World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

of musk in a garden ; he had imagination, and he knew how to tell a tale. Michael Strogoff has its absurdities, and it does not amount in all to anything more than a boy's thriller. But it has an irresistible momentum in its narration, and the vivid incidents so follow one another that it is quite impossible not to see the thing through to the horror of its climax and the relief of its ending. Away from the cinema, indeed, it can all be easily reduced to something like nonsense. Miss Grahame opens and closes her lovely eyes with an ecstasy of slowness and has no other expression whatsoever, except once when she falls flat on her back in a faint when a dancing bear gets out of hand. Elizabeth Allen is charming and Anton Walbrook has the temerity to act superbly throughout and to take absolutely everything with a burning-eyed seriousness. This last is a grand performance. — James Agate, The Taller Dance Under the Gallows (Czecho-Slo vakian .) Palo Bielik. Once in a long while a great film appears on the international screen, and Dance Under the Gallows, by general consent, is such a film. The scene of the story is Slovakia, and its hero is Janoshik, a peasant's son who once lived in the Carpathians and whose name is held in reverence by his countrymen of to-day for the part he played in the struggle of the serfs for liberation from the bondage in which they were held by the nobles. In Dance Under the Gallows Janoshik is a dashing Robin Hood, who lives with his band in the mountains and descends into the valleys to take from the nobles what they have taken from the peasants, restoring his booty to the original owners. The outstanding things about the film are the photography and the remarkable performances given in the main parts by unschooled players. Janoshik himself is played by a Slovak gendarme, M. Palo Bielik. The climax of the film is the last scene, when Janoshik, standing under the gallows, is granted his last wish — -to hear the gypsies play for the last time the song he loves about the lime trees, and to dance to their music. This is a scene of rare dramatic quality ; the whole film, indeed, by some method of chance is rare and refreshing. The figure of Janoshik, as played by M. Bielik, is unforgettable; and the Carpathians provide a romantic and lovely background. • — Vienna Correspondent, The Times Mad Girl (Leo Joannon — French.) Albert Prejean, Danielle Darrieux. It would be difficult to find two more sharply differentiated performances than those of Mile Darrieux in Mayerling, and of the same young lady in her present picture, wherein she gives a demonstration of shrill-voiced and prolonged tantrums. I treasure a fond memory of the grave and tender young Countess who offered the solace of her love to the tormented Rudolph, and would fain regard her tempestuous and tardily-tamed shrew as a flash in the pan. The plot of this petulant piece has been devised by Yves Mirande, who is, we are informed, the most successful comedy writer in France. The playwright has been content to rely on an exceedingly slight story, and labours the main situation beyond the limits of its humorous potentialities. — Michael Orme, The Sketch In the current effort Miss Darrieux races lightly up and down the histrionic keyboard, and flits with ease from passion to disillusion, thence to attempted suicide, and back to passion again, with an air of slightly satiric gaiety which suggests that nothing is really serious when you know it is funny. She is supported in a sophisticated way by Albert Prejean, Andra Roanne, and Lucien Baroux, who nearly steals the film at times, and the English captions rarely annoy. Whether Hollywood can do justice to this wistful and winsome Parisian girl remains to be seen, but remembering the experiences of Lilian Harvey I have qualms amounting to positive doubt. — Paul Dehn, The Sunday Referee. Critical Summary. It is sad that the memory of "Mayerling" should have been marred by the sight of Mile Darrieux in such a very different role. We cannot criticise an actress for wishing to show her versatility, but we could have wished that if a change had to be made it might have been achieved a little less violently. The Thirteen (Mikhail Romm — Russian) Ivan Novoseltsef, Helen Kuzmina, Alexei Tchistyakof, Arsen Fait. The Thirteen is a dramatic Soviet sketch without the usual emphasis upon the Soviets' message to the world. It is a mere adventure story, an episode laid in the desert wastes of Central Asia, and reminds everyone who see it here of The Lost Patrol. I imagine I could list other films and stories it reminded me of, for The Lost Patrol itself seemed cast in a familiar pattern. I don't object to that in the least, for it is a good, sound pattern and I expect to see it often. The classic pattern, I might say, though The Lost Patrol departed from it, is to include a lady. Men without ladies seldom get lost. Upon the thirteen come the Afghanistan sand-storms, and then, soon enough, up turn the wicked Bashmachi, who are bandits. The resistance of the little troop to these Bashmachi is given with that power characteristic of Russian films. The subterfuges with which the thirteen besieged people foil the large hostile force, the means they take to suggest that they are a greater number than they actually are — such detail conveys to the spectator a sense of real desperation. Careful camera work, soldiers who look like soldiers, and a general expertness make the whole picture an honest and moving rendering of this particular model of crisis and adventure. — John Mosher, The New Yorker 'Yiddle with his Fiddle' Yiddle with his Fiddle (Joseph Green — Polish.) Molly Picon. Yiddle with his Fiddle was made by a Polish company in Warsaw, and has Yiddish dialogue with superimposed English titles. The prevailing fashions in movie plots have reached Warsaw too, so that we have Miss Molly Picon dressing up as a boy although her features and indeed her outlines are ill-suited to Transvestismus: nor are matters improved by her retention throughout the film of a Cupid's bow of lipstick. The hero, as usual, thinks her an awful mollycoddle and treats her rough until she emerges from her improbable chrysalis, when he instantly capitulates. All this takes place against a background of vagrant fiddling and Polish countryside and old Yiddish customs which is fresh and attractive. The picture is full of the ancient and unquenchable vitality of the Jewish race, overflowing into dark, abundant pools of melancholy, lawlessness, vulgarity and beauty. —Christopher Shaw, The Spectator A film from Poland is a rarity, and the rural and village settings are here not only interesting but also very artistically photographed. An artless story of strolling musicians (not always in synchronisation) has dialogue in Yiddish, with sub-titles in English, tinged with ill-advised American slang. Nothing much happens, but it keeps moving, and there are songs, all in a minor key, which I found slightly monotonous. Molly Picon, already known to Londoners, is a most vivacious screen personality — a sort of Hebraic Binnie Hale, with a fine range of comedy and pathos. She must be seen in another film. Why not star her, say, in Gold Diggers of 5698 ? — P. L. Mannock, The Daily Herald 29