—A Mouse

Mind you, I realise the difficulties Hitchcock was faced with. It is a brave thing to make a full-length film with a small boat for its only locale. There can be little action and there must be fine acting. And all this effort seemed like the mountainous Hitchcock labouring and bringing forth a mouse—a well-constructed intelligent mouse, to be sure, but still a mouse. Canada Lee, one of the best Negro actors, made a fine Job of his rather limited role. Tallulah Bankhead, after many years on the New York stage, proves herself still in the top flight of movie actresses. Because the cast was so small and so static the playing had to be good all round.

In fact, it was a very good film. But not, I think, a great one. And surely our highest awards must be reserved, like the Victoria Cross, for the truly great—the "Our Towns" and "Green Pastures" and the "Pygmallons." There are the films that do something to us—they are not just films we go to on a Saturday night. If GM wants to include all the high-grade fllms that Just don't make it, then can we plead with him for a special award for the one or two a year that do?