WAYS OF ESCAPE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 449, 30 January 1948, Page 24

WAYS OF ESCAPE

(Rank-Gainsborough) ie the soul stoops too ostentatiously to examine anything it never gets up again." I was reminded of Chesterton’s remark (or, more precisely, memory served well enough to lead me to the right place in the bookshelf) after seeing Jassy at a preview the other evening. It is true that Chesterton was discussing penny dreadfuls, and Jassy does not exactly fall within that category-for one thing it is tup-pence-technicoloured. But it shares one important characteristic with. such juvenile fiction in that it is escapist entertainment, more or less pure and certainly simple. Now I don’t propose to join forces with those who condemn escapism in film or fiction. Its most vocal critics, in my experience, are those so fortunately circumstanced as to have little need for escape anyway; and it doesn’t take a Freudian to discover that these afe a thinority in this day and age. But to accept Jassy at its face value requires the surrender of more intelligence than I felt I could spare. It is a wildly improbable story of the kind which one finds serialised, and flamboyantly illustrated, in American women’s magazines. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Norah Lofts (who wrote the original novel) had written it as serial fiction in the first place; there’s an emotional climax about every quartér-of-an-hour in the film. It is the story of a gipsy girl (Margaret Lockwood) who lived in the days of those mad, bad fellows, the Regency bucks, and as the film opens one of the latter has just lost everything-his money, his large country seat, his coach-and-four, and even his wife’s jools-in A painfully unhappy throw of dice. This unlucky chance which both he and his lady accept with well-bred equanimity, inflicts a severe psychic trauma upon their son, who is, apparently, more attached to his ancestral home than to his immediate ancestors. Jassy the gipsy, who comes into the story at this point, and falls déeply and secretly in love with the son, learns of this strange fixation and determines to get the house back for him. Considering that she is then only a dairymaid, and that the new squire is a drunken rakehelly type who horsewhips his wife and drives her from home, chivvies his tenantry with a shotgun in one hand and a couple of mastiffs in the other, throws crockery at the servants, and is the complete autocratic extrovert, it would seem that Jassy has set herself a steep assignment. But as one American advertiser puts it, Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman. Jassy becomes, in quick time, first his housekeeper, then his wife (in name only, as the euphemism has it). And, of course, the price she demanded before tricking the rake into marriage was the House. Squire dies of ratbane poisoning shortly afterwards and Jassy and a little mute housemaid (who had actually administered the poison in an access of deyotion to her_mistress, but.

can’t say so-and apparently can’t write it down either) are charged with murder, As sentence of death is about to be! pronounced, the housemaid regains the power of speech for long enough to clear her mistress, then considerately dies in the witness box before she can be crossexamined. I nearly died from suppressed laughter, so I must conclude that Jassy is good escapism-if you approach it in the right frame of mind. THE ASSASSIN (Columbia) ITH that long, lean puncher Randolph Scott in the leading role, the escape this time is to the westward, for in spite of its ominous title, The Assassin is simply a better-than-average horse opera. On the whole I enjoyed it, as I think anyone will who is. prepared to sted a few years along with his coat and hat before sitting down. Scott plays the part of a six-gun expert who is so fast on the draw’ that other tough hombres are for ever trying to beat him to it, just to show how tough they are. The result of this occupational exhibitionism is a long series of accidents which reaches its climax as the film opens. Scott’s best friend succumbs to the prevailing curiosity-or nearly succumbs, as the daylight is drilled through him-for not even friendship is proof against a thoroughly conditioned reflex. Of course, they don’t put it that way in the West. "When your best friend tries to beat you to the draw," says the hero, "it’s time to stop. I’m leaving this town and my guns for ever; I’m going back to riding the range." Now, as every schoolboy’ knows, to think of riding the range without a couple of reliable shooting-irons is plumb crazy, and when the range (as it turns out) is positively sizzling with rustlers, mayhem,. murder, and lynch law, it comes dangerously close to suicide. Before you can say, "Howdy, pard," Mr. Scott is about to be strung up on a hickory limb for a murder which he simply discovered. Just as the noose descends a well-wisher unties his hands (he’s still*on horseback) and with a whoop they’re off on the first wild chase. It’s a good one, and there are plenty more to follow, and a really first-class fist-fight for good measure. . I have only one criticism to record against The Assassin. At two points Randolph Scott soliloquises. It is true that he doesn’t do it very well-he uses the editorial "we" in one brief bout of introspection, and his simple mind is so confused that his soliloquies effectively conceal his thoughts-but the precedent is a dangerous one to establish. The Western World is no place for intellectual playboys. There is a _ certain (continued on next page)-

(continued from previous page) amount of mild sadism in The Assassin {blood is always bloodier in full colour), but I have no objection to that, It has no ill effects that I know of on children, and I should class this as a film for children-and for those who do not disdain to become as children once in a while. VARIETY GIRL

(Paramount) ARAMOUNT has thrown everything but the kitchen sink into this show, and since one swimming-pool and several thousand additional gallons of water were already provided for in the script the sink was ‘probably not necessary. But I regretted its absence. It would have added a homely touch to a picture which is notable mainly for high-pres-sure whimsy. On the ground that it’s good publicity to. lay all your eggs in the one basket, so long as you don’t leave them there until they Hatch, the studio’s entire clutch has been thrown in to make a Hollywood holiday. In addition to firstgrade eggs like Hope and Crosby there fre a good many indifferently preserved ones. But as a variety show-and it makes no pretension to be other than that- the picture has its bright patches. The two principals behave vis-a-vis as they are expected to behave, for those who crave escape to Bedlam there is a Spike Jones item which looks as phrenetic as it sounds, and [| enjoyed e Sequence showing how the soundtrack is added to a cartoon-or how Paramount would like us to think it is added by the amiable zanies they employ as

sound-effects men. But the opening scenes of the film, which are given over to unctuously virtuous self-advertise-ment would have been better left out. Their connection with the story is as tenuous as the story itself. THE WRONG NIGHT To the Editor-Sir,-I know well that a critic who must judge every year more than a million feet of predominantly poor film cannot avoid succumbing occasionally to the boredom and irritation of it all. It is doubtful whether any critic can survey his reviews at the end of a year and be sure that he has not assessed at least one film too harshly or too lightly. Film critics’ lapses, however, take two forms, one unimportant and the other quite serious. It does not matter much if a mediocre film is over-praised but it is unfortunate if a good film, a very good film, is damned. As a respecter of Jno.’s judgment and an admire: of his style, may I protest that his assessment of The Long Night is erroneous. Far, from being ‘‘confused," "indecisive" and "invidious," it is clear, direct, poetic and inspired. Although a nincompoop at following most Hollyweod murder plots, I found this one refreshingly simple. The film’s only real fault is a tendency to sag around the middle-but this is not commercial paunchiness, merely a minor accident of construction: a period of dialogue without action occurs between long sequences of dramatic (or would Jno. say ‘‘melodramatic’?) activity. For its originality, for its poetry, for its extraordinary direction, dialogue and acting, The Long Night deserves praise. I fear that a film of unfailing good taste and considerable distinction has been unduly condemned. Another line if I may, to praise Jno.’s review of The Man Within, a much misjudged and misunderstood film. : ROBERT ALLENDER (Auckland). (Jno. replies: "In effect, Mr. Allender offers an amendment which is the direct negative of the motion, and it could not be effectively debated except at length. So far as The Long Night is concerned, he has invested the film with a sensitivity and beauty which, I think, existed only in his own mind. It is not an original work, and to call the direction extraordinary puts it mildly.’’)