THE PIED PIPER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 243, 18 February 1944, Page 18

THE PIED PIPER

| (20th Century-Fox)

Most people will enjoy this picture anyway, but if they have not yet read Nevil Shute’s novel they will

probably enjoy it more than if they have; and if they have not yet seen Monty Woolley in The Man Who Came to Dinner their chance of. enjoyment should be still better. Nowhere in his book does Mr. Shute give a very explicit description of the old Englishman who attracts small homeless children to him as he makes his difficult way out of invaded France, but he does mention him as being "a tall and rather emaciated man of about 70, a little unsteady on his feet," and the reader forms his own impression that the old chap is gentle-natured and diffident. That is certainly no description of Monty Woolley, who seems to be a little tangled up in the Beard which he made famous as The Man Who Came to Dinner and which he wears with the same aggressive air throughout the new picture. Furthermore, he is stocky, steady on his pins, acidulous and emphatic in manner; and though it is obvious that a heart of pure gold must beat beneath his beard, since children take to him immediately, he is unquestionably not a man to stand any nonsense, whether from children, Nazis, or Frenchmen who won’t stand up for "God Save the King." I am merely saying that the Pied Piper of the film is not the Pied Piper of the book. I am not saying that he isn’t as good. Indeed, he may be better, for it is possible to take the view that if anybody could have safely steered a snow-balling bunch of children from the Swiss border to the English Channel and across it while France was collapsing, it would have to be somebody like Monty Woolley. Others may find a good deal of real suspense in the story itself, but I didn’t, because I could not for one moment bring myself to believe that, even in the tightest corners, this modern Pied Piper would fail to discover a way out. At the same time, you do keep on wondering just how many strays the old chap will gather round him. and what the next one will be like; and next to the charming performances of the children and the witty acting of the star himself, this cufnulative expectancy does most to make the film entertaining. Considering the subject and its emotional pitfalls, the film proceeds for the most part with commendable restraint, and humour. The worst breach of good taste and good direction is that scene where Monty Woolley gloats over the air-raid on Brest, and even the director seems to have realised all of a sudden that he was making a faux pas here, for the scene is chopped short, and the film goes straight on to the next morning. Apart from this, the action is fairly smooth. Best sequence of all-and it is really good-is the encounter with the Gestapo official (Otto Preminger), who reveals himself human enough to be worried about the future of his small half-Aryan niece and strikes a bargain to let the Pied Piper go if the latter will add the little German girl to his flock and guarantee to find her a home in America. For a neat tailpiece there is the scene in a London club that might have been drawn for Punch.