Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

TELL ENGLAND I79 landing scenes and the capture of the trench mortar. The whine of bullets, the crackle of machine-guns (especially when synchronized to alternate frames of negative and positive), and the maniac laugh of shells are all used to emphasize effect. Of the use of indirect and impressionist sound, as when Mrs. Doe gets all mixed up over her son's departure, I have nothing to say except that it interferes with the simple appeal of the scene. It is significant that those portions of the film in which dialogue is employed are inferior to and less powerful than those in which sound has been added to the pictorial images. Asquith was fortunate indeed in having the collaboration of such an experienced director as Geoffrey Barkas, who at an earlier date made The Somme, Palaver, and, with Michael Barringer, " Q " Ships. He brought to the making of Tell England an indispensable knowledge of filming military and naval manoeuvres, and a shrewd idea of how to achieve the best results from unwieldy masses of willing participants. For the part played by the co-operation of the British Fleet in Tell England demands the warmest praise, and no directors could have desired better material than that supplied in the form of ships and men by the Admiralty. It is of no avail to deplore the indiscriminate mixing of the good and the bad material in Tell England, for, as I have pointed out many times, it is in the tradition of the film trade to despoil its own work. Nevertheless, it seems surprising that some member of the production unit which brought this picture into being, could not have foreseen that the weak sentimentality of