FLIGHT OF THE WHITE HERON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 784, 30 July 1954, Page 19

FLIGHT OF THE WHITE HERON

(20th Century-Fox) HE most loyal film reviewer could ‘" surely be forgiven for hoping that with this Eastman colour CinemaScope feature the cinema has said its last word on the Royal Tour. There has been an awful lot of it, but all the same most of it has been pretty good in its way, and Flight of the White Heron is well up to standard. No one has made a complete record of the tour. This one

farewells the Canopus on its flight across the Atlantic and then is off in the opposite direction, shooting as it | runs, to meet the Gothic in Suva-thus | depriving us of the West Indies and the | Panama Canal in CinemaScope. But once it catches up with the tour what it presents is nearly all the sort of thing that the new medium does well. Auckland and Wellington seen from afar may — be dull and depressing, but the big crowd and dance scenes in the islands, the Rotorua welcome, street scenes in| Wellington and Christchurch, visits to the races and trots, a whistle stop at_ Oamaru, seascapes, Sydney and | its | bridge, colourful Ceylon, Malta, are all | exciting. New Zealand has been quite fairly treated; Ceylon was so colourful | that the cameraman, Paul Wyand (or was it the film’s editor?), seems to have succumbed and overdone it-though with some lovely stuff. With so much that had to be left out, it’s a pity that background shots like the New Zealand beach picnic were left in, But these are small flaws in a, film which, on the whole; has done well what it set out to do. The commentary, unfortunately, is not up to the standard of the rest. One can agree that this sort of script is not the easiest thing in the world to write, but it’s surely astonishing that an industry whose products cost so much to make should so seldom turn out a film with a commentary one can. enjoy listening to. : ; | On the same programme as Flight of the White Heron in Wellington was Vesuvius Express, a short which in its shots en route makes the most exciting use of CinemaScope I’ve seen. I’m afraid, though, that railways are going to ~provide the expansive screen with one of its first clichés.