THE CINEMA
`4 The Accused." (Plaza.)—" Easter Parade." (Empire.)—"Aux Yeux du Souvenir." (Studio One.) Timl is, on the whole, kind to film stars. Although it robs them of the sparkle and bounce, the flashing eye and rounded cheek of their youthful days, in so doing it lays bare any histrionic abilities inherent in its victims, and those whom once we valued for their beauty can be re-valued for their talents. I am thinking at the moment of Miss Loretta Young who, in The Accused, proves she can be more than 'the conventional heroine she has been in the past. As a teacher of psychology in a college (dear heavens, if only someone could teach botany for a change !), who kills a student in self-defence and is too scared to tell anyone about it, she gives a most sensitive and sympathetic performance, not disdaining to look, as any other woman would look in similar circumstances, old and sick with dread. I thought Miss Young excellent, and somehow it gave me great pleasure to see how gracefully she has stepped off the pedestal of glamour into the warmer world of reality.
In this somewhat over-long film, which has nevertheless some of 'the most reasonable dialogue heard for a long time, she is assisted by two versatile actors, Messrs. Robert Cummings and Wendell Corey, and is directed by William Dieterle ; and when we are released from the bondage of psychological chatter, as solemn as it is incom- prehensible, these four make a lively and agreeable pattern. Inci- dentally I am beginning to wonder whether the study of psychology is to the student's advantage. It seems, at any rate, that all screen psychologists get themselves into far worse jams than the average man ; their love affairs are of immense complexity, their inhibitions chronic, and, unlike you and me, they tend to become involved in murders. Miss Young may be a "cyclothymic cutie," but I can't 'see it does her any good.
Mr. Fred Astaire, with whom I have been faithfully in love for e past twen years, is with us once more, in a Technicolor called Easter Parade ; nd I found, as often occurs in the presence of the beloved, that e years had slipped away from me like forgotten dreams. Seeing Mr. Astaire unchanged, dancing with that same exquisite crispness in top hat, white tie and tails, twirling that same swagger cane and singing in that same smal but charming voice
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made me believe that I, too, was unchanged., I became filled with unbounded gaiety, my spirits soared like h sterical larks, and a dizzy desire to run somewhere very fast or jump something very high overcame me. Still with little bubbles of pleasure effervescing inside me and with youth onl5a step behind, I find it hard to review Easter Parade seriously. It appeared to me to be perfect. Miss Judy Garland is not only a first-rate comedienne and singer, but she also manages on this occasion to keep her end up, or perhaps I should say her feet up in the dancing line. She does not fall far short of Mesdames Rogers and Hayworth, making up for certain biological defects by what can best be described as spontaneous combustion. Miss Ann Miller also dances beautifully, the score is by Mr. Irving Berlin and there are some very pleasing touches of humour. As an antidote to every woe from heartbreak to corns I commend unreservedly, and with the foolish grin still plastered across my face, Easter Parade.
Aux Yeux du Souvenir concerns the love of' an air hostess, Mlle. Michele Morgan, for an entirely irresponsible but supposedly irresis- tible pilot, M. Jean Marais. He loves her, leaves her, breaks her heart, returns apparently unaware of the suffering he has caused her, makes her fall in love with him all over again, and in general behaves like a cad. Mlle. Morgan is extremely good, so much so that it annoys one to see her throw herself away on such a worthless fellow. M. Marais's enfant terrible is just a bit too much out of this world, and if I really believed that men such as he were put in charge of passenger planes I would never fly again. M. Jean Delannoy has directed this film with a happy eye and ear for detail, and if one is not too distracted by the hero's distressing charm to appreciate it there is much in this film deserving of praise.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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