Reassuring

David Lean's "Hobson's Choice." (reassuring): After "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist"—very good adaptions of Dickens in mood and character—Lean suffered a relapse with "The Passionate Friends" (a total misfire) and "The Sound Barrier" (script trouble). He seemed to have difficulty In finding suitable subjects. The trouble was that he had nothing significant to say; he was more a story-teller than a creative artist. We accepted that; but was he afraid to enlarge his range of stories, was he too willing to stick to moods that he had created successfully in the past? This question was answered firmly in the negative by his comedy "Hobson's Choice". Not a brilliant film, full of small mistakes and marred by a serious one. But it is a film that showed that Lean is prepared to show versatility in observations of life. With an increasing range, David Lean is sure to produce films of greater significance in the future. And it is indeed fortunate that his wife. Ann Todd, has shown her true talent in a recent stage production of "MacBeth."