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CONTACT
Production : British Instructional. Direction : Paul Rotha. Distribution : Wardour.
This description of Imperial Airways is Rotha's first film, and shows him more mature in criticism than in production. The film is never quite permitted to get under way. Always the critical mind of Rotha seems to be jibbing and hedging and taking care lest the mistakes he has recognised in others' work appear to damn his own. The photography is too careful, the editing too studied, and sequences of the film too altogether cerebral. A careless rapture or two would have made his aeroplanes fly higher and faster, would have supplied a necessary breeze to his photography, and made the contact between continents warmer and more exciting. These criticisms are noted only because Rotha is coming into the first line of documentary and calls for all the heavy weather we can make for him. Even if the photography were not as beautiful as it is, the size and scope of Contact would make it of first importance in this year's documentary account. The trouble with Rotha is that he doesn't think about cinema (like Eisenstein), nor does he patently enjoy making it (like Elton) : he worries about it. If, in his next, he forgets half of what he knows, doesn't care much about the other half, and sets out to enjoy his material as well as shoot it, he will do something very exciting indeed. J. G.
WORTH NOTING
TUGBOAT ANNIE. — The comedy mixture and rough-hearted team which delighted millions in Min and Bill will again delight millions with a repetition of their world-famous arguments. Once again Marie Dressier cusses to hide the sniffs and Wallace Beery mutters in his sepulchral boots. They are inimitable. Again it's on the waterfront, but this time they run a tugboat, and there's a son who does proud by his fond parents and becomes a ship's captain. In addition, there is a last-minute rescue at sea. In other words, all the old ingredients that bring a laugh and a choke and masquerade under the label of entertainment. It is a pity, because troupers like Beery and Dressier do this sort of hokum standing on their heads, and Mervyn LeRoy knows his angles too well to waste his time on such trivialities. The slowness of the opening reel is appalling and the subsequent repetition of situations tends to precipitate an early departure. But it is worth staying if only to see Beery's heroic
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