In the matter of films I am the most ordinary
of ordinary citizens. My ignorance of the stars of the profession awakens in my domestic circle mingled incredulity and pity. My conclusion about a film's merits rarely tallies with the best judges' conclusions. But I can't help believing that the best judges' .opinions of "Fame is the Spur," of which I had a pre-view this week, will very closely resemble mine. The theme—the swift rise to popularity of the impassioned young Socialist, his surrender to flattery and the disintegration of his ideals —is not new, but it is worked out here with singularly subtle and convincing delineation, and there is a certain audacity in the gradual assumption by Michael Redgrave, in the chief part, of the likeness of the leading Labour politician of this century. Actually the likeness was closer than the producers probably realised ; I was almost startled to hear the doctrine of the necessity of attuning principle to circum- stances enunciated in almost the identical words in which it was enunciated to me on the highest possible authority on the evening before the first Labour Government took office. This powerful film will make a good deal of talk—and, I should imagine, a good deal of money. It deserves to.
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