"SEVEN LITTLE AUSTRALIANS"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 38, 15 March 1940, Page 42

"SEVEN LITTLE AUSTRALIANS"

Elocution Plus Camera INCE the days when I saw my S childhood’s elocution mistress -Marie Ney--sitting stiffly and apprehensively astride an elderly horse as the "Squatter’s Daughter" I have avoided, with happy success, Australian-made films. Nevertheless, it was not altogether a penance that took me to the private screening of "Seven Little Australians." I was interested to see what the years between Then and Now had contributed. And also the extent of success or otherwise with so vital a character as " Judy"-heroine of that children’s classic. Remembering again the emotional havoc wrought in me at a probably too early age by the mere reading of this book I wondered at their daring in attacking so human a theme-or might it prove stupidity? $o far as the years were concerned I found they had improved photography.

-though there were still too many "scenes" to make the thing run with anything suggesting rhythm. For the rest it was, if not stupidity, sheerly rash. In Judy I found -instead of the vivid vital child living on nervous energy that tossed her to emotional heights and depths-a stolid and likeable but unprepossessing girl with lazy movements, aggressive good health, who was made to pronounce platitudes and heart-shaking truths in the same robust monotone. This "wholesome" note ran throughout the film and was no doubt inten-tional-but somewhat painful. One good thing: those who dread being emotionally torn to ribbons need not worry. The final, and horribly over-stressed, suggestion that the sacrifice of Judy was necessary to the regeneration of her father is wholly nauseating. Nevertheless, projected through a series of shots depicting changing seasons, blossoming boughs, twittering birds and airy clouds afloat in a tranquil heaven we are brought to where he pauses among the tombstones of the churchyard and, to the accompaniment of bells and a thick Sabbath sanctity, turns to his young wife and promises to be a better father. By the way, this was all before the days of "Oxford groupers," wasn’t it?

A.

G.