CINEMA
"The Astonished Heart." (Odeon.) Chain Lightning."
(Warner.)---44 Riding High." (Plaza.) The Astonished Heart is an adaptation of one of Mr. Noel Coward's one-act plays, and it is a little hard to understand why, when Mr. Coward's genius lies so patently in the field of comedy, this harrowing side of an eternal triangle should have been chosen. Mr. Coward plays the central character, a psychiatrist who, happily married for twelve years to Miss Celia Johnson, becomes infatuated with Miss Margaret Leighton, and finds that not all the cerebral wisdom in the world can save him from sinking into an emotional bog of jealousy and unhappiness. The problem is approached by all concerned from a highly intellectual angle, and Miss Johnson even goes so far along the road of civilised behaviour as to send the erring couple away together. There is no solution to be found, however, in Monte Carlo, and the film ends tragically.
The Astonished Heart will not have a wide appeal. For the sophisticated, who rightly cherish Mr. Coward's brand of humour, it will provide moments of delight, but they, not unnaturally, are are. After the advent of love, with its attendant discomforts, there is a glossy gloom which is never dissipated by the warmth of humanity. Only Miss Johnson, who is not with us nearly enough, combines intelligence with real feeling. She can do no wrong. Her performance is exquisitely sensitive. I may say that both Miss Leighton and Mr. Coward are also admirable, and Miss Joyce Carey and Mr. Graham Payn give excellent support ; but the truth of the matter is that, however poignant they may be, the love lives of not very youthful intellectuals do not stir one as they should. * * * * The protagonist of Chain Lightning is a jet plane. Neither Mr. Humphrey Bogart who flies it, nor Miss Eleanor Parker who stands palpitating on the ground, has a chance against this demon, the swordfish nose of which carves the clouds apart at 1,400 miles an hour and the tail of which screams like a thousand falling bombs. This gleaming creature, whose resemblance to a VI disquiets the senses in no uncertain manner, howls like a banshee across and up and down the screen for the greater part of the time, and it is so terrifying and so powerful that one cannot steady oneself between whiles to listen to the film's plot. Mr. Bogart, dourer than ever, mumbles about an ambition which "churns the guts" of a man, but he flies at 60,000 feet over the smallest queasiness. His mediably in their seats by the wish to goodness they were like his.
* * * * Alas! Mr. Bing Crosby, for whom I carry the brightest torch, has got himself into such a rowdy picture that not even his penetrating croon can rise above the din. Riding High is concerned with horse-racing, and Mr. Frank Capra, the director, has really let himself go with regard to crowds, confusion and crosstalk. I like to think that it isn't a sign of old age, but there were often quite long sequences when Mr. Crosby and his colleagues seemed to be talking Hindustani Miss Coleen Gray is pretty, and Mr. Raymond Walburn gives a delightful portrait of an engagingly dissipated old crook, but for the rest you can, I fear, have it. No good tunes, not enough humour, and too much horse. the North Pole without, it seems, audience, however, wedged irre- appalling force of his slipstream, wearing a leather cummerbund
VIRGINIA GRAHAM.
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