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galloping herds across the Attic Plains.
It is important to remember that the multitudes of this country who see Africa in this film, are being encouraged to believe this fudge is real. It is a disturbing thought. To exploit the past is the historian's loss. To exploit the present means, in this case, the disgrace of a Continent. What reception will it get in Africa? Similar, perhaps, to that of Bengal Lancer in India, The Scarlet Pimpernel in France, Red Ensign on the Clyde. Who cares? It is only entertainment, after all.
Paul Rotha.
ESCAPE ME NEVER
Production: British and Dominions. Direction: Paul Czinner. Scenario: Margaret Kennedy and Carl ^uckmeyer. Photography: Georges Perinal and Sepp Allgeier. Art Direction: L. P. Williams and Andre Andrejew. With Elisabeth Bergner, Hugh Sinclair, Griffith Jones, Penelope Dudley Ward. Length: g,i^8feet.
St John Ervine and James Agate have recently been playing pitch and toss in the Sunday newspapers over the degree of greatness of Elisabeth Bergner's acting, judged from the evidence of the stage version of "Escape Me Never." For once I find myself in agreement with the former who states that the critic who could not instantly tell that the Bergner is a great actress after seeing her in Margaret Kennedy's play is incapable of pronouncing an opinion on acting. The latter argues weakly that if she had filled out the part of the perky little baggage, Gemma, with all the sweeping grandeur and essential nobility of mien, gesture and declamation, "lacking possession of which a tragic actress cannot be called great,'" she would have been false to the character and so betrayed her author. And St John Ervine properly retorts that the very fact that she did not betray her author by making hay of "Escape Me Never" with exhibitions of sweeping grandeur, etc., is in itself proof of her artistry. As a show-piece for the revelation of the Bergner's virtuosity as an actress, I prefer the film Escape Me Never to Catherine the Great and to any of the German pictures, with the possible exception of Der Traumende Mund. The play doubtless exists only in her performance; but this "sentimental little solo in vagabondage" is perfectly fashioned to display every aspect of her technique as an actress. Everything calculated to secure our sympathy happens to Gemma, the wistful little waif, impudent, loyal, intuitive, whom Sebastian Sanger picks up in Vienna and marries in London, where she later loses her baby in the service of musical genius. But the demands on our sympathy, if unwavering, are skilfully made and Bergner chooses the precise moment to slip from laughter to tears, knows
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