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operative spirit it breeds, has been caught in the story and in the acting. There is an agreeable freshness about the film and though it has not removed my mind from la crise, it at least succeeded in doing so for ninety minutes. The sound is indifferent and the print worse but the gaiety shines through. There are none of the arty effects of Clair, nothing is carefully timed to get the maximum effect, yet the very honesty of its fun is infectious. The director is Robert Siodmak, maker of Menschen am Sonntag and subsequently with Ufa.
D. F. T.
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON JUAN {British. London Films). Stylistically, this film is what we have come to expect from London Films but it has no other points to commend it except style. It is said that Korda has brought to the screen a sophistication which British pictures have hitherto lacked ; but it is the sophistication bred in the Mayfair drawing-rooms of Evelyn Waugh. His other screen accomplishment is a pleasant, if somewhat exact, sense of pictorial composition, accompanied by efficient art direction. But when, as here, he has no Laughton or Bergner to depend on, the film appears threadbare. Douglas Fairbanks with all his graces — and they are many — is not an actor. He is given a part which not only is he incapable of handling but which patently suggests his own swan song (an unfortunate association of ideas for the box-office) . The film has a generous gallery of attractive women and Binnie Barnes gets some rousing life into a broad sketch of a barmaid. One or two small parts are noticeably well done, particularly the major-domo. The majordomo has long been a stand-by in British films. D.F.T.
NIGHT ON THE BARE MOUNTAIN {French. Film Society). This short film introduces a new method of animation, the particulars of which are the secret of the inventor, AlexeiefT. The general effect is of animated engraving. There is a soft shadowy quality in the form, and none of the hard precision of line associated with cartoons. The forms emerge from space, they have the appearance of dissolving to other forms. Three dimensional qualities seem to be easily achieved, and models in animation can be introduced without disturbing the general style. The film, apart from its technical interest, is an imaginative performance, though difficult to describe. Imagine however, a Walpurgis Nacht, in which animated footsteps indicate spirit presences, goblins and hob-goblins appear and disappear and tumble fantastically, scarecrows do a fandango with their shadows on empty hillsides, white horses and black tear across high heaven and skeletons walk. The animation is to the music of Mussorgsky. All film societies should see this film. It is as astonishing and as brilliant a short as they are likely to find. J.G.
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