... . By Victor Canning. (Hodder and Stoughton 9s. 6 d.) THE SLEEPING SPHINX. By John Dickson Carr. (Hamish Hamilton 8s. 6d.) is made easier by the fact that an Italian girl with a jealous lover has fallen in love with Burgess, and the lover, as one of the Resistance Movement, has learnt not to over-respect human life. The climax comes when the pine trees which will span the chasm have been felled ...

... By C. A. Lejeune. DECEPTION, with Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains, is a handsome film with a certain amount of style; but the trouble is that the style has hardly been applied, at any point, to sense. It tells a triangular story of a famous refugee 'cellist, who comes to New York, marries a girl whom he has loved in the old clays in Europe, imagining her to be poor and innocent, ...

... By LAURA EYRE. WHEN Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret visited Ealing Studios during the making of Nicholas Nickleby, they both confessed that they hadn't read the novel-- as yet! But they were quite familiar with many of the characters. They knew the rapacious, bullying school master, Wackford Squeers the genial ham actor, Vincent Crummies the lovable Cheeryble Brothers, and ...

... By C. A. Lejeune. STALLION ROAD.-- Alexis Smith, Ronald Reagan and Zachary Scott in an open-air, unpretentious little effort about a three-cornered romance in the horsey districts of California. Not without strong attractions, because the screen can seldom go very far wrong with horses. Whether racing, jumping, exercising, grazing free, or cooling their fetlocks in the surf, these four ...

... STILL more American plays are making the perilous Atlantic passage. The latest recruit to Broadway-on-Thames had a fourteen months run in New York. This does not guarantee success at Wyndham's; but it will be odd if London rejects a piece that has its roots deep in the good earth of drama. The fact that it considers a problem unknown to Britain does not in any way weaken the theatrical ...

... Rupert Croft-Cooke PEOPLE OF QUALITY.-- I like Mr. Collie Knox's title. It reminds me of that fine short story of Galsworthy's which sketches the downfall of an old crafts man who could only make by hand the finest articles in his trade, and so was left behind by a world satisfied with the mass-produced and the nickel-plated. People of Quality are rare, as Mr. Knox implies when he chooses ...

... PEACE COMES TO PECKHAM.' ALTHOUGH R. F. Delderfield is a Devon man by long adoption, he was Peckham born, and his expansive comedy must be regarded, in a way, as a son's loyal tribute to a borough seldom hymned. But the precise location does not matter: the important thing is that the play has a firm Cockney core; its author knows his path down the Old Kent Road. Since other plays of his are ...

... C. A. Lejeune's Opinion as a MAN-IN-THE-SEAT has asked for my views on the points he raises. Here they are, as exactly as I can define them: Is the critic a thorn in the side of presenters, producers and performers Of course he is. Everybody, including Man- in-the-Seat, is a thorn in the side of presenters, producers and performers. Just ask them. Can a critic kill the result of prolonged ...

... By C. A. Lejeune. THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS.-- A Hollywood thriller, with Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck, that works up quite a bit of the authentic spine chill towards the close. The second Mrs. Carroll adores her husband, a tem peramental artist with a London reputa tion and smooth ways, but when he takes to painting in a locked room by day, and bringing her warm milk with a funny taste ...

... OUR BOOKSHELF Rupert Croft-Cooke REVIEWED ON THIS PAGE. SAD ROAD TO THE SEA. By Gerald Kersh. Heinemann 8s. 6 d.) DUET FOR SISTERS. By Kitty Barne. Chapman and Hall 9s. 6d.) SO LONG AT THE FAIR. By Anthony Thorne. (Heinemann 7s. 6 d.) A MAN CALLED JONES. I By Julian Symons. Gollancz 8s. 6 d.) SAD ROAD TO THE SEA.-- The career of Mr. Gerald Kersh has followed a familiar precedent. His name ...

... OUR BOOKSHELF. Rupert Croft-Cooke REVIEWED ON THIS PAGE. AN AVENUE OF STONE. By Pamela Hansford-Johnson. (Michael Joseph 10s. 6 d.) PEAL OF ORDNANCE. By John Lodwick. (Methuen 7s. 6 d.) BEFORE THE CROSSING. By Storm Jameson. (Macmillan 8s. 6 d.) THE EVIL HOUR. By Laurence Meynell. (Collins 8s. 6 d.) AN AVENUE OF STONE.-- The present- day novelist seems much concerned with the problem of ...

... By C. A. Lejeune. AN IDEAL HUSBAND.-- This is the first personally signed work for several years of one of the most knowing directors in the business-- Sir Alexander Korda. When Korda makes a film, he certainly makes a film. To argue whether he was wise in choosing this mannered, strictly contemporary, and slimly motivated Wilde play for his sub ject, is beside the point. What matters is the ...