Focus: A Film Review (1950-1951)

270 HAVE I LIVED BEFORE? (Ballongen) Starring: Nils Poppe. Producers: Svensk Filmindustri. Director: Nils Poppe. Category : A. This Swedish film, shown privately to the critics, is a disappointing, dull, vulgar essay on the theme of incarnation. It is composed of six episodes in which Nils Poppe is the central character and ranges from a Viking scene to a circus piece. They are of uneven quality and are enlivened only by the whimsical and Chaplinesque clowning of Poppe. He is worthy of better material. Perhaps he will allow someone else to direct his next film. The entirely materialistic conception of the Creator and the Hereafter is, perhaps, to be expected from the decaved Protestantism of Scandinavia. V. SYLVIA AND THE GHOST (Sylvie et le Fantome) Starring: Jacques Tati, Louis Salon, Odette Joyeux, Pierre Larquey, Francois Perier, Jean Desailly, Claude Marcy. Director: Claude Autant-Lara. Producer: Ecran Francais and Andre Panleve. Distributed by Film Traders, Ltd. Certificate: A. Category: A. Running time : 93 minutes. This fantastic French film tells of a girl of sixteen who has a romantic preoccupation with the long dead subject of a portrait, Alan de Francignv (Tati), who had been in love with her grandmother. To. soften the blow of the sale of the picture her father, the Baron (Pierre Larquey), calls upon theatrical agents to supply him with a ghost who will convince the young lady that the spirit of Alan has not departed with his portrait. A young admirer and a young housebreaker are assumed also to come from the agency and the ghost potential is tripled. But this is too easy. There is the genuine ghost to be reckoned with as well. A ball in Sylvia’s honour is wrecked one way and another between the lot. The tender, ridiculous father, the rather coarsely aristocratic mother (Claude Marcy), that absurd tragedian and ghost specialist from the Paris stage (Louis Salon), the tough robber (Francois Perier), the honest undeclared suitor (Jean Desailly), and of course the genuine, non-speaking ghost as well as the comic manservant — all revolve round the solemn little Miss who, fortunately, is cured of her romanticism at the end. It is the French mixture of mockery and tenderness. The English titling is well done, but the standard of elocution is so good that no real difficulties are presented to those of us who travel light with no more than our schoolbov French. X. SUNSET BOULEVARD Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Eric von Stroheim. Producer: Charles Brackett. Director: Billy Wilder. A Paramount Picture. Certificate: U. Category: B. Running time: no minutes. The surprising thing about this film is that the writers have provided such an interesting story on rather a trite subject and that it has been put on the screen very convincingly by the producer. It deals with the penultimate act in the drama of one of the great stars of silent days, Norma Desmond, played excellently by Gloria Swanson, who, having been thrown on the rubbish heap with the coming of the talkies, dreams herself mad preparing for the great come-back. Living in luxury on Sunset Boulevard, she writes a script of her life, so long and impossible that when she learns that nothing will come of it, she is driven to murder. Gloria Swanson has been in the business long enough to have proved her talent, and certainly the stars who can survive their own decade and play on into another and then another, few as they are, do shine out with a brilliance exceeding the popular favourites of a particular day. The other parts are quite adequately played, and it suits the piece that they should be dominated by the star who has stood the test of time. This film has one of the best produced endings I have seen for a long time, and it is as well perhaps that the last act of the drama is left to our imagination. U.