QUEEN VICTORIA FILM HEADS RELEASES IN LONDON

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 20, 16 October 1937, Page 10

QUEEN VICTORIA FILM HEADS RELEASES IN LONDON

"During the last few weeks there have been soiue very interecting films released in London," comments a former Hawke's Bay resident now living in England in a letter t o a frieind in Hastings. "Take first and foremost the film of Victoria mdae by Herbert Wilcox, with Anna Neagle as tlie Queen and Anton AYalbrook as the Priiico Consort. AJmost every paper I have seen has called it the film of tlie year, if not the finest film ever made. it wou. the prize at Venice i'or the best foreign film. I can't help thinking it was a 'gesture' on the part of the Italians for Anglo-Italian fnendship. "Now," adds the writer, "no-ono is mor© anxipus tlian I to pi'aise any film from this country, and I went to the first night at Leicester Square wanting to love every minutc of it in spite of tho ballyhoo with which it was launched. But to mc it is essential that in any film of Quecn Victoria she who talces the name part niust be like the Queen as far as possiblo and musfc have that iminense dignity which Queen Victoria possessed. Queen Victoria was 4ft. lOin. high, and Anna Neagle, I tliink, was 5ft. 8in., and beautiful (in a way), which the Queen certainly was not. Tlie Queen had iminense dignity. Matching Anna Neagle, you fecl she had been tohi to look • dignified, and the result is that she flounces about. "I feel Anna Neagle gives a sincere performance and a good one according to her lights, but only in tlie sccne of the diamond jubilee could I ever think she might have heep "!io Queen. "Anton Walbrook, as - \ Consort, gives an accomplished study. showing a map. of xeal intelligence capablo of detachment and irony. He may not be facially as like the Prince Consort as Oarl Esmond is in the play, but he gets "under his skin. to such an extent that you feel you are seeing tlie man himself. The film is naturally built up to give him as long a part as possible, and it is obviously impossible to show a faithful picture of 60 years in au hour and a-half. "The attempted assassination is not as effectively shown as in the play because we were not told that the Queen had seen the man the previous day and knejv he would probably make the attempt. "Mr. Gladstone, as played by Arthur

Young, is depicted rather unfairly as seeu tlirough the Queen's eyes. Disraeli is rather more lifeliko. "The photography is delightful, cspccially the shots of Windsor Castlo and Kensington Palace. My ono quarrel is with the final' scene, in ■ technicolour — that of the jubilee — which is just a blur aud not nearly so efiective as tlie Coronation was in blaok and white. ■ • "I saw many things whic-h for very good reasons it was not possible to show historicaiiy correctly, but there was no need to make Quoen Victoria promise in 1S37 to govern the cplonies and the Dominions. At that time the colonies were colonies, and it 'was: only much iater that we called, sorne- of them Dominions. " 'Action for Slander' is .a faithful film of the hook by Mary Borden, but because, I suppose, the great British public is not supposed to be, able to bear such a tense scene as the trial sceno they make Morton Selton, as the judge,. a bulfoon. I thouglit this was a pity, as it was. otherwise a worth-while production. It was made bv Victor Saville, who has also just made 'South ;Riding' with some of the same cast. I believe it jvill prove a film well worth seeing. "I am told Gary Oooper in 'Souls at Sea' is well worth seeing, but I havp not sejen it, as with only limited time to aee things I would so much rather see the stage than the shadow-screen."