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And so I raise my hat to Gaumont for attempting a film of serious stature, but replace it when I see the spirit in which the deed is done.
Paul Rotha.
THE SONG OF SONGS
Production: Paramount, Direction: Rouben Mamoulian. From the play by Edward Sheldon and the novel of Hermann Sudermann. Photography: Victor Milner. With Marlene Dietrich, Brian Aherne, Lionel Atwill, Alison Skipworth. Distribution: Paramount.
Rouben Mamoulian must be one of the most versatile directors at present working in Hollywood. His Applause made most of the early back-stage films appear amateurish. City Streets saw him give an imaginative account of gangsterdom when the last word appeared to have been said on the gangster. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde made a memorable addition to movie horror. In his last film, Tell Me To-night, he surprisingly turned his back on realism and successfully created an atmosphere of fantastic romance. Now he has made The Song of Songs, a tender, romantic story with not a trace of the satire found in his earlier work. This is not the great film which one day he will make ; but the tenderness of the treatment and the depth of understanding revealed make it outstanding.
In its essentials the story is familiar. To quote a trade paper review, it tells of a "young country girl's love for sculptor, her disillusionment, marriage to wealthy Baron, and tragic consequences of meeting with former lover." But under Mamoulian's direction, these familar elements are transformed and the film becomes a sincere and sensitive study of a woman's love and suffering. Through a film whose pictorial composition is consistently lovely there runs a note of symbolism which is most noticeably evident in the climax when the girl, disillusioned, degraded, and her simple faith distorted, smashes the statue made of herself when first she met and fell in love with the sculptor.
In Mamoulian's hands Marlene Dietrich gives the performance of her career, achieving through restraint an impressiveness seldom achieved in her former films. She is here not a vague, glamorous creature, but a woman capable of love and understanding. In comparison, the performances of the others appear dry and spiritless.
F. H.
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