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The title Ecstasy which does not correspond to the film at all, already shows the means by which the film-renters and cinema owners — in Vienna at least — wanted to attract the audience. The film which is purer and more innocent that the stuff which is on the screen daily was announced as " erotic sensation, revealing the mysteries of sex, etc.", they put stills in the windows where the principal actress is shown bathing nude, with a strip of paper pasted across her body, and there were interviews in the newspapers, where the actress declared she had been forced to play these scenes. But I have a slight suspicion that the number of the people who did not go to see the film because of the tasteless advertisement was greater than the number of those who expected a pornographic sensation and were seriouslv disappointed.
T. W.
COUNTER PLAN.
Counter Plan, the new Soviet talkie jointly directed by Ermler and Yutkevich has received a chorus of praise from the New York critics. The " Herald-Tribune," for instance, describes it as " Russia's ten best rolled into one." While not agreeing with this somewhat rhapsodic estimation, we can nevertheless say that Counter Plan is an important film, a film that no up-to-the-minute student of Russian life can afford to miss.
First, let us consider its social aspects. The Russia presented here is the Russia of large-scale and quick-tempo industrialisation. The social consciousness of the people is centered on the job. At all costs the job must be done and done on time. But don't assume that Counter Plan is all machinery. It is people and machinery — their own machinery for which they are responsible. And so when the job breaks down, when the cylinder for some inexplicable reason is found to' be "off centre," the reactions of the people associated with the factory towards the disaster are minutely examined.
There is Babchenko, a tremendous character, an old and skilled workman who likes his drop of alcohol, and is consequently in the bad books of Pavel, the editor of the factory paper, who is altogether too hard on the old man.
There is Vasia, leader of the Party Cell, who understands the foibles and weaknesses of the old man, and plays up to them. For Babchenko is a type we can readily understand and sympathise with — an old worker who has not got accustomed to these " new fangled ideas " of collectivisation which they have introduced into " his " factory, but who nevertheless takes a tremendous personal pride in his work, and who, thanks to the sympathetic attitude of Vasia, gradually approaches to a fuller and deeper understanding of the new society.
There is the engineer Skvortzov, another wonderful character. He it is who has sabotaged the factory. His type is portrayed with complete objectivity— there is not a suspicion of exaggeration . He knows of the defects in the plan of the turbine. But he is paid for working, not for reporting other