THE WORLD IN FLAMES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 77, 13 December 1940, Page 51

THE WORLD IN FLAMES

(Paramount)

"T HE past ten years, the average man in the street is surely ready to concede, have been pretty grim. Just how

grim they have been is puncnea home with quite a lot of force by "The World in Flames," which is 5000 odd feet of mewsreels which have been pieced together and presented for the specific purpose of tracing the events which culminated last year in world war. It is a task which Gunther, Sheean, Miller and a dozen other competent newsgatherers have been able to perform only superficially,» but it must be, conceded that Paramount: have done:a good job... While "The World in Flames" is ‘naturally unable to trace any underlying surges and trends of world’ events, and can only occasionally liftoa.warning finger, a straight-forward presentation of the headline news of the past decade is significant enough in itself. The beginning of the present era. of power politics, the first acts of aggression, the comings and goings of liberators and. dictators and .appeasers, the militant. fever of the countries which had not, the complacency of the countries which had, the lazy indifference of the beginning of the decade, the nerve-taut horror of the end» of it, ar all plugged home in a staccato’series © newsreel snippets. It must have been a perplexing task selecting the material used; it is remarkable that what has been used presents such a coherent picture. Two significant shots: Bearded Count Dino Grandi, on a visit to Washington in 1931, announcing that "Italy wants-a peace-a. Italy-a wants-a — co-opera-tion-a and-a understanding-a among all-a the mations-a of the world-a’; Haile Selassie, a sad, dignified figure pleading his case before the League of Nations to the whistles and catcalls of the Italians.