... Films of the Day Ships and Deserts By George Campbell MOST inventions have the germ of a good film, and you could hardly want better material than Robert Fulton's struggle to finance and build the first steamboat at the beginning of last century. I say the first, though actually he had already experimented with one boat on the Seine. He had got the idea from Watt, bulton came to England in ...

... By Herbert Farjeon T wo More Revues WHAT a cast for Up and Doing, at the Saville! Leslie Henson: positively his revue début. Binnie Hale: making antic hay of Evelyn Lave and Frances Day. Cyril Ritchard: showing slinky, lank-haired Hollywood torch-singers where they get off. Stanley Holloway: with his iatest Albert. Patricia Burke singing quite seriously, i ve naa lots ot emotions In various ...

... By V. S. Pritchett THERE is a story of Conan Doyle's about a lecturer who exhibited a living pterodactyl at the Queen's Hall. The creature (the lecturer told a sceptical audience) was one of many living in the lost world of Guiana. There on the curious table-topped crown of the Mount Roraima, in an almost inaccessible part of the jungle, survived the lost tribes of zoology, the dinosaurs ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon Rebecca Queen's) MISS DAPHNE DU MAURIER'S drama tisation of her best-seller brings to light affinities with His House in Order, which took the town by storm thirty-five years ago. Both plays deal with second marriages. In both the husband brings back his second wife to a household dominated by the memory of his first. In both her intrusion is resented as an ...

... By Herbert Farjeon Ridgeway's Late Joys (13, Albemarle Street) UNDER the congenial and command- ing direction of Mr. Leonard Sachs, Ridgeway's Late Joys have, for the duration, removed their habitat from King to Albemarle Street, demonstrating in the process that they can eat and drink as well as sing both high and low. Tem- porarily forsaking the attic of their origin, since attics lack ...

... The Theatre Herbert Farjeon Funny Side Up (His Majesty's) ENTERING His Majesty's Theatre- remarking that the painting of Sir Herbert Tree had been removed from the foyer and hurrying as fast as possible past the Dandini- esque usher ettes who have unblushingly replaced the powdered footmen of yester (and even last) year, I couldn't help thinking of Shakespeare and feeling that I couldn't be ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon Cousin Muriel (Globe) THE only quick thing in this play is the way the people get to and from the Langham Hotel. Other wise, it is pretty slow going, with charac ters much given to quotation from books and plays and poems, and little literary tricks of speech, such as saying Always he, instead of He always. The scene is laid in the ever-so-impressive house ...

... The Bystander Bookshelf The Wee Pawn Man By V. S. Pritchett THE autobiographies of immensely successful men are not commonly very interesting. Public figures become public monuments, and there is nothing less candid-looking than a muni cipal statue. So I picked up Sir John Lavery's The Life of a Painter (Cassell; 18s.) very warily. 1 realised at once that Sir John La very ought to have ...

... By Herbert Farjeon The Golden Cuckoo Duchess) THE action of this new comedy by Denis Johnston arises out of a very nice point. An editor com missions a contributor to write an obituary notice of an eminent scientist who has been investigating the possibility of manufacturing horse manure, the price fixed being thirty shillings. ine contributor writes the obituary notice, i but it is not ...

... Films of the Day William Wyler Goes West and Weak By Gfeorge Campbell I HAVE a passion for the West, Gary Cooper is (or was) my favourite actor, and one must be grateful to William Wyler for such superb things as Dods- worth and Dead End. Judge my dis appointment, then, when The Westerner turned out to be patchy at best, and at worst a bit of a bore. It begins well enough. Not since Stagecoach ...

... By V. S. Pritchett NOBODY cares much, or even knows, what happens to us down here behind God's back, said a settler in Tanganyika, and so gave a title to Mr. Negley Farson, the itinerant American transgressor. Behind God's Back (Gollancz; Ios. 6d.) is the story of seven months' travel in Africa. Look at the map first. Landing in South-West Africa at Walvis Bay, which is little more than a ...

... The 64 Bystander Bookshelf The Arclidukeries By V. S. Pritchett ELIZABETH OF AUSTRIA, the Consort of the Emperor Franz Joseph, is the subject of Miss Elizabeth Sprigge's new novel, The Raven's Wing (Macmillan; 8s. 6d.). It belongs to the tender-to-Royalty school of fiction, and sheds a nostalgic and sympathetic tear over the sad archdukeries of the nine-teenth-century Europe. To my prejudiced ...