ADMIRALTY TELLS THE WORLD

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 107, 30 January 1943, Page 7

ADMIRALTY TELLS THE WORLD

Noel Coward Creates Superb Naval Film

(By

T.L.)

He stumped awkwardly down the ship's gangway, steadied himself with his stick and met the embrace of the ecstatic, shabby little woman on the wharf. Through the speeches at the clearing station they held hands like lovers, this man who had seen three years ot the hell that was Crete ami Libya, thm woman who hud tended home and cbi.dren, waiting and praying for the moment that was at hand. Neither of them had mentioned the leg that protruded woodeuly beyond the table. I did though, in the moment when the Prime Minister finished speaking. “It's great to see you back, Jim. Bad luck about the leg though.’’ “Lucky it. wasn’t all of me,” he said in the clipped tones of a man lo whom the homely hills of Wellington mid the sight of tlie woman he loved were too much good fortune. “It's the British Navy I thank for being here at all. Always where they were wanted as any of our chaps in Egypt'll tell you.” This is a timely reminder, a reminder of what British sailors have been enduring and achieving for more than three years without cease or cavil. At sea, too, the few have done so much for so mmiy, just as our New Zealand soldier has said. And at last the Lords of the Admiralty have woken up to the advantages of telling the world. Curiously enough, they have chosen Noel Coward to fell the story. Curious, I say because his characters are apt to speak like typewriters, to quote .Mrs. Patrick Campbell; curious, because he didn’t seem to be the right person when

I watched him on a New Zealand stage bemoaning the fate of poor little rich girls; curious, because he seemed obvious heir to the title of Playboy of the West-End World. It seems that I am wrong. His film of the British Navy at work, “In Which We Serve,” is being heaped with praise. In America it has been judged the finest, film of the year. In Britain it is being called the best British picture ever made. Says an english writer: What the creator of this superb picture most desires is not the civilian chorus of "marvellous" but a nod from the Navy to the effect that it's just a good, true job of work. . . . With its quiet poignant statement of tremendous things the film will drive its way into the heart and mind wherever it is shown. . . . Men In ships lie has seen with a piercing and affectionate eye. Tn tiie Army lie was one of the last war's least happy warriors: to the Navy he has lost that footbail-sized heart Noel Coward has wandered the world, seen the German pyrotechnics over France, talked with the soldiers in New Zealand camps, met the President in America and the Generalissimo in China, and gone back to England to write illother play about .. . Mayfair. For a time he seemed to be a daring young man on a stationary trapeze. But faced with the task of his dreams, the pinking of a film worthy of the British Navy, he walked straight in, cut out. the phony palaver and publicity, and put the whole job through with precision, punctuality and economy. An American critic was probably right when he said that Coward never came nearer to real happiness than when he was making “In Which We Serve.” KING’S THEATRE Not daringly, but with due regard for the Atlantic Charter, the pact with Russia and other heartening signs, “Son of Fury” preaches a mild kind of socialism. Staiiding in the dock and only the width of a sword’s blade from the gallows, Benjamin Blake talks eloquently of an England where every man, whether his pocket*; be full or empty, may walk with his head held high and a aong of freedom in his heart. But apart from its value as a small social document, I found “Son of Fury” an uncommonly entertaining iilm, well acted, fairly authentic and certainly exciting. It was a curious world into which young Benjamin Blake was born. George the Third was on the throne and Britain was on the road to world power. Bristol was a flourishing port and there, was none more powerful or more feared in the town than Sir Arthur Blake. But there was a skeleton in his cupboard as there was in many others in those rakish, hot-headed days. Living with his maternal grandfather, a gunsmith, was a small boy whom Blake had good reason to believe was his eldest brother’s son. Dolibts existed as to the child’s legitimacy, but Blake was taking no chances. He brought the boy to his estates as a bonded servant, beat him. abused him and treated him as Im treated his other human chattels. Young Benjamin grew up, beat lihs uncle-master and sailed before the mast for the coast of South America, lie made a fortune in pearls, returned tv claim his birthright, settled his estates on the ill-treated servants (socialistic touch, this!) and went back to the pearl-bearing island to live. This last touch rather belied the stout character which had been built round the person of Benjamin Blake in the preceding 8000 ft. of film. Tyrone Power, wider of chest and more bulging of muscle, makes a splendid Benjamin Blake, the Son of Fury. George Sanders’ lip curls more contemptuously than ever us the cruel Sir Arthur Blake. Gene Tierney is a little too hot-cha-cha as the eighteen th-cent ury island girl. Roddy McDowell is as excellent as ever as the boy Benjamin. OPERA HOUSE There were three friends, all flyers. One of them crashes and is operated upon by a young doctor, but he dies. The other two behave boorishlj’ toward the doctor who has a heart of gold and can take it because he knows the two flyers are really sterling follows. Then one of them realizes that he has been a bit of a lout and dies also to show the doctor how sorry he is. And the doctor is sorry, too, and hangs a beautiful big plaque on the dead man’s plane. It is all rather sad—specially in technicolour. Errol Flynn (not. to be confused with the other E. Flynn who is also in the cable news but only because of some Belirian paving-blocks) is the dorter of “Dive Bomber’’—a young naval surgeon attached to the air arm. lie puts wrinkles on his handsome brow wondering how to prevent pilots from getting “black-outs” during dives. Do works furiously with the sur-geon-commander and hands his human guinea pigs all sorts of unpleasant experiences. Fred Mae Murray is the squadron-leader who seems never to have heard that old saw about an officer and a gentleman. He is as amiable as .Julius Streicher in a ghetto, so everyone has reason to be surprised when lie offers himself to the doctors for a high altitude test. Ho climbs up to -10,000 ft, then comes back to earth with a wallop that kills him, which was just as well because anyone with that temperament couldn't have stayed pleasant for very long. Incidentally, do pilots in real life always smile at each other in a palsywalsy way before starting off. then jerk their thumbs skyward in a what-a-good-boy-am-I gesture? Hollywood seems to think they do. PARAMOUNT THEATRE The “Saturday Evening Post” recently printed m article on the amazing success that lias attended Universal studios in their production of horror films. For years now this company lias turned out goose-pimple pictures -and rarely has one Hopped. I'niversal has no monopoly of synthetic! cobwebs, trap-door cotlins. grisly make-ups, or horrid noises, but other studios still seem unable to compete. For a long time now Lon Chaney’s soli has been serving an apprenticeship to take his father’s place*. In Universal's “The Mummy's Tomi).’’ at the Paramount, he graduates witli honours. It is Jen years since Boris Karloff imide “The Mummy,” which is still numbered among tiie screen’s classics. Again there is all the familiar paraphernalia Ihe zombielike creature who might have been born in an alcoholic’s dream, the loro who c<»nies so near eleath that «*ven the most optimistic insurance company would not have* looked at him, the “noises off,’’ the cobwebs, the spiders, the entrapped heroine a net all. I could have? sworn that I read somewhere, months ago, that Gem' Autry had given up his boots and saddle tor n doughbov's life. But the fact remains that Autry’s pictures still continue to arrive' in New Zealand. (Maybe* Im ran off a couple of dozen ami saiel to his studio, “Then* you are. that'll keep you coing till ’ve ’fixed this Hitler guy. > The latest is “Cowboy Serenade*.” lhe first half of the f’aramount's programme, and the mixture a.- before shooting. niiiu* s unit scnnritas.

PLAZA THEATRE There is no getting away from the fact that tile average audience has a decided yen for dramas dealing with the lives of gentlemen crooks, and no matter how many stories are written concerning the gentlemen of that ilk. they will always have a good following. Unfortunately, the plots seldom show much originality —'but perhaps that is just as well, for when that is the ease, one's intelligence is in no wav overtaxed and if at any time matters become a trifle Involved, one has only to throw one’s mind back to a similar «tory to have a little light shed on the tangle.' Just another of sueli stories is "A Gentleman After Dark,” which heads the new bill at the Plaza. Yet, for all that, it is a« good and entertaining a show as anyone could possibly wish for. Tills new film is notable for two things l —first, the suave and finished acting of Brian Donlevy, whose popularity in films seems to Increase daily and who, at times, bears an almost uncanny resemblance to Warner Baxter: second, it marks the return to the screen of that sterling little actress Miriam Hopkins. To divulge the plot really wouldn't be quite fair, as, even though the story lias been told before, it contains quite a sprinkling of elements; of surprise. Suflice to say it concerns a polished jewel thief, his double-crossing wife and best friend, Ills daughter and her future happiness. Preston Foster lends good support and there is a good leavening of romance and sentiment to contrast, witli the more exciting moments of tho show. The womenfolk will probably marvel at .Miriam Hopkins’s amazing "hair-do" in the 'IIHBequences, Actual scones at Buna are the highlight of the first half.

ST. JAMES THEATRE A shopworn American joke about two well-known Boston families runs: The Cabots speak only to the Lowells and the Lowells speak only to God. Another American, born not far from Boston and the member of a. not-so-well-known family, has no such line scruples, lie speaks to the world and has made a fortune in so doing. I mean Bob Hope, that unpredictable Quality whose monthly salary tax must go a long way toward providing tile United States with another bomber. There is no-thing exclusive about Bob Hope—he chats to the other players, tlie audience and the lilm’s operator all in the same picture. His humour is casual. In the tones in which you might ask me to have a cup of tea. Bob Hope will Quite likely pull off a wisecrack which might go down as the smartest and mostQuoted remark of the year. w Have a look at ‘‘My Favourite blonde at St. James and see what I mean. Percy tlie Penguin might, according to the script, be the big scene-stealer, but even through Percy’s bird-brain must have seeped the realization that he was up against some pretty formidable material. Bob Hope Is irresisiible: whether lie is doing his act in a third-rate downtown vaudeville house, ■helping Madeleine Carroll dodge some Nazi thugs in a cross-continental chase, of making shy love in the most unpromising surroundings, lie is as compelling as a neon light in a churchyard. TUDOR THEATRE 1 feel it would have been- a sad blow to my slight reputation as a critic it Jno Gold Rush" had been allowed to leave Wellington after a mere two weeks season. But it has moved from the King s to the Tudor. Charlie Chaplin, the pathetic little figure, the symbol of the masses who laugh a little and fight and die with wishes ungranted, tlie man w “0, in becoming the world's greatest comedian, has become almost frightening In his interpretation of our civilization, is. of course, tlie leading player in "The Gold Rush, of which he himself said nearly 18 years ago, ‘‘This is the picture that 1 want to be remembered by.”

Entertainments

(Continued from Page 7.) MAJESTIC THEATRE Tn five short weeks the mere mention ot "Mrs Miniver” has become a sort of open d" in’that awful air-raid shelter! And 6 °The niorc serious-minded have (like Via Miniver In the film) to talk th< r l ends off about (a) ‘ he . "'Jh/i “,’lish ..hit. Hi'it thr- Minivers bear to tne n• 1 lie ela’s (b the film's blatant and anituuaie cut... \ „ .. British peoples* KISS'S."™™ a T'IH ha?e my I'll still say "Mrs. Miniver.

DE LUXE THEATRE

There are specialists in cNme and there are "neral practitioners. The Black I arrot belonged’to the second group, a d aery nrnfitnblo he found it, ro °’x- I T>..,r Of propaganda that Crime course he gets i.u hilt u I “heat onf AmoXan friends say. the r ”5 n qU Xd f • shin (wh ch seemed recklessly unconcerned about, .blackouts and Ideals), a mtg t, "’tumbles across the that the for "po^sVsdon^of eahlnet In the confusion aris ugfnn,a fnßo submarine warning, a siran»tr i pears in the cabin of the heroine, "’ho 19 to the cabinet's owner L»ndigin lias reason to believe that flic I> laik l ■ is at work, and his suspicions deepen whin he finds the girl's unde murdered. Need T sav that the Black Parrot was at work, that’ the newspaper man, coming near death in the process, runs him to earth, ami that the girl rewards the hero by n ’cr?rne'’and punishment is the theme of the' other film. “Bullets for O’Hara. iLmls Perrv and Roger Pryor play the leads with’Marls Wrixon, who has a busy tlnu. during the evening. She appears both before and after the interval.

Tivoli Theatre. —“The Drum” i« a gorgeous technicoloiir film tolling a story ot the north-west frontier of India and starring Sahu, supported by Raymond Massey.