LOST ANGEL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 271, 1 September 1944, Page 22

LOST ANGEL

(M-G-M)

IF there is one variety of God’s creatures to whom I am normally allergic it is child prodigies; those preco-

cious little darlings who so artfully prattle and croon, smirk and smooge. But seven-year-old Margaret O’Brien (last seen in Journey for Mar&aret and now starring in Lost Angel) is an exception; a child prodigy who really is prodigious, and-on the surface anyway — not at all artful. I say "on the surface" because obviously it must have required a high degree of artifice on the part of somebody (perhaps the director, Roy Rowland), to make her do many of the things she does so winningly in Lost Angel. You can’t tell me it is entirely natural for even such an enlightened infant as Margaret O’Brien to appreciate spontaneously the fine distinction and the very adult distinction, between the emotions of "liking" and "loving." Where does a director begin when he is teaching a seven-year-old to express that kind of thing; how does he make her understand what he is talking about? I don’t

know, but express them she does. It may be artificial, but within the framework of this story it is most convincing. And more than that, most touching. The child is undoubtedly precocious, but the precocity is inherent in her role, so you cannot legitimately criticise her on that score. One advantage Margaret O’Brien has over the average enfant terrible of the screen is that she doesn’t noticeably look like one. She is not curly-headed or frilly-frocked. Neither does she croon or step-dance, She is Alpha, the wonder child, who was chogen from a foundling hospital when a baby (by means of cranium measurements and exhaustive tests of her reflex actions) as the perfect subject for an experiment in applied education by a bunch of scientists. I seem to remember reading that an experiment,of this sort was actually undertaken on a real baby by some amiable cranks in America, but how it worked out I don’t know, Anyway, it makes a good idea for a film story. Shut away from unprophylactic influences in an Institute of Psychology, Alpha is reared from babyhood in an atmosphere of pure reason, balanced diet, and uncompromising hygiene. Even the unavoidable process of napkinchanging is disguised on her daily schedule under the heading of "Readjustments." By the time she has reached the age of six, she can speak good Chinese and much better English than most of us; she plays chess, reads the history of the Napoleonic (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Wars, understands sociology and mathematics, and disbelieves in fairy-tales. When confronted by a newspaperman (James Craig) who wants her story, she confounds him, on learning the name of his paper, with the remark "Reactionary, isn’t it?" and goes on to reprove him for splitting an infinitive. "But one important ingredient has been missed out of Alpha’s educationhuman affection. She finds that, however, when she sneaks out of the Institute of Psychology in order to join the newspaperman and put to the test his statement that there is plenty of magic in the world if.you know where to look for it. In the process of discovering that there is a vast difference between "liking" her squad of professorial foster-parents and "loving" the happy-go-lucky mewspaperman, she visits a night-club anda prize-fight ("Why do you fight him if you don’t hate him? Not very intelligent, is it?" she asks a boxer) eats too much spaghetti, throws a jealous tantrum over her escort’s girlfriend (Marsha Hunt), reforms a gangster (Keenan Wynn), and very nearly dies of a broken heart before the newspaperman realises that he is not as tough as he thought he was, and agrees to adopt her. Lost Angel may be scientifically unsound, but thanks to the almost incredible performance of its little star, with good support from the others (including Philip. Merivale and Donald Meek among the psycho-boys), its tragi-comic episodes are always charming, often moving and sometimes genuinely beautiful. ,