Home Movies (1954)

"•Mills FESTIVAL By LEON VICKMAN Home Movies Paris Correspondent (Conclusion ) National Trends To sum up the Cannes Festival a brief look will be taken at the over-all national tendencies as shown by the Festival entries. Germany, in presenting When You Are Near Me (also starring Maria Schell) showed a certain amount of progress. This film is only slightly above average, The Last Bridge (Austria), directed by a German, is a significant achievement, and one can no doubt look forward to a rebirth of the German as well as Austrian cinema. Brazil presented two features, Naked Amazon, and The Song of The Sea. The first was an interesting traveloguedocumentary but, aside from some extraordinary shots of animals, was only average. The second film may be dismissed as a poor attempt at something between neo-realism and romanticism. Neither lives up to the classic proportions of the Brazilian film about a group of bandits, O'Cangancerio, which showed in Paris last year, and signaled a new direction in Brazilian films. Egypt has made progress, as shown by The Blazing Sun, but in her attempt to imitate Hollywood she has still a long way to go. India may also be grouped under this criticism. Pamposh : Lotus Flower, was somewhat more typically Indian but its theatrical acting and immature direction was most disturbing. Two Hectares of Ground was India's best, but left much to be desired. Spain presented a good picture, a bad one, and an average picture. The bad is The Adventurer from Seville. The good is Anything Is Possible in Granada, starring none other than Merle Oberon, who speaks Spanish extremely well. She plays an American businesswoman who wants to buy some uranium-rich land from a handsome Spaniard, who falls in love with her, and the two find a treasure and live happily ever . . . This rather pleasant fantasy is somewhat in the same tone as Welcome Mr. Marshal, an amusing Spanish film presented last year in Cannes. The average film was Comicos, the story of theater actors struggling for success. The photography framing was especially interesting. Spain seems to be developing her film industry. The United States was leading in screen size and quantity with two feature Cinemascope films, Under The Twelve Mile Reef, and The Knights of The Round Table, but no one doubted that these selections lacked in quality. Little Boy Lost with Bing Crosby made a reasonable impression on those so inclined, and of course there was the very good From Here to Eternity. Needless to say, these selections can lead to no conclusions about the American cinema. Our readers can best make their own conclusions. The general opinion prevailing at Cannes was that if something was not done to give Cinemascope film a little artistic quality they would most certainly drive the movie-going public back to their television sets. As mentioned, the three selections for France were of secondary and lower quality compared with the FrancoEnglish film Monsieur Ripois. The French cinema is not as bad off as the Cannes selection might lead one to believe. Touchez Pas Au Grisbi is a great film of the year not in the Festival. One of the dangers to the French cinema is the competition of the Italian production, which is freer from red tape than the French. Also the French businessmen heading most film enterprizes have certain strange ideas of what the public likes, and hence put out some rather poor films; more movies are needed like Clouzot's Salary of Fear, Grand Prize Winner for France at the Festival last year. England's entry of Monsieur Ripois and The Pleasure Garden shows that the English spirit of fun and pleasantness still continues in their films, usually good. A feature film at the Festival about homesteaders in Nova Scotia, The Kidnappers, is a delightful J. Arthur Rank production directed by Philip Leacock which features two little boys with natural ability for the screen. Though this film is not a masterpiece, it is well done and will no doubt show in the United States. It was received by the Festival as a charming experience, rather long and trite, but charming all the same. Greece showed a feature film Awakening of Sunday, which seemed to be an imitation of French and Italian cinema and a relation to Rene Clair's The Million. The only thing of interest in this film is the feminine lead, Elli Lambetti, a delightful girl with a high voice and charming mannerisms. Hungary's Petite Sou was long and dull, and indicates that the iron curtain countries are dragged down by their obligation to put indirect propaganda into their films, a detrimental requirement. Italy continues its post-war neorealism with Love, Bread, and Fantasy, and The Chronicle of Poor Lovers, and goes into an imitation of Hollywood with The Fantastic Carrousel, but still represents perhaps the strongest production in Europe, which has, and no doubt will produce fine films along with ordinary and poor ones. Japan triumphed with Jigokumon, but its other two entries, Love Letter and Destiny of Women attracted less interest. Nevertheless, Japanese films gained greatly in prestige during the Festival, and there is the near certainty that from now on some great films can be expected from Japan. Mexico presented three films which were disappointing to most people. The awaited film was The Child and The Fog, with Dolores Del Rio, and photography by Gabriel Figueroa. Though the photos were good, nothing of the excellence of Los Olvidados was reached in this film, surely because the scenario was poor and the director was Gavaldon and not Bunuel. Fandango Circus presented by Norway was coldly received by the Festival, since it was a rather trite melodrama which moved slowly and uncertainly. Of interest is the feminine star. Liselil Larsen. Poland's, The Five of Bar ska Street was of genuine interest apart from the propaganda included therein. There is general agreement that Aleksander Ford is very important as a director. Aside from The Grand Adventure which featured some good photography, and the excellent film The Bread of Love, Sweden presented a fairly well-made documentary. Fighter Pilot, which showed Swedish jet planes in action. Sweden continues to be a producer of sincere and good motion pictures. Czechoslovakia has been proud of Pojar's directing of the puppet films such as One More Drink, but in the feature film. Komedianti, one strongly feels the film crew was not free to express itself in telling the story of the misfortunes of a small wandering circus group. Russia's Scander Beg has been discussed. Their over-classic dance film of feature length. Stars of the Ballet Russe proved to be a disappointment, since it was bad cinema and not exceptional as dance. A cartoon called Trip to The Moon is a simple bit of science fiction with no propaganda, but with nothing out of the ordinary either. It is evident that present-day Russian films are tied down to political requirements and tradition to say the least. The Union of South Africa presented a short subject called Wild Life 288