... By C. A. Lejeune. THE WEB (Tivoli).-- One of the smaller but slicker Hollywood thrillers, done with a deliberation that almost makes its extravagant postu lates acceptable. A poor young lawyer is framed on a murder charge by the smooth business-man he has been hired to pro tect; a sleuth from the Homicide Squad uses his own methods to unveil the real killer. Vincent Price, as the business ...

... LES DISPARUS DE ST. AGIL THERE are three things, roughly speaking, that seem to be foolproof material for the screen-- running water, running horses, and of small boys. e screen has hardly ever made a mistake v, pictures of children in the mass, and there is mistake about the French film at Studio One, Disparus de St. Agil. The film is technically lis J, that must be allowed. It was made in ...

... Books Reviewed by Trevor zAllen THERE was much of the human boy in Britain's admired friend, F.D.R. Miss Frances Perkins, who first met him in 1910 and was his close associate as Secretary of Labour, 1933-45, calls him the most complicated human being in The Roosevelt I Knew (Hammond, 18s.), capable of almost childish vanity about his skill in catching fish, his seamanship in small boats ...

... : Reviewed by Wm Trevor sllle7i PERHAPS because his novels have at least an autobiographical slant Mr. Henry Williamson needs little plot to sustain them. The Gold Falcon (Faber, 8s. 6d.) is the emotional and spiritual odyssey of a war-haunted air-ace, Manfred, who goes to America to write a book and discovers, among other things, that Hamlet in New York would not remain Hamlet. There ...

... TRANSFORMATION SCENE. By Claude Houghton. Mutatis mutandis, the same might be said of Mr. Claude Houghton's new novel. This is a kind of psychic detective-story. Who murdered Carol? Max Arnold, the painter, who tells the story, thinks he did, for the reasons that he dreamed he had, that he was a sleepwalker, and that he had long wished to break with Carol. She had been many men's mistress, ...

... By Monica Dickens. By L. P. HARTLEY. THE title of Monica Dickens's latest novel is a slight mis nomer, for Major Oliver North was not a very happy man. He had good reason not to be, for during the Arnhem operation, though not during one of its heroic moments, he was hit by a shell, lost his leg and sustained a serious injury to his heart. Now, with the war over, he lies bedridden in his mother ...

... Lejeune. (Phcenix House 12s. 6 ...

... I HAVE not chosen this film as an example of good workmanship, nor as an entertainment, but as an awful warning. It shows what may happen when a minor classic of the screen is remade by skill-less hands and inferior intelli gences; how easily the bloom can be rubbed off, and how even the strokes and touches that are retained here and there from the original can become meaningless in a new and ...

... . L. P. HARTLEY. PEACE BREAKS OUT is a con tinuation of Mrs. Thirkell's Barset shire chronicles and maintains the high level of social comedy to which she has accustomed us. Most of the characters are very pleasant people. The older ones tend to be eccentric and nice the younger ones, those who have grown up with the war, to be sensible and nice. La ...

... OUR BOOKSHELF. L. P. HARTLEY. REVIEWED ON THIS PAGE. THE TRAVELLER'S EYE. By Dorothy Carrington. Pilot Press 15s.) ON SUCH A NIGHT. By Anthony Quayle. (Heinemann 7s. 6 d.) MISS PYM DISPOSES. By Josephine Tey. (Peter Davies 8s. 6d.) DEAD MAN MURDER. By Bernard Newman. Gollancz 8s. 6 d.) THE TRAVELLER'S EYE.-- As Miss Dorothy Carrington reminds us in her introduction, travel has become diffi ...

... Elizabeth lioweiiA Reviewed Here Eustace and Hilda Indian Flamingo A Way of Looking at Pictures The Young King and Other Stories EUSTACE AND HILDA, by L. P. Hartley (Putnam; 10s. 6 d.), is the awaited third of the Eustace trilogy. Here is the conclusion, and fulfilment, of the story of the brother and sister-- begun in The Shrimp and the Anemone, having its middle part in The Sixth Heaven ...

... I1EE0RU OF THE WEEK EUGENIA ZARESKA, a Polish contralto of distinction, is a newcomer to records in this country. In 1938 she won the Inter national Music Competition in Vienna, and has since appeared at La Scala, Milan, and the Royal Opera House in Rome. She came to this country originally to sing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and for her first British recording chooses Songs of a ...