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people!) with a leaning towards kleptomania and a more-thanleaning towards the physical stimulus of men as far removed from her own social set as are her father's ideas of business from the South Sea Islands which he exploits for his millions. The high-spot climax, including a last-minute rescue, is in the true Griffith tradition and as old as cinema itself, but because of its grand cutting and use of sound, gets across on a modern audience better than anything else of its kind that I have seen this year. At more leisurely moments, such as the parting scene between the bond-bailiff and bis woman, Brown reveals a hitherto unsuspected tenderness of direction which probably arises from his complete understanding of the mentalities of the types that he is portraying. Many small touches will bring admiration for the man's intelligence; for example, the departmental-store chief's air-cushion and the releasing of the greyhounds at the race track. Almost every shot and certainly every line of dialogue has point and needs watching. Eight hundred feet are removed from this English version. From what is left, you will judge Brown as a firstrate director awaiting freedom of story and treatment and a square production deal.
Paul Rotha.
VIVA VILLA
Production and Distribution : Me tro-GoldwynMayer. Direction : Jack Conway. Photography : James Wong Howe. Dialogue : Ben Hecht. With Wallace Beery, Fay Wray, Stuart Erwin, Leo Carrillo, H. B. Walthall. Length 9,862 feet.
The Eisenstein influence lingers on in Hollywood. Not only directly inspired in theme by Thunder Over Mexico, Viva Villa in addition repeats a great many of the actual set-ups from the Eisenstein film. It purports to be the story of the Mexican peons' attempt to free themselves. Unfortunately for the realisation of the film, the Americans could not rid themselves of the idea that Mexicans are white " niggers " and as such, figures of low comedy, or " bad hombres," and as such figures of cowboy melodrama. They have conceived the Mexican fight for independance on the lines of a Western with all the attendant plot circumstances we know so well. The film must have been a headache for M.G.M. The only way they could avoid the great social issues involved was to convert the revolution into cowboy gunfights and to concentrate on personalities. Consequently the whole film fails as a social document ; revolutionary ideals become purposeless when there are no causes.
Compare this film with October — in the two films there are similar themes — and you will see the wide gulf which separates the social
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