BRITISH MUSEUM ACCEPTS FILM

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21417, 8 March 1935, Page 5

BRITISH MUSEUM ACCEPTS FILM

AUSTRALIAN NATIVE LIFE POSSIBILITIES (>r A COLLECTION TrsTruitccs of the Emish Museum «ve accepted an ethnographical film, " e Lv. io \>p housed among the *«iK.ai &:cr..\c-i at Bloomsbury. The '**ure Mjt, 'Chang,'' which was pre*%*A to the trustees tome years ago, ' 8 ' l - History Museum, and the wJy precedent. The LiverjJWMuseuir. has a small collection of ••thought worth preserving. «e present film represents the life, ff ted ntual dances of the Worora community in the KimW district of north-west AustraJl 1 ?* duplicate on non-inflammable %*> fllm-aock of one which was ; *tto*. n Jn Melbourne before the Society of Australia 1 Sr f :ely of Australia. %7» v J J'unt.n-ru-id, the Govert *»'turia. an.i ICOO members of i lJ±: '-""'U v mh ,ei-. **,?V'-V'« «■ Ealfoiir. has fcfei- d ,V-''" i ' i - ,i(J '' tl--»t si shall net "-0. Alalia allowed it to be

taken in a Government native reserve only upon this understanding. Arrangements are being made, hewever, to display it before the Royal Anthropological Institute, and other scientific bodies. This gift is likely to form a precedent for the museum accepting other films on non-inflam-mable stock. "SIR TRISTRAM GOES WEST" RENE CLAIR AS PRODUCER Charles Laughton has been engaged by Alexander Korda, production head of London Films, to play the leading part in "Sir Tristram Goes West," the screen play to be directed by Rene Clair. The story, first published in "Punch," is now being adapted for the screen. With his appearance in "Sir Tristram Goes West," Laughton returns to the studio where he first gained world prominence. Richard Bonelli, one of the world's outstanding operatic baritones, has a role with Elissa Landi in Paramount s "Enter, Madame/' which marks his embarkation on feature-length motion pictures. Bonelli and Miss Landi, who trained fo* an operatic career before she became an actress, sing in the second act of "Tosca." Miss Landi plays the role of an Italian opera star in the film, and several scenes of her at work on the stage are included.

expression for people with Mr Cow- ' ard's turn of mind., They are not bur- ; dened down with beliefs; they are too 1 restless to endure dullness and they have sharp tongues. Although "Point Valaine" is at bottom a serious play, Mr Coward enlivens some of it with . malicious satire. The .tiresome lady who feels liverish on the slightest occasion and the shrill maidens who chatter across the hotel verandah represent Mr Coward's impatience with the dullness of meaningless society. His novelist, with the kind heart and the masque of cynicism, is the embodiment of the esoteric art world, which represents the court of last appeal. As his Satanic Majesty, the novelist m a Coward play, Osgood Perkins acts with the undertone of contempt and the surface of good manners that deceive only the dull people who admire writing men. He is quick-witted enough to turn a maudlin interview with a female newspaper writer into a wry satire of all interviewing conventions, and that emerges as witty comedy in the familiar Coward vein. But when the young aviator is humiliated by a romantis episode that has a horribly sordid conclusion, the novelist becomes all sympathy and fatherly understanding at once. In a crisis, when real emotions are at stake, his Satanic Majesty, the novelist, is overflowing with tenderness and pity for the broken-spirited innocents of the world. "Point Valaine" Perhaps that is the key to "Point Valaine." In the main Mr Coward is writing about people who are more human than the glittering phantoms who have been tumbling headlong through his light-fingered comedies, and his understanding of them is deep and thorough. His impatience with dull people does not extend to the chief characters of this play. They are Linda Valaine, the middle-aged, laconical proprietor of the Point Valaine Hotel on an island near Trinidad; Martin Welford, the sensitive and courageous young aviator who is convalescing after a ghastly accident, and Stefan, the guttural, insensate Russian hcadwaiter. What happens is that Martin falls romantically in love with

wrecked another and wrecked herself; and blaming the stars in their courses is the feeblest way out. Moreover, it leave "Point Valaine" destitute of intellectual significance. But I respect it above several more brilliant little plays that have come from Mr Coward's travelling workshop. The six best money-making directors of last year in America were: W. S. Van Dyke, Frank Capra, Norman Taurog, Lloyd Bacon, George Cukor, and Victor Schertzinger. The best moneymaking pictures were: "Little Women," "I'm No Angel," "Judge Priest," "Dinner at Eight." "It Happened One Night," and "The Bowery."