CINEMA
Woman's World. (Carlton.)—Simba. (Leices- ter Squarc.)—Welcome, Mr. Marshall, (Curzon.)
As an Englishwoman it is impossible not to look with envy on American women who, it appears, are just as important as thcir hus- bands. This shocking theory is propounded in Woman's World, directed by Jean Negulesco, a glossy comedy in which the lid is uplifted a millimetre from the stewpot of big business to emit only the most fragrant jungle aromas. In the battle for the general managership of a motor company, who will be the victor? Cornet Wilde with his gauche June Allyson, Van Heflin with his ambitious Arlene Dahl or Fred McMurray with his disillusioned Lauren Bacall? The sextet are summoned to New York to be given the once over by tycoon Cliftors Webb, and it is immediately made manifest that the deportment of each lady is a vital factor in her husband's bid for sbpremacy. In a film that is always sympathetic and conducted with un- usually good manners, Miss Allyson depicts the comic, Miss Dahl the sexy, Miss Bacall the sorrowful in life, a fair enough distribution of its main ingredients, and if the men seem a trifle monochrome beside them that is presum- ably because their minds are on their work. Amusing and well acted, the film offers its audiences a sporting chance to spot the winner; not an easy thing to do for the English, to whom the importance of a wife is something of a novelty.
Simha is the first film to deal with Mau Mau, to place its terrors visually before us. Written by Anthony Perry and ably directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, this is an extremely good film, a clear, fair exposition of the life and death problems which face both whites and loyal blacks in Kenya, all of whom move warily in the dark and fearful forest of mistrust. Dirk Bogarde arrives to find his brother brutally murdered. The girl he loves, Virginia McKenna, works in a dispensary under a coloured doctor, Earl Cameron, whom she greatly admires. Confronted with Mau Mau violence, hero and heroine preach opposing remedies, as do so many of their neighbours. and this internecine war adds fresh unhappiness to a scene already steeped in grief. For the atmosphere of grief, as much as of fear, hangs ever Simba, grief of the whites that the servants they have long cared for can no longer be trusted, grief of the servants that, terrorised into taking the Mau Mau oath, they must kill those they love. The confusion of mixed ideologies and conflicting loyalties, the appal- ling emotional muddle as well as the stark facts are brilliantly stated and make the taking of an objective view impossible. The crisis is on our doorstep—in Leicester Square. The cast, which includes Marie Ncy, Basil Sydney and Donald Sinden, is admirable throughout.
Spanish. directed by Luis Berlanga, Welcome, Mr. Marshall, tells of how a small village, warned that a Marshall Plan Commission is touring Spain, prepares to greet it suitably. So sparkling are their efforts that the villagers arc sure the Amcricanos will stay for weeks and give them all they ask for, but in point of fact their benefactors drive in at one end of the village and out at the other without stopping. Only marred by a plummy American com- mentary, this is a pleasing comedy in the Don Camillo mould. ,
VIRGINIA GRAHAM
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