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NELL GWYN
Production: British and Dominions. Direction: Herbert Wilcox. Photography: Fred Young. Art Direction: L. P. Williams. Distribution: United Artists. With Anna Neagle, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Esme Percy. Length: yjig feet.
Despite its origins which, rightly or wrongly, we have hitherto regarded with suspicion, this is one of the more sizeable films of the quarter. The co-operation between the production staff which gave a special interest to The Queen's Affair is here more prominently in evidence. Wilcox, by some strange genius, seems to have made a harmonious team out of his production staff and the result is a wellknit job which makes no concessions to either kind of brow and is a good honest film.
The story, though by choice revealing only a small facet of history, neither perverts nor unduly "musicalizes" the facts of history. Hardwicke gives an exceptionally fine performance, investing the part of Charles II with all the vacillations and strange twists of character which were a part of that monarch, yet retaining a certain dignity which the film commendably lives up to. Anna Neagle, despite a certain harrying of the part of Nell, never achieves anything notable. She lacks the divine fire and we are only too conscious of a hard-working actress doing her best. But even although her performance is only adequate, the film does not suffer unduly as Wilcox has shrewdly arranged that it does not depend merely on stars for success. That is an unusual achievement for a factory-made film.
In the titles, credit is given to Charles II, Nell Gwyn and Samuel Pepys for the dialogue; and Miles Malleson has selected, arranged and augmented this admirably, so that while it is on occasion colloquial, it is never cheap. It is the finest we have had in any historical film in this country. We can forgive Wilcox everything in his film past for this production which marks, for this country, an entirely new standard of co-operation between the technicians.
D. F. Taylor.
ATALANTE
Direction: Jean Vigo. Production: Gaumont-France. Barge stories are bad luck in cinema, or so they say. There is association of slow tempo and dirty water, and drab pedestrian happenings on water fronts. A bargee, like any other slum dweller, lives in confined surroundings without horizon of storm or distance. Vigo's film is beautiful because it makes its story out of these very elements. A peasant girl marries a barge skipper; the barge sets off on a long tramp to Paris. The girl is excited at the notion of Paris and makes dreams of it; the skipper, like a good bargee,
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