... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. THE LADY EVE (Plaza) has all the stamp of the classic screen comedy. It is smooth, it is subtle, it is mature and full of worldly wisdom. It has, too, the har mony of a one-man composition, for Mr. Preston Sturges, who believes he can get the best effects that way, both wrote the script and directed the picture. It proves that those other earlier films of his, Down Went ...

... By Herbert Farjeon Love in a Mist (St. Martin' s) ON the programme there is Exmoor, and on Exmoor there is fog. Hence the title of Mr. Kenneth Home's new comedy. And hence, when the honeymoon car containing Pat and Nigel, married that very morning, can no longer see its bonnet before its wind-screen, the bed-and-breakfast bungalow of Mr. and Mrs. Evans appears to offer most timely refuge. Mrs. ...

... The Nutmeg Tree (Lyric) By Herbert Farjeon THE trouble about Julia, as confessed by herself with a sigh more than once in the course of this comedy, was that she was weak. When handsome men wanted to kiss her, she found it difficult to resist them. And having knocked about as a chorus-girl in all sorts of shows, she wasn't very particular as to class, even when it was important that she should ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. WHEN a director makes one good film, it may be luck. When he makes two, it's a pleasant surprise. When he makes three, he has got to be watched. When he makes four, it 's getting serious. When he makes five, you can begin to think about calling him a great director. By this arithmetic, TOM, DICK AND HARRY (London Pavilion and Marble Arch Pavilion) makes a great director out ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. THE problem of evil is one that always interested Sir Hugh Walpole and provided the subject of many of his novels. To him, evil was not a mere abstraction, it was a force that entered into human beings and possessed them. I do not remember if the Devil makes a personal appearance in any of his books, but there are plenty of characters so like him as to be almost ...

... By Herbert Farjeon Black Vanities (Victoria Palace) FOR reasons which will appear, I shall have to be careful what I say about this show. I don't want to get Mr. George Black into trouble. But I can begin by letting myself go over the production. What a production! --so deliriously expensive that you wonder how Mr. Black dared to take the risk in blitz time; so frantically sumptuous that you ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. DO plays make films? It sounds rather like Alice in Won derland's celebrated Do cats eat bats?; but it is pertinent, neverthe less, as pertinent as Lewis Carroll is, too, when you come to study him. The question turns up again this week, over the case of MA J OR BARBARA, at the Odeon. I must confess that Major Barbara confirms my earlier doubts over How He Lied to Her ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. FOR two years of sea-war, on and off, Camera-man Roy Kellino, of Ealing Studios, has been sail ing with the British Navy, on battleships light and heavy, on trawlers and on mine sweepers and on air craft-carriers, shooting film that will bring the salt of the Senior Service into our cinemas. He has sailed the Arctic, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean. He has turned his ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. ALL literary reputations rest on opinion, but some, and those not necessarily the highest, are much more firmly established than others. Few critics would say that Anthony Trollope belongs to the first rank of English novelists; still fewer would deny that he takes a foremost place in the second. Much greater claims have been made for George Eliot or Meredith but, on the ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. IT is notorious that nearly all short stories are diffi cult to sell, and short stories with pretensions to literary merit can hardly be given away. The magazine or wish-fulfilment type of story goes best. Such stories often contain good writing, Dut tney can hardly be considered works of art, since the writer's atti tude to life which must affect the way he handles all his ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. WHETHER THE LONG VOYAGE HOME (Gaumont) strikes you as just about the best film of the sea you have ever seen, or as a rather sordid recital of raw life between the devil and the deep, I can promise you one thing you won't be able to forget it. I should hate to have to prophesy what The Long Voyage Home will do at the box-office. It may prove to be too tough for the times. ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. RELIGION and religious beliefs are not gener ally favoured as sub jects for the cinema, but it just happens that chance has thrown up two new films this week with a strong flavour of sectarianism. The first. BRIGHAM YOUNG (Regal), is a sympathetic and often very stirring account of the Mormon people, their early persecutions, and their long trek across a continent to find a ...