... . By L. P. HARTLEY. THE Oxford Book of Christian Verse appears at a moment that some might think timely, others not, according as to whether they are able to reconcile their conception of Christianity with the present condition of the world. In any case, however, lovers of poetry cannot but be grateful to Lord David Cecil for put ting this treasure within their reach, and for sending it out ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. GASLIGHT (Odeon) is one of those small, concise, atmo spheric dramas that come so well to the screen. It is a film of one house, one situation and one mood, and there are no distractions. It is a gruesome film, and you can't escape from it. From beginning to end you are shut in with murder and creeping madness in a grey, bleak, Pimlico square of the 'eighties, with its ...

... b 44 PRESENT ARMS, AT THE PRINCE OF WALES -f THEATRE By ALAN BOTT PRESENT ARMS is so insistently bright that if the London theatre survives the next month or two, and if Piccadilly stays anything like itself, this musical comedy may still be there when Christmas chimes ring over a changed world. It could hardly help being bright, what with the dozen new songs by Mr. Noel Gay, and with Messrs. ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE Country and Town ALL coons look alike to me went a song of my youth. Similarly, I say all film stars look alike to me. When anybody points it out to me, I can, of course, see the difference between, say, Mr. Clark Gable and Mr. Gary Cooper. Or between, say, Miss Claudette Colbert and Miss Sylvia Sidney. Both actors wear the same padded shoulders, the same rough ...

... COUSIN MURIEL AT THE GLOBE THEATRE A PART from the sound and fury from the war-threatened world outside and its prob lematic relevance, Cousin Muriel is a play in which coherence depends almost entirely on whether or not one finds it possible to believe and be interested in the shallow, amoral character of Muriel herself. In compelling this belief and interest, Miss Clemence Dane, as author, ...

... Even in wartime, it appears, there are people with the courage to put on plays which Hamlet would have haughtily praised as caviar, and all honour must go to those responsible for this production of the hit play of the season after the Armada was driven off, doubting whether Yellow Sands or Chu Chin Chow will find favour even in the smallest and most specialised theatres of the twenty-fourth ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE Ringing the Changes MR. SINCLAIR LEWIS'S new novel, Bethel Merriday, has this account of a film entitled The Heart of an Understudy:-- There was, it seems, a woman star, beautiful but wicked, and jealously devoted to ruining the fine young leading man by scandal hinting and cruel looks instead of by the simpler and much more effective weapon of upstaging him. This ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE 1 GROWING PAINS I WAS enormously impressed the other evening on hearing a young actor say that he did not want to be a success before he was thirty-five. I said: Won't that be too late? To which came the reply: No, I am going to be a great actor, and that doesn't begin until you are thirty-five! Come to think of it, there is something in what the voung man said. ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE The Film of Rebecca WHAT was the name of the first Mrs. Tanqueray? Only people en dowed with the cross-word kind of brain, the only kind which can ever answer such questions, will be able to reply straight away when asked for the name of the second Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca. Having read the book, seen the play, and viewed the film now showing at the Gaumont, I still ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. EIGHTEEN-ODD years spent in film criticism have taught me to be cautious with superlatives, but I'm prepared to take a chance with Disney's new film, PINOCCHIO, and say it is the best that has ever been made. Bv that I mean that it is the film that comes closest to a complete realisation of the word cinema. Every form of art whether it is music, painting, sculpture, ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. DR. CYCLOPS (Carlton) is a film for the young in heart-- that vast audience of otherwise responsible men and women who have never quite out grown their delight in the conjurer and his disappearing rabbit. It is a film for the people who liked Topper and King Kong and The Invisible Man the people who used to gaze spellbound at the screen in those early days when ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. BERT HOLM was a member of a climbing expedition in the Himalayas. The party was tackling a hitherto unascended mountain, and Bert reached the summit alone. In doing so he disobeyed orders, and the leader of the expedition was not at all pleased with him. But the great American public took him to its heart, and he returned to find him self not only famous, but a god. But ...