Letters About Films

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 407, 11 April 1947, Page 25

Letters About Films

Sir-It is with profound regret that I violently disagree with G.M.’s review of the film The Diary of a Chambermaid. My regard for his reviews has, up to now, been fairly high, but. I must admit in this case he has sadly slipped. If I did not know him better I would say that he himself has fallen a victim to the "Culture-of-Hollywood" drug. Is the success of a film judged by its having a simple plot, normal stock characters, and a good, common-or-garden, everyday atmosphere about it? The Diary of a Chambermaid has none of these, but yet has a plot perfectly capable of being followed even if the more undiscerning of the atidience have to wait till more film unrolls; the characters are unusually fresh, interesting and, without exception, very well acted, particularly the "sinister thieving valet," obviously the product of a great director-while finally its atmosphere is so amazingly out on its own that I can compare it with no other film that I have seen. And further, to add Freud to Chekhov, Edgar Allen Poe, and ‘Elinor Glyn as possible co-authors of the script is lack of appreciation of a very unHollywoodish (or even Rankish) type of film. What I chiefly liked was the strange, weird environment in which the French city girl finds herself from the beginning; the aforementioned superb acting of Francis Lederer as the wicked valet, especially as, with the change of date, he tears off the "i3me juillet" from the calendar, and the keeping of the spoils of the crime in his: hat as he

buries his victim; the delightful polter-geist-like character of the Captain; the almost hypnotically macabre scenes up to, and after, his sticky end; the stark realism of the fight between the son of the house and the villain with its obvious end; and above all, the sheer poetry of the crowd scenes where the decamping villain is fighting to escape from the’ wrath of at least one person. But not a word of praise from "G.M."! Yes, he has certainly slipped badly this time. And, what is more, I would very much hesitate to assert that I was the sole misguided, uncultured, and uncritical moviegoer to thoroughly enjoy a remarkable film. May there be more of these filmoddities to confound our critics and make first-class entertainment.

P. T.

EVANS

(Wellington).