of innocence a third Thermopylae he well justifies Tennyson's prophetic words- " This Laurel greener from the brows Of him who uttered nothing base.'
It Lnly remains to add a word of sincere praise for the acting of the goat, whose dewlap and beard Hardy so valiantly and vainly attempts to milk.
Untamed is a curious collation of anomalies. Its Technicolor is at its best when the subject is a snow storm; its heroine is at her best when she is least concerned with her surroundings; and its story is at its best when it departs most widely from the personal issues on which it is based.
The Technicolor effects of a blizzard are quite remarkable; for, although one may well get the impression that the director (George Archainbaud) had no special ideas on the subject, the perspectives of sleds and trees and driving snow have a special and impressive validity. The heroine is a new star yclept Patricia Morison; built for the Lamour sarong, she achieves (as did Lamour in Spawn of the North) quite a tour de force of acting which is largely irrelevant to the immediate purpose.
As for the ..tory, it details the arrival in the northern wastes of Canada of a young doctor seeking a long-term cure for in- cipient dipsomania. Cinema habitues will not be surprised that he at once falls in love with Akim Tamiroff's wife, although the fact that Tamiroff is not a villain may cause them some passing astonishment. The triangle—eternal as the Canadian snows— pursues its appointed course, but the film becomes almost alarm- ingly alive when the major issue turns out to be the delivery of a consignment of sulphanaminide to a community stricken with a dangerous epidemic. Tamiroff's face, frozen and ghastly white in the sled, is impressive because the aid of science has reached the wilds ; that his death also frees his wife to marry someone else is a denouement which is irritatingly anti-climatic.
Untamed is announced as being based on Sinclair Lewis's novel Mantrap. A film starring Clara Bow and Percy Marmont was similarly credited some fourteen years ago. Between the two the resemblance is so meagre as to be almost non-existent.
BASIL WRIGHT.
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