The Cinema

"Arms and the Girl." At the London Pavilion. —"Accent on Youth." At the Plaza. " The Tunnel." At the New Babylon." At the Forum

Arms and the Girl May- haye set out, in the simple rather.

adolescent- American manner which seems insolubly linked with high cheekbones, fraternities and curious shoes, to

argue that a soldier's uniform has more sex-appeal than a

pacifist's red tie, but it has developed en route into one of the best comedies of the screen since It happened One Nigiot

These two films have a very respectable ancestry, the Restora- tion duel of sex, Dryden's quarrelling lovers, the philosophy

of love so beautifully stated in The Mock Astrologer : `.` Celimena, of my Heart

None shall o'er bereave you : If with your good Leave I may . Quarrel with you once a Day,

:1 will never loave you:" - A general's daughter in love with a college pacifist is kidnapped by her father and dumped safely out of the wa without the Money to return, in Mexico. There she gets drunk with an American private soldier, they haven't the money to pay for the drinks, and by the time the soldier has conic to his sober senses, he has deserted, smashed a Government car, rushed the boundary; stolen a motor caravan and finds himself driving towards California with a girl whose polities he can't stand, who loathes the sight of a uniform and who wants to go west' to her pacifist at Washington and not Nisi. Miss Barbara Stanwyek as the malicious-tongued aristocratic Red and Mr. Robert Young as the reckless irritated privafe soldier give admirable performances. The tradition of sparring lovers usually survives in the form of facetiousness, a dreadful intellectual slap and tickle, but the dialogue of Arms and the Girl-does •:belong, 'however great the difference of quality; to the same unsentimental genre as Wildblood's and Jacintha's " 'Twas a moor Trick of Fate to catch us thus at unawares : To_ draw us in, with a what do you lack, as wo.pass'd by : Had we once separated tonight, we should have had more Wit, than ever to have met again tomorrow."

But for painful contrast : " You are the type of girl a man can imagine in his own home—married I mean." This lover's speech from.Aceent-'on Youth belongs to another world, and so do the direction and the acting of this dreary comedy. There is one good scene at the end of the picture, but I wouldn't advise any but dog-lovers to wait so long. They, of course, will enjoY; Mr. Herbert Marshall's usual canine performance of dumb suffering. Probably before this review appears Accent on, Youth will have given place to Hands Across the Table, an amusing and only occasionally sentimental comedy very well acted. by Miss Carol Lombard, as a gold-digging manicurist,: and Mr. Fred MacMurray, as the gold-digging son of a ruined; millionaire.

The worst films of the year succeed each other rapidly The Dark Angel, 'Moscow Nights and now The Tunnel, one of those lavish films about the future, with television, skyscrapers,: gas masks,' incomprehensible machines: This film is about an Atlantic tunnel and its inventor, whose family life was-' ruined because he was too busy joining England to America: to come home for his small son's birthday. I was quite: unable to sit this film through, though by leaving I missed' the " courtesy appearance " of Mr. George Arliss as the- Prime Minister of 'Great Britain, an actor from whose Athenaeum manner I sometimes derive a rather horrible'

pleasure.

The Forum this week arc reviving Trauberg's silent 'nl.

of the Paris Commune, New Babylon, a slow decorative: romantic picture which should be well worth seeing again.' I. remember a sense of dignity and desolation, mud and drenching rain which ought to suit the Forum. admirably.; I cannot too much admire the policy of Miss Wakeling were' chooses her • films to fit her theatre, its curious shape and' situation. There could be no better impressionist setting for the Soviet films than the long dark tunnel, the intermittent' grinding of railway engines, the pervading atmosphere drifting:

in from Charing Cross of steam and slot machines. . •

GRAHAM C ltEENE,