NEW FACES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 872, 20 April 1956, Page 18

NEW FACES

(Edward L. Alperson-CinemaScope) [N some ways one of the oddest films I have seen for months, New Faces | is,-in others, one of the most stimulating and entertaining. But not as a genuine film. Neither Mr. Alperson, nor

his director Harry Horner seems to know what to do with CinemaScope, and they have only the vaguest idea of film technique. Their show, in fact, is something to make the purist shudder and the technician fume-but it gets across nonetheless. It is, in short, a more or less literal camera record of a Broadway variety performance — fast, witty, ' tuneful; and at times uproariously funny. Most of it, I think, would be | enjoyed by the general | film-going public out for a night’s fun, but there’s a fair amount of caviare in the mixture-sophis-ticated comedy and sly allusive satire that will be appreciated most .by those who maintain a fairly steady acauaintance with the livelier American magazines, such as the New Yorker. The best compliment I

can pay New Faces is to affirm that it makes some of the old faces look pretty haggatd by comparison, The most serious criticism-beyofd that already made of the direction-is that some of the dialogue seemed too fast for ears attuned to a South Pacific tempo. Or was it simply that my own ageing éar-drums, scorched by some of Miss Eartha Kitt’s mumbers, were momentarily desensitised? That could be-there’s no doubt that so far as sheer impact goes Eartha is the hit of the _show. She sings several numbers ("C’est si bon," of course, to open up with), and with no help at all from the director.contrives to give CinemaScope something of the quality of 3-D. But she’s not the only attraction. There are two admirable comics in Ronny Graham and Alice Ghostley, and a crew-cut pocketsize juvenile lead named Robert Clary who. sounds like a sophisticated Norman Wisdom (if you can assimilate such an association of disparate ideas). With another dozen assorted singers and stooges they keep the pace cracking so merrily that in 9000 feet of film there’s literally not a dull moment, little Harry Horner notwithstanding. And the Eastman Colour is easy. on the eyes, too.