78 BRITISH STARS TOE THE LINE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 199, 20 May 1944, Page 8

78 BRITISH STARS TOE THE LINE

“Forever And A Day” Follows The Fashion

(By

T.L.)

“Forever and a Day” (Plaza), the latest star-studded screenful, represents the collaborative efforts of Hollywood's Bri-tish-born colony, lacking only Gracie Fields and the little puddin' basin. Sev-enty-eight stars and feature players, 21 writers, seven directors and technicians to match, give their all —if film figures of this kind impress you any more. R.K.O. are donating the profits to Allied charities, and though,the picture’s title has been altered several times since Sir Cedric Hardwieke undertook the job of producing it three years ago. the theme has remained unchanged. This is the story of a London house and the people who lived in it—from 1804, when a choleric retired admiral built it in the face of 'Napoleon's expected invasion, down to the present when it served as a bomb-tumbled shelter from the Luftwaffe’s indiscriminate wrath. Considering the necessarily episodic nature of this extended “Cavalcade,” Hardwieke has brought off a reraarkablj- successful film. The story is occasionally too sentimental, sometimes evpn snobbish, but for each liti tie fault there is the ample compensation of deft humour and poignancy. Merle Oberon, who seems to be giving a great deal of her time to free acting lately (she is also in the war-eharity “Stage Door Canteen”), plays an important part in the Plaza’s film, and plays it cogently and well. And there is. too, the fine work of the enormous cast.. To name a few of the many: Ida Lupino, Anna Neagle, Charles Laughton, Ray Milland, Brian Aherne. Robert Cummings. Roland Young, Herbert Marshall; Jessie Matthews, C. Aubrey Smith, Victor MeLaglen—and Hardwieke himself playing a Victorian plumber who instals a bathtub with Buster Keaton throwing the usual spanner in the works.