DAYS OF GLORY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 273, 15 September 1944, Page 20

DAYS OF GLORY

SHORTAGE of manpower in Hollywood is probably the chief reason why this film is heralded as containing a cast of "new personalities." Now I am

all for new faces on the screen-in fact, I’m all for anything which upsets the Star System — and there are certainly some interesting new faces in Days of Glory. But it is not very much good having an interesting face if you haven't got somewhere interesting to put it. And that’s the trouble here. The production, by a _ gentleman named Casey Robinson, is about the activities of a band of guerilla fighters behind the German lines in Russia. At least, that’s where they’re supposed to be, byt they always stay right in the middle of Hollywood. Mr. Casey Robinson had, I think, some good ideas to start with-there’s a certain realism about the scenery and some of the characters in the opening scenes- but he lost them as he went along and as his propagandist fervour became mixed up with Hollywood clichés. So we get, in the guerilla hide-out, the two clowns who squabble fraternally; the beautiful enigmatic girl, a ballerina from Moscow, who threatens to distract the comrades from the stern path of duty; a good deal of semi-sadistic talk (and action) about the sheer joy of killing Germans; and finally a welter of slaughter and sacrifice in which the guerillas fight to the last man (and woman). This climax would be a lot more effective if the last man and woman did not try to recite the Red Army oath together above the noise of gunfire. I am assured that it was the Red Army oath; I thought at the time it must be the Soviet marriage service. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) It. could have been too, for all you can hear. In fact, it isn’t easy to hear a lot of what goes on during Days of Glory. That | may or may not be a great loss-it’s impossible to say-but it is rather, distracting. One of the new faces belongs to Tamara Toumanova, who is a famous star of the ballet. Such being the case, one might legitimately expect that she would be given some chance to dance. She isn’t, though she gets to the verge of it once, and then a Nazi soldier spoils her entrance. Still I am prepared to believe that La Toumanova really is a fine dancer. I am much less cortvinced that she is a good actress. After all, not even the very best actress can afford to be inaudible in the most dramatic scenes, Another of the interesting new faces belongs to Gregory Peck, who resembles Gary Cooper. Physically, I mean. And there is also a Russian professor among the guerillas who is so much the Leslie Howard type that you ‘might almost imagine he had strayed out of 49th Parallel. Oh yes, there are a number of interesting aspects of, that sort in Days of Glory, but they don’t add up to a noteworthy picture.