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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 299, 16 March 1945, Page 18

) HAVE already reviewed World of Plenty in its 16mm. | form (Listener, December 15, | 1944), and have included it in my | list of the Ten Best Films of last | year, but since it has just been /made available in 35mm. form for release in commercial theatres, it seems appropriate to draw attention to it again. It certainly merits all the attention it can receive, On second viewing it is just as good, just as absorbing and exciting, as on first acquaintance, and the sound reproduction is better than in the 16mm. version. Not many films are applauded at their close by ordinary theatre audiences, but that happened the other evening when I saw World of Plenty. Produced by Paul Rotha for the British Ministry of Propaganda, with commentary written by Eric Knight, the film is not only an outstanding example of the documentary technique but is also a ;most telling argument in favour of | international control of world products, particularly food, in’ the interests of the common man in all countries. See it if you possibly can, now that it is available for general exhibition, and, if it doesn’t come your way on ordinary theatre programmes, I would suggest that you might start asking why. This is one occasion when the box office should not: necessarily be allowed to have the last word. % Ba * EFORE too many people start drawing my attention to it, I had better acknowledge a slight error in my review of Colonel Blimp last week. This was my reference to the German character (played by Anton Walbrook) as a "Nazi." It would have been more correct to describe him as a Junker. Still, if the sentiments he expresses in the train scene were not typically Nazi (since the Nazis were not then in existence) they were the kind of sentiments on which Nazism was built. In any case I doubt if the distinction affects my general argument; indeed, it may even strengthen it. For when you look on the German as being a Junker-that is, a representative of Germany’s traditional miltary ruling class-I think it becomes much easier to understand why Blimp should feel such friendship and sympathy» towards! him than it would be if the German had merely been depicted as a Nazi. Gad, sir, we Blimps haven’t anything in common with those jumpedup Nazis! On the other hand .. . See what I mean?