... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE Funny and Unfunny ONE man's meat is another man's poison. In other words, you cannot argue whether a comedian is or is not funny. If a comedian is funny to you, then both you and the comedian are in luck. On the other hand, if a comedian strikes you as unfunny, the plight of both of you is desperate. Let me chronicle this week how I have been both in and out of luck. ...

... My Royal Past, by Baroness von Biilop as told to Cecil Beaton (B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 21s.) STOICALLY and long have we suffered the memoirs of Teutonic ladies with royal pasts. Mr. Cecil Beaton has parodied them deliriously, with just the right flavour of satire, in a fragrant skit, a souffle of wit and malice. The baroness I can recall, when three and a half years old, dressed in broderie ...

... Fifth Avenue Girl (Film) THE cleverness of this Miss Ginger Rogers is becoming phenomenal. Neither the world, nor Hollywood, nor even Miss Rogers herself will be any the worse for that. When I met Miss Rogers a few years ago in New York she was a not very well-known little dancer (she belonged to the group they call baby stars) and went under the warmish label of Ginger Pepper. Then a ...

... Films of the Day Stewart and Laughton Get New Style Parts George Campbell BUT think of my position! moans Mischa Auer, gambling for his pants with Marlene Dietrich, in Destry Rides Again. I've met every king in Europe. Well, now you 've met two aces, retorts the queen of the dance-hall implacably, reaching for the stake and back to his infuriated wife goes the Yiddish cowboy in his long ...

... ROMANCES OF ROUNDHEADS AND ROYALISTS -By Vernon Fane Two Absorbing Novels of England's Civil War ENGLAND'S Civil War is dealt with in two of this week's novels. Miss Phyllis Bentley's sober and full account of the Yorkshire campaigns under Sir Thomas Fairfax and General Cromwell and Miss Helen Ashton's biographical novel of Henry Vaughan, who fought as a soldier-surgeon in the King's forces up ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. WHAT is going to happen to John Garfield, star of DUST BE MY DESTINY, at the Warner Theatre? It seems to me that he is standing at the cross-roads of his film career. One road leads to the world of high acting where Paul Muni and Bette Davis, for example, have earned the right to hang up their hats. The other road leads downwards to those B pictures in which so many ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. MOST children are fond of riddles; to one's awaken ing mind they rank with puns as the highest form of the art of conversation. One of the first I remember was What made Rider Haggard? I'm not sure whether, in those days, the fact that the examinee earnestly protested his know ledge of the answer deterred you from telling him. I fancy that if you saw signs of en ...

... AN EXPONENT OF FEMININITY -By Vernon Fane A Japanese Soldier's impressions Von Papen's Luck Roland Pertwee's Career THE author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden has, in her time, been fruitful on the subject of husbands. Her wit, which can be as illuminating and elusive as a dancing sunbeam, never fails to be exhilarating when one of her characters stands revealed as a husband. The very word ...

... The Theatre: By Herbert Farjeon Lights Up! (Savoy) RE-ENTER Mr. Cochran. And about time, too. For-- speaking as a dramatic critic-- London isn't really London without him. And a war-- remembering the revues he put on during the last one-- isn't really a war. Those early Cochran revues were the first over here to combine wit with intimacy-- only when peace came did Mr. Cochran start making ...

... THE CINEMA Garbo By JAMES AGATE AND now, on the subject of Sarah, I am sworn to an ago-like silence. From this time forth I never will speak the word! An excellent vow fully meant, when years ago I made it in my first Ego. And I have kept it reasonably well since. But, as all the world who reads me knows, Bernhardt is to me what King Charles's head was to Mr. Dick, and the world is now to ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE Musings About Civilization THE other day I read in the paper how some young woman who had been a hairdresser's assistant was rung up at two o'clock in the morning to get a band leader out of a jam. Never before, I read, had Miss Blank stepped straight out of bed to sing, almost unrehearsed, a bunch of difficult songs with a strange band. Is my mind wandering, or is ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE Half-truths About Hollywood THE new film at the Odeon, Hollywood Cavalcade, flatters only to disappoint. It is a cavalcade which, after breaking into a highly successful trot, suddenly stops cavalcading and turns itself into a doleful and protracted procession of broken hearts. The story begins with a young Irishman called Mike who has a notion about directing motion ...