THE BLUE MASK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 915, 22 February 1957, Page 16

THE BLUE MASK

(Herzog-International Films) G Cert. |F I understood German, it’s possible that I might have enjoyed The Blue Mask more than I did, for I’ve never found. it easy to keep one eye on the sub-titles and the other on the action. As it was, the only snippet of dialogue I caught was "Ich liebe dich,’ spoken by the hero to the heroine a few feet short of the final fadeout; and possibly I wouldn’t have got that either if Schubert hadn’t made the words familiar. This is a musical production, and in some respects quite a lavishly mounted one. The photography is occasionally striking, and I am rather partial to Agfacolor, in spite of its tendency to accentuate blues at the expense of other colours. But the plot, which hinges on mistaken or concealed identities and the contingent comedy of misunderstanding, seemed a bit shopworn and, indeed, the whole spirit of the show reminded me of the determined gaiety of the thirties. I’m prepared to agree that the star, Marika Roekk, is a nippy dancer, something of an athlete, and (generally speaking) a bit of all right. But with the help of a good Parisian couturier (not to mention a good Parisian coiffeur) she might have been a bit more so, BOOKSHELF THE CINEMA TODAY, by D, A. Spencer and H. D. Whaley; Oxford University Press, London, Cumberlege, English price 12/6. GRAF SPEE, by Michael Powell; Hodder and Stoughton, English price 15/-. HE CINEMA TODAY (No. 10 in the Oxford "Pageant of Progress" series) is the second edition of a work first published in 1939, and now-of necessitypractically rewritten to catch up with developments since then. It is primarily an elementary manual of instruction on the mechanics of film production, and for those who like to know how the wheels go round is a good summary of basic ‘principles and

practice. There is one chapter on the social uses of the cinema (touching briefly on censorship in Britain, the work of Mary Field, educational film, and so on), but in the main this is «a technical guide. Some _ knowledge of photography is presumed in the reader. Apart from that the exposition is lucid and there are numerous plates and diagrams. Graf Spee is Michael Powell’s account of the River Plate action-a by-product -of the research he carried out in r Hagin Pigg nad Aaa a naval expert: (he does not appear to know, for example, what constitutes a capital ship), but he does not claim to have written more than an adventure story. And as an adventure story this is quite a readable effort.