French

The other foreign film, "Retour a l'Aube," at the Embassy, has left a negative impression on me. There is the usual visual pleasure in French films, but having praised the freshness and charm of this, there is nothing left. One could blame Vicki Baum and go into a detailed analysis of the melodramatic improbability and shallowness of the plot, but this hardly seems worth while. The reader of "Grand Hotel" or "Grand Opera" will be familiar with the method, and if you saw "Week End at the Waldorf" you will appreciate how banal this attempt at profundity can become. No matter what the characters themselves may have thought about their sudden precipitation into "real-life" (whatever that may be), the effect on at least one member of the audience was very real disinterest and disbelief in their motives. They were not real people. It is kindest to say that this is a melodramatic story of young love awry—for it is certainly not real disillusionment, which is a much more moving and sometimes even tragic affair—and that it is not one of the better French films, which is a pity, because we see so few French films that to sniff one's nose seems not only discouraging but also bad taste. Still there it is.