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will be accepted and enjoyed without question in spite of its primary absurdity. But if you introduce an alien fantasy which is not consistent with the original theme, you are lost.
Alps Button starts with the statement that Aladdin's Lamp had not been lost or destroyed but been forgotten in rubbish heaps since the days of the Arabian Nights, until the British Government bought up a quantity of waste brass and copper to make up into buttons for soldiers' tunics. Alf 's button was one of these and the bit of metal of which it was made still had the power of summoning the attendant genie when it was rubbed. Grant that one absurdity and anything that happens in consequence cannot be disputed.
Give the name part to Leslie Henson and make John MacAndrews play the part of his foil, Bill, and the story comes to life at once as an intensely comic picture. For when once Alf has got over his terror of the genie, who appears for orders whenever the button is rubbed, the instructions he gives, translated in the literal but oriental mind of the Slave of the Lamp, produce extraordinarily funny situations. The titles of this silent film are a large part of the fun, for the soldier's language has to be represented for the most part in lines and dashes which the audience translate into words according to their several tastes and fancies.
When it occurs to these two lonely souls that 'Eustace,' as they have christened the genie, might be persuaded to produce a muchneeded bath for them, that simple request turns a tumble-down barn interior into an Arabian palace, complete with gorgeous maidens and half a dozen black slaves, who bring in a wonderful glass-sided bath-tub with masses of mirrors and taps and set it down in the middle of the splendid hall. Alf says: 'That's the worst of Eustace, he's so extravagant.'
The two Tommies, in their modesty, drive out all the humans and arrange that Bill shall bathe first while Alf stays outside to keep guard. But there, after a minute or two, he sees an officer approaching and hurriedly summons the genie to clear everything away, pronto. So inside we see Bill luxuriating in a bath, with all the oriental splendour which dissolves around him and leaves him sitting naked on the floor of the tumble-down barn.
After the war, when Alma Taylor, as Alf's wife, blushingly admits that the one thing she really wants is a baby, the genie hears and vanishes. In the sequel, with which the picture ends, Alf is awaiting the happy event and the nurse brings in one, two,
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