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human voice but clucks, cackles and screeches in deliciously distorted imitation of a palpitating prima donna. The unexpectedness of the sounds produces an instantaneous response in laughter. Sound is used with a similar comic effectiveness in the attempts of a duck to recite "Little Boy Blue." The fact that Disney is a comic artist does not necessarily mean that his work is without significance ; and an analysis of his comic uses of sound does not preclude us from honest enjoyment of the fun.
Experiment with sound has not yet spread generally to the commercial cinema, though it is not too much to suggest that Pett and Pott will in time initiate a new approach altogether to the studio film. Meanwhile there has been a sudden outburst of song in the cinema. The crooner has been ousted by the opera star and the air is filled with Wagnerian melodies. Snippets of opera in sentimental stories, of course, must not be mistaken for the real thing and it would be wrong to deduce from the popularity of Blossom Time and One Night of Love that the British are a nation of opera lovers. Yet the new vogue for musical films has not come without considerable public demand and we may assume that this demonstrated desire for something more than jazz and crooning does indicate an advance in musical appreciation. For the most part the new operatic films conform to a conventional pattern and there is little attempt to use music and song dramatically from a filmic point of view. Exceptions are a scene towards the close of Evensong: Irela is resentfully realizing that her career as a singer is over while the voice of the new favourite runs on throughout the scene in a sortofcommentative chorus of exultation ; and another in One Might of Love when the young American student sings from the window of a Milanese garret and gradually all of the musicians in the studios within earshot adapt their playing to her song. But generally the new musical films are content to use the microphone conventionally to record straightforwardly the voice of the chosen operatic star. In addition, we have had Jan Kiepura in My Song for Tou and Joseph Schmidt in My Song Goes Round the World.
Foreign films of the quarter have been comparatively few. The Curzon opened its season with The Slump is Over; the Academy with The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, which Rotha reviews elsewhere. An interesting list of forthcoming attractions includes the new Clair picture, Le Dernier Milliardiare, a Swedish comedy, Pettersen and Bendel and Jacques Feyder's Pension Mimosa. There are vague forecasts of new Russian films including Three Songs of Lenin by DzigaVertov and The Great Consoler by Kuleshov, and the Film Society promises strange importations from Turkey (Aysel, Fille de Montagne) and Poland (Chalutzim). If the promises are fulfilled, it ought to be an exciting Continental season.
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