... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE Dug-out or Picture Palace EVERYTHING in the world is relative. Or so the scientists and philosophers assure us. I am not at all certain how far one should carry this theory. Is Mont Blanc a high mountain relative to the Swiss plain? (are there, by the way, any plains in Switzerland?) Is Mont Blanc a low mountain relative to Mount Everest? 1 he discussion seems to me ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. MISS VICKI BAUM writes from a hard head and a soft heart. She needs a hard head to do justice to the moral and mental equipment of her characters, who are nearly all, in one way or another, out for what they can get. Espe cially is this the case in Central Stores, her latest pantechnicon novel. From Mr. Crosby, who owns the controlling interest in the busi ness, to Philipp ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. HONEYMOONS or cowboys are the thing in the West End cinemas this week-- or, rather, honey- moons and cowboys, for the lads with the Stetson and the gun, too, have their gentler moments. Honey moon Number One, without cowboy, is the Lord Peter Wimsey piece at the Empire. This film, BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON, was the last to be made at Denham by Metro-Gold wyn- Mayer before they ...

... THE THEATRE IN SHADOW THE TATLER AT THE THEATRE By ANTHONY COOKMAN THE West End theatre is, at the moment of writing, in all but total eclipse-- and even its best friends can work up no special grievance in the matter. Given the direct attack on London, eclipse-- at least partial eclipse-- was inevitable. The Government's order at the beginning of the war to close all theatres and picture ...

... Armchair Trips to Africa and S. America Two Outstanding Travel Books and Interesting Novels in this Week's New Volumes -By Vernon Fane MR. NEGLEY FARSON is an American and a skilled journalist. His instinct for news of an unusual character at an unusual time led him to disembark at Dar-es-Salaam with the ultimate object of fetching up on the Gold Coast. BEHIND GOD'S BACK (Gollancz. 10s. 6d.) ...

... LITERARY STYLISTS Escapists, Sophisticates and Raconteurs By Vernon Fane IN a newspaper the other clay I saw that among the persons listed in the United States as missing were seventy thousand husbands. With that interesting piece of information the news item stopped abruptly. The charitable view would, of course, be that the seventy thousand were all suffering from amnesia; but I am afraid ...

... THEATRES OF WARTIME LONDON. By THEODORA BENSON and BETTY ASKWITH, Authors of Foreigners or the World in a Nutshell. No. 22. THE BODY WAS WELL NOURISHED, AT THE LYRIC. OH, Anthony, darling, sighed Laura over the telephone, no, I've got to dine in Daddy's got some people I'm so very disap pointed Let's make it one day next week. Pretty frock, observed Laura's father. Who 's it to ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. BEHIND GOD'S BACK is the story of Mr. Negley Farson's seven months' sojourn in Africa. Sojourn is perhaps a mis leading word. Most of the time Mr. Farson was on the move; his longest and most important journey took him from coast to coast, from Dar es-Salaam on the east to Duala on the west, right through the heart of Equatorial Africa. He travelled bv air. bv water. by ...

... THE WAR'S BREEDING GROUND A Minister's Account of the Spanish Civil War and the Events which Led up to it By Vernon Fane SENOR ALVAREZ DEL VAYO was Foreign Minister, War Minister and the chief international spokesman of the Spanish Republic. FREEDOM'S BATTLE (Heinemann. 15s.) is his own survey of the Spanish Civil War, and of the events which led up to it. If the statement be accepted that ...

... NOVELS IMPERIAL AND DOMESTIC --By Vernon F;me The Poet Laureate in Byzantium Fiction and War A Book of Roman Portraits THE Poet Laureate's latest work of fiction, BASILISSA (Heinemann. 8s.), is an historical novel based on the meeting between Theodora and Justinian. Much that is known about Theodora comes from sources which the historians describe as being open to serious doubts. Yet all seem ...

... The Bystander Bookshelf Diary of an Income-Tax Payer By V. S. Pritchetl A LITTLE mass-observation done on the index of Ego No. 4 (Harrap; 18s.) shows that Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Beethoven, Marie Felicia Malibran and the caustic brother Edward are still Mr. James Agate's chief pre occupations. Hitler, Ibsen and Sir Hugh Walpole don't do so badly either. The delightful Contes Scabreux, or ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE A SHOT AT THE IMPOSSIBLE TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS, at the New Gallery, is a very much better film than I had been led to expect. The title- part is beautifully played by Master Jimmy Lydon. Jimmy is no beauty, being very nearly as snub-nosed as Mickey Rooney himself. But he is nearly as good an actor, and ten times less American which, from the point of view of this ...