... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. BAND WAGGON (Leicester Square) is not so much a picture as a party. In one noisy, absurd and informal gathering, it presents Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Jack Hylton and his Band, Pat Kirkwood, Freddy Schweitzer, television's Jasmine Bligh, Moore Marriott, Mr. Middleton, Michael Standing, two Fleet Street journalists, the goat Lewis, Henrietta the Hen, and the shades-- ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. AT one time or another most novel-readers have felt, and probably fallen to, the temptation of skipping dense black passages of analysis or description and going on to the first paragraph where inverted commas, letting in air and light, announce the arrival of the human voice. it may not be a pleasant voice or say anything particularly worth saying, but it is com ...

... . OF making many books there is no end. Of course, one shouldn't say that; of course it 's far too hackneyed for repetition. But now and then it comes home to one quite alarmingly. Think, for instance, as I have just been thinking, of the way certain books produce other books. You can buy the tragedies of Shakespeare in one thin volume but to house the writing they have caused, vou would need ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. A CIRCUS leads a picar esque, as well as a pic turesque life, and most novels about circuses belong to the category of picaresque novels. It is an honourable category, small and select, and can boast more successes, and fewer failures, than any other single class of fiction. One reason lor this is that the very nature of his book confers on the author certain immunities ...

... . THE great American novel is a familiar idea, but it 's an idea I 've never quite understood. No one talks of the great English, or Russian, or French novel; and as for the great European novel-- let alone attempted, it can't be thought of, even vaguely. So why America why this dream of putting all America in one book Now to be inconsistent. If my objections have any force, they must ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. MANY people have their favourite century, with which they claim a spiritual kinship. Perhaps few would wish to have lived in the Dark Ages, though their friends can see how well it would have suited them. To be told, in an after dinner game, that you belonged to the Middle Ages, might be a compliment or not, according to the speaker's tdne of voice. If we suppose the modern ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. WHAT a genius the Americans have, at their best, for interesting foreign audiences in things that really aren't their business! There could hardly be a film more remote from the British temper and experi ence than THE ROARING TWENTIES (Warner Theatre)-- but does it matter? This is pure Americana, and rather specialised Americana at that-- a résumé of the days of bootieg ...

... . 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 ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. AS one who believes that screen children, as a race, should be strangled at birth, I am delighted to have found a screen child this week who is both talented and appealing. Her name is Betty Brewer, her age is thirteen, and the film in which she appears is RANGERS OF FORTUNE (Plaza). This, the only new film of the week, is a roystering melodrama of the Great South-West in ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. MR. LESLIE BANKS, for whose opinion on things dramatic I have the deepest respect, recently told me that of all the screen actors whose career he most ad mired Paul Muni came easily first. What terrific in- teeritv there is there he said. All the fine training of the Yiddish Theatre, and none of their tendency to over-emphasise. That 's a really great man, and I take off my ...

... THEATRES OF WARTIME LONDON. By THEODORA BENSON and BETTY ASKWITH, Authors of Foreigners or the World in a Nutshell. No. 5. SHEPHARD'S PIE, AT THE PRINCES THEATRE. WELL, said Arthur, re signed and magnanimous, as you enjoyed the Leslie Henson show so very much, I've got us tickets for Firth Shep hard's other revue. It 's good of you, but don't be so deucedly condescending, protested Laura ...

... . THE late Colonel Lawrence was a good writer and a great leader of men. Either of these distinctions would have been enough to bring him fame; yet for some reason his fame transcends them. It depended on some thing more than the sum of his achievements'. Part of himself he expressed in writine an other, perhaps more integral and essential part he expressed in action. But the central core of ...