THE CINEMA
"You Gotta Stay Happy." (Leicesteo Square.)—" Johnny Belinda." (Warner.)—" Luxury Liner." (Empire.) IT is perfectly easy to stay happy with Mr. James Stewart in what- ever guise he chooses. When one comes to think of it, this is a strange thing, for in no film is he ever, personally, happy. He is perpetually harassed or perplexed, and his smile is as elusive as a moonbeam, yet in the many parts he has played, both serious and comic, he has never failed to evoke a sensation of warm well-being in his audiences. At the Leicester Square Cinema he is the owner of an airline consisting of two planes, and he gets involved with a tnillionairess, Miss Joan Fontaine, who, on the night of her wedding to Mr. Willard Parker, conceives a sudden dislike to him and takes sanctuary in Mr. Stewart's hotel bedroom. Thinking her to be a poor country girl fallen into the clutches of a wicked seducer, he reluctantly agrees to rescue her and take her to California in a plane containing the following items : one cigar-smoking chimpanzee, one embezzler, one coffin containing a corpse, one newly-wed couple
• from the deep drawly south, and a lot of fish. The plane runs into bad weather ; there is a forced landing, a happy sequence in the house of a farmer and, while the undertaker, the fishmonger and the circus proprietor wait in California for their very overdue, over- ripe freight, love dawning all but imperceptibly over the quiet ridges of Mr. Stewart's face. This is a gay film, highly improbable, highly enjoyable, and acted with evident pleasure and no little skill by an accomplished cast. For devotees of the haywire it is well worth a visit. * * * *
In yohnny Belinda Miss Jane Wyman gives a truly beautiful per- formance of a deaf and dumb girl; a performance which should rank high among Oscar candidates. Miss Wyman studied this part for a year, and throughout the picture's making had her ears stopped so that naturally she should always be a little late off the mark, a little slow to react and ever listening with her eyes. The result is a poignant and sensitive portrayal of one all but cut off from the world, uncertainly seeking to understand the ways of its inhabitants simply by looking at them. The scene is Nova Scotia the com- munity fishermen and farmers' the tale a harsh one. The girl, left alone for an evening by her father, Mr. Charles Bickford, is attacked
by a drunkard, Mr. Stephen, McNally, and eventually has a child. The village assumes it is the doctor's, Mr. Lew Ayres', as he has been much at the farm teaching the girl the deaf and dumb language. The complications arising from this misunderstanding are violent, but although there is much tilts is ugly in this film the strength and tenderness of Miss Wyman's interpretation cleanse it from all unpleasantness. Silence and deafness are the cornerstones of innocence, and even the serpent talks to no avail.
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I have unavailingly raked my soul to discover why it distresses me to see Mr. Lauritz Melchior on the films. In Luxury Liner he sings save for one bitter but mercifully brief little boop-a-doop, nothing but classical arias, and he sings them before a hushed and consecrated audience or in the confines of his cabin. The dining- saloon of a liner is no more or less fantastic a setting than the Nibelungen's highly collapsible cave at Covent Garden, and Melchior whether wearing a leopard skin or a tuxedo, is still Melchior ; and yet I find Mr. Xavier Cugat infinitely upsetting. Even Miss Jane Powell, who is excellent, worries me because she looks so unlike Briin- hild. Touching on art and the prostitution thereof, I have had some profoundly important thoughts, but I realise that could I disentangle them from other thoughts I have had on other things, they would be of no assistance to those who want to know whether Luxury Liner is a good film or not. Let me hasten I-) say, while space permits,
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