... . By L. P. HARTLEY. SEEING that Mr. Max Relton's travels took place in French Indo-China, I almost automatically scanned the contents (a pity there is no index) for the magic word Angkor. I did not find it; but two-thirds of the way through the book I discovered that Mr. Relton had antici pated my enquiry. So far, therefore [he savsl as any reader is prepared to wade through this book solely ...

... : Reviewed by Trevor Allen THIS month we can close down for a moment on memories of the sickening bombing and machine- gunning of Spaniards, Poles, Finns and North Sea trawler and lightship men, and salute air folk of another breed. Miss Amelia Earhart was a lovable skyways girl first woman to fly the Atlantic, solo pilot from Mexico City to New York, Honolulu to New York. Over two years ago ...

... 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 ...

... Australian children are less precocious than the American. They may be better behaved. A good indoor Sport though a little vulgar is to put an Anglo-Indian and an Australian in the same bar together. If Mr. Haskell's hymn of praise of this strange piece of English lebensraum which has grown up from a human rubbish-heap into a State in By V. S. Pritchett IN 1939, Sir Hugh Walpole went to Rome ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. SONS AND FATHERS, is a novel dealing with the last days of Tsarism and the beginnings of the Bolshevik Revolution. Mr. Maurice Hindus has chosen a title which deliberately chal lenges comparison with Turgenev's masterpiece. His story does not sustain the compari son, and it seems to me that the spirit of the men who made the Revolution is better ex pressed by Bazarov, in ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. MOST Scandinavian novels are problem novels, for the Scandinavians of to-day, though not perhaps more religious than ourselves, seem to have tenderer con sciences; consciences not only tender, but slightly morbid, infected with the queasiness of Hamlet's moral outlook. Such novels, of course, still abound in English fiction, but not only have they shifted their ground, ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. UNLESS you feel, as some people do, that the whole busi ness of Rasputin and the cakes is a bit old-fashioned now, that enough is enough, I think you will enjoy ''LA TRAGÉDIE IM- PÉRIALE, at the Embassy, in Totten ham Court Road. But perhaps ''enjoy'' is hardly the word to use. Relish, admire, be moved by, let us say. This is the seventh screen version of the Rasputin ...

... The Silver Patrol (New Theatre) AFTER a quarter of an hour or so of this spectacular musical show (by Mr. Bruce Sievier, with music by Mr. Pat Thayer), I felt like following the example of the American who looked on a giraffe for the first time and murmured, I don't believe it! I could not believe, that is to say, that all the solemn marching and counter-marching and patriotic singing by ...

... By V. S. Pritcliett Morocco is the warrior, Algeria the Man, Tunisia the Woman, goes the Arab saying. The small w for warrior is curious. I should like to know the explanation. Has the w dwindled as the French pacified the territory? For it is nearly all pacified now. A new area, called the Sud Marocain, has been brought to order in the past five years, and Mr. Sacheverell Sitwell's ...

... THE CINEMA Bravo, Montgomery BY JAMES AGATE I REMEMBER some years ago making a bet having to do with the state of popular education. I was walking on a Sunday morning with a friend who lives in Clap ham, and he suggested that I should go to the saloon bar of any public house and ask six people how Charles I died. He was willing to bet that I should not get a single correct answer. I accepted ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. A PESSIMIST arguing that we live in an age of deterioration might well bring forward, in support of his thesis, the fate that has overtaken sport of nearly every description. Generally the root of the trouble is commercial isation; the spirit of gain has overpowered and absorbed the spirit of the game. In the case of mountaineering, the symp toms and perhaps the cause of ...

... THE contrast between the doldrums into which London's theatrical ship had, perforce, sailed seven months ago and its merry voyaging to-day is striking indeed. April opened with eight new pro ductions scheduled for the first fortnight, with only one revival among them. Four of these, with which I propose to deal in this article, have, as I write, been successfully. and in one case triumphantly, ...