ON APPROVAL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 333, 9 November 1945, Page 18

ON APPROVAL

(Gainsborough)

HIS is a remake of the Frederick Lonsdale comedy (with Tom Walls and Yvonne Arnaud, in 1930. Remember it?) Clive Brook produced,

directed, and adapted the new version, and also takes the starring role of the 10th Duke of Bristol, being assisted by Beatrice Lillie, Googie Withers, and Roland Culver. Quite apart from the fact that I think you will enjoy the film in its own right, I suggest that you might see it for the purpose of comparing it with the American humour of Together Again. For On Approval is a comedy with style, a highly distinctive style. In actual fact, although On Approval is a very English picture, it probably owes a good deal to French models, being somehow suggestive of Sacha Guitryand since it is a story of two trial-honey-moons in Edwardian days, "suggestive" is a not inappropriate adjective. However, Clive Brook has refurbished the old plot with so many new ideas, has pofnted the satire so sharply, has created such a cleverly stylised period atmosphere (with Cecil Beaton doing the costumes and William Alwyn the music) that, although a few of Brook’s devices are rather far-fetched, the total effect is almost as refreshing as it is funny-but refreshing in a curious, old-fashioned way. The film is often deliberately archaic, not only in content, but also in form. The method of narration has a confiding, intimate quality, as if some clubman of another day were chewing over a piece of old scandal-and occasionally smacking his lips. Since this quality detives almost wholly from the direction, oné must regard the film as a personal triumph for Clive Brook, while giving full credit to the others, especially Miss Lillie, for their contributions.