History Hit By A Sandstorm

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 35, 10 February 1939, Page 14

History Hit By A Sandstorm

["Suez." 20th Century-Fox. Dir. ected by Allan Dwan. Starring Tyrone Power, Loretta Young, Annabella. Just released.] * DD to your list of major cinema disasters-which should already include the earthquake in ‘‘San Francisco,’’ the fire in ‘‘In Old Chicago,’’ and the South Sea hurricane which Sam Goldwyn conjured up for Dorothy Lamour -the Zobah-hah (or "devil wind of the desert’) which sweeps, with the sound of souls in torment, through several hundred feet of Mr. Darryl Zanuck’s latest picture, "Suez." As seen here, a Zobah-hah resembles a preview of the Day of Judgment, consisting as it does of a mixture of sandstorm, earthquake, typhoon, and practically any other unpleasant upheaval of Nature that one can imagine. It represents the chief difficulty with which Tyrone Power, in his character of Ferdinand De Lesseps, has to contend while carrying out his ambition to dig a ditch as a short cut between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. To the tune of 250,000 dollars on the studio’s production budget and shrieks from the thousands of canal-digging extras, the Zo-bah-hah advances across the desert in the form of a whirling, funnel-shaped column of sand. When it strikes the camp it tosses everything about like pieces of cardboard-including tents, human beings, donkeys, massive dredges, tall watertowers, Tyrone Power and Annabella. The city of Wellington may think it knows what wind is like, but Wellington has yet to experience a Zobah-hah! While it lasts, this phenomenon blows everything out of mind, except admiration for a very remarkable piece of camerawork.

Only when the wind drops is one’s critical faculty able to function normally again. Respect For Facts ARRYL ZANUCK is an ambitious man, and I admire him greatly for his oft-proven ability to produce tremendous screen spectacles. But I do suggest that when Mr. Zanuck decides to make an historical film he should show some respect for history. What Mr. Zanuck does to the facts about the Suez Canal and the career of Ferdinand De Lesseps is almost as cataclysmic as what his Zobah-hah does to Tyrone Power’s ditch. I shall refrain from going into details, except perhaps to point out that De Lesseps’s father, whom the film shows as being mainly respon-

sible for Louis Napoleon becoming Emperor, had in reality been dead nearly 20 years when that happened. And where on earth did Mr. Zanuck get hold of that story about Disraeli and Palmerston, and about De Lesseps’s agony of unconsummated love for the Empress Eugenie? Actually she was his cousin and at least 20 years his junior . Change Of Heart FIOWEVER, apparently Darryl Zanuck himself has had a change of heart about this question of screen history, and has just announced that, in future, he will be more careful with his facts. This is cheering news, and in view of it I should be ungeners

ous if I did not acknowledge that. apart from the history and a few other things, "Suez" has a good deal to commend it. As has been indicated, the main attraction is the Zobahhah; but among the minor catastrophes with which De Lesseps has to deal is a sequence of a canal-cliff being dynamited by Turkish guerrillas, which ts only Slightly tess impressive and exciting. Some of "Suez’s" vast panoramic scenes showing the construction of the canal are very realistic. Others are not so real; but ‘generally speaking the spectacle ‘scores all along the line. Annabella Best N the acting side, the best performances are not those from Tyrone Power (who emerges from years of harrowing ex‘perience without a grey hair) or Loretta Young (who is beautiful, ‘but not imperial, as the Empress Eugenie), but those from Annabella and Miles Mander. Speaking much clearer English than heretofore, Annabella is quite convincing in character as the desert girl who tries to console De Lesseps for the loss of Hugenie. De Lesseps, howéver, is in love with his ditch, and Annabella chokes to death in the Zobah-hah with her passion unrequited. As Disraeli, Miles Mander (who, by the way, used to have a sheep farm near Gisborne), looks sufficiently like George Arliss for his performance to be considered highly satisfactory. a