Focus: A Film Review (1950-1951)

276 crew is rendered unconscious by the unable to help, begin their flight back rocket’s velocity owing to an error in to earth. Before they hurtle to the fuel mixture. destruction, owing to shortage of fuel, When the crew recover it is they are able to make radio contact discovered that they have gone right with headquarters and record some out of their course and are making for information. Mars on which they land. Here they All the actors play their parts well, discover relics of a high state of The possibility of controlling world civilisation brought to an end by atomic affairs from another planet so as to blast. Two of the crew are killed by prevent war and the effects of atomic huge stones hurled by the savages they blast on Mars fit in with a modern meet. The two sound members of the mood. crew and a third who is wounded and W. Some Recent Documentaries THE STORY OF THE POPE Documentary, with commentary written and spoken by Rt. Rev. Mgr. Fulton Sheen. A Cornell Film. Distributors: Exclusive. Certificate : U. Category : C. Running time : 45 minutes approx. This is an excellent film essay on the life of Pope Pius XII. With material derived from news reels, library stock and film specially shot for the occasion, a very pleasing outline of the life and work of His Holiness has been assembled. There is an introduction spoken by Cardinal Spellman and the beautiful commentary is written and spoken by Mgr. Fulton Sheen. The film was made for the American market so that it is not to be wondered at that the accent is strongly American. However, this in no way detracts from the merit of the film for English Catholics. I strongly suggest that local Catholic organisations make a point of asking their local cinema managers to show this film. There will be a shorter version available for those exhibitors who think their public will not take the longer one but it is well worth anyone’s while to see the full version. 'l'he story is one that even nonCatholics must find of interest in its description of the events that led up to the consecration of Mgr. Pacelli as bishop, then later his elevation to the College of Cardinals and finally his coronation as Pope. One shot, of which I have a still, showing the Pope as Nuncio in Berlin distributing food and clothes to the Germans, was omitted when I saw the film at the special show arranged for the Catholic Press. This is a pity : for it illustrates most forcefully the fact that the Church knows nodistinction of race or creed where the mercy and charity of God are concerned. The commentator does make the point that the Pope invited soldiers of every nation to the Vatican during the war, and there is a moving scene in which soldiers of various countries,, some wounded, are waiting to be received by the Common Father of Christendom. V. W. B. YEATS: A Tribute Directors: John Desmond Sheridan and George Fleischmann. Commentary spoken by Cyril Cusack. Poetry spoken by Michael MacLiammoir and Siobhan McKenna. “I know these places. I am made of them, deeper than words ...” Thus a younger Irish poet meditating on his birthplace ; and if what he says is true of his kind then this beautifullyphotographed panorama of the natural backgrounds of Yeats’ life is a brief biography of the man himself. For what the makers of this most attractive little film have done is to string together, to the tune of some of Yeats’ more famous, happy and peaceful lyrics, the beauties of Coole, of Lisadell, of Innisfree ; and of the scores of other pieces of Sligo (and occasionally Dublin) whose names and shapes always haunted the poet’s mind. It is true that there is here little enough of Yeats the nationalist, the spiritist, or the undone romantic : the Yeats of the film is the Yeats of the Edwardian anthologies, and some maythink a poor relation of the angry, peer