"Escape Me Never." At the London Pavilion MISS ELISABETH BERGNER
was badly east in Catherine the Great, her first English-speaking talkie. Escape Me Never gives her a real chance and she takes it magnificently. There is something a little artificial, I think, about Miss Margaret Kennedy's story of Caryl and Sebastian, the contrasted sons of Albert Sanger, for it is not really a law of nature that decent behaviour must be fatal to musical genius. The story, however, is dramatically effectii-e, and Gemma, the waif of uncertain parentage who marries Sebastian and sticks to him through poverty and misfortune, is a very appealing figure. The part gives full scope to the peculiarly fluid quality of Miss Bergner's acting, which allows her to run swiftly through the most varied emotions without a sign of effort or a trace of rhetoric. Sebastian and Caryl, too, are very well acted by Hugh Sinclair and Griffith Jones, and Miss Penelope Dudley Ward, as Fenella, Caryl's wealthy fiancee, makes a more than promising first appearance.
The film is a British and Dominions production directed by Paul Czinner and admirably photographed by Georges Perinal. Dr. Czinner handles the action with smooth assurance until the approach of the emotional crisis—the death of Gemma's baby—and then he loses his sense of proportion. It may be right that the pulse of the film itself should seem almost to halt at this point, but there is no need for a multi- plication of episodes all moving like a funeral procession. But the skill of the performers manages fairly well to hold the story together ; and I must say that I cannot remember a talkie in which the range and quality of the acting are so consistently satisfying.
CIIAR LES DAVY
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