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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 6, No. 8 June 23, 1943

Film Reviews — Our Opinions—

Film Reviews

Our Opinions—

She Was Only a Landlady's Daughter

The most hilarious double feature I've seen in years inexplicably ran only a week at the Paramount.

In "One Thrilling Night" newly-weds on a one-night honeymoon suffer a maddening series of intrusions and frustrations from the moment the young husband climbs into bed alongside what he fondly imagined is his soul-mate coyly wrapped in blankets but is actually a male corpse. Naturally he regards it as a poor substitute but it is nothing compared to the indignities he has yet to suffer.

"Banana Ridge" began where the other left off. In parts it was unashamedly bawdy. The world's most improbable plot hinged on the dubious paternity of a young man who grew up to be as seductive as apparently his mother had been in her youth. Several men had been billeted on her mother's farm during the Great War and all of them had a finger in the pie, as it were. Alfred Drayton and Robertson Hare (cuningly disguised as Jim Winchester) having both been starters, endeavoured to meet their possible obligations by sending the young Cassanova to "Banana Ridge," Drayton's rubber plantation in Malaya, as assistant manager to Hare. There he would have no contact with their womenfolk except Mrs. Hare, "the most scrupulous men in Malaya." The plan is a flop, but the picture is a riot.

Hare and Drayton, veteran campaigners of stage and screen, were excellent. It mattered little that the women were the usual English producers' misconception of "aloorin," and the young man about as seductive as Mahatma Gandhi, for they were merely incidental to the antics of the two comedians. Finally, it was pleasing for once to hear the English language used and spoken correctly.

Bette Davis Again

Freshness of scene and dialogue atones for a rather slight theme. "The Great Lie" is a picture to be seen only once—a second attendance would expose the pathetic obviousness of plot and characterisation, with the single exception of Bette Davis, who gives a convincing and thorough interpretation of that most unusual film constituent—a really human being. The others are usual types, at times well-acted, though both George Brent and Mary Astor barely escape contrast with Bette Davis polished performance. She escapes both the heavy tragedy of her former parts, and the awkwardness of "The Bride Came C.O.D." It is absorbing and very good entertainment.

Leslie Howard, one of the regretably few English actors and producers who have given the public consistently first-class work in "Pygmalion," "49th Parallel" and "Pimpernel Smith," was on a plane travelling from Lisbon to London which is believed destroyed by enemy action. This is a great loss to his wide public.

"What frenzy hath of late possessed the brain,
Though few can write yet fewer can refrain.

Samuel Garth Claremont.

A Yank at Eton

Mickey in his natural habitat spieling round with the girls of Small-town, is pretty poisonous, but it's heaven compared with the bumptious lout hobnobbing with the plutocracy. If the Rooney is America's ideal of an adolescent, then I prefer the milder New Zealand variety, even though it may have come from Wan-gan-oo-ah. The moral of the picture, if such a thing exists, was by no means plain. Even at the end, with Mickey aping the aristocracy, one had the feeling that Eton was streets above his infantile mentality. Despite the good slap-stick with the taxi, and the fight in the night club, the general effect was of loathing for "vital" American youth, and admiration for the restraint and dignity of the Etonians. We thus have a film deliberately boosting the English Public Schools, surely the most outmoded aspect of an obsolescent society. Their effort in maintaining class distinctions is dangerous to democracy, and except at the very largest, that is, the most expensive, the teaching very mediocre. We see the results even at Victoria, in those snobby individuals whose outlook is permanently marred by the feeling of superiority drilled so assiduously into their little brains by the "prep" schools and "collegiates" of God's Own Country. I have heard it said of a friend that "he had been to W——but fortunately he had managed to get over it" Why should we suffer such a boost, from Hollywood of all places, of that cancerous system whereby a man may display his filthy lucre by endowing his son with the right to say, "When I was at Harrow" or "Damme sir, at Eton . . . or "at King's College we would have horsewhipped the bounders."

J.M.Z.

They All Kissed The Bride

They all did it once except Mervyn Douglas, who did it about ten times—and that is about all the bearing that the title has on the picture. For the rest, the same suave gentleman proceeds to melt Joan Crawford's stony heart. He succeeds after a jitterbug contest and plenty of alcohol. The picture has a typical story where the head of some million dollar firm falls in love with some poor penniless female and is constantly amazed at the ways of the "lower classes." If this type of picture is mainly produced for its artistic merit, then this merit is too subtle to be detected. After you have seen the picture you ask yourself: "Whose intelligence should be underestimated—mine or the producer's?