The Cinema
"Voltaire." At the Regal.
DEVOTED admirers of Mr. George Arliss who decide to see this film must not be misled by its title. Mr. Arliss certainly looks not unlike some of the portraits of Voltaire, particularly when he sits in an old dressing-gown warming skinny, shanks before the fire. Also the plot is concerned mainly with the Calas case, but its telescoped events are far removed from the original. The Voltaire shown- here is a kind-hearted, testy old gentleman who plays chess with his doctor, writes secret pamphlets inciting the people to revolution, and engages in a complicated battle of intrigue with the unscrupulous Count de Sarnac, Finance Minister to Louis XV. He lives not at Ferney, but in Paris, and hides- Madame de Pompadour in a closet. In fact, the film is nothing but costume melodrama of a familar kind—fairly well done, but old-fashioned and stiff in the joints.
Mr. Arliss, trained in the theatre, has never shown much interest in modern screen technique. Be is content with a part that will allow him to exploit his polished stage manner- isms, and lately he has seemed—like any pre-War actor- manager—to prefer to work with a not too talented supporting east. Miss Doris Kenyon has a certain style and dignity and might have made something of Madame de Pompadour if the part gave her a chance ; but the rest of the acting is very moderate.
Many of these weaknesses, and even the historical liberties, might be passed over if the spirit of Voltaire were ever brought to life in the film—or even if one could feel that Mr. Arliss had seriously tried to capture it. No one knows exactly what Voltaire was like in daily life, so there is plenty of room for personal interpretation. But it is quite certain that Voltaire would never have uttered the wooden rhetoric here put into his mouth, and could never have written the humourless play which he is shown presenting at Versailles. No—the admirers
of Mr. Arliss (and I was one of them when he played the suavely villainous Rajah in The Green Goddess) will this time have to be very devoted indeed.
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