... MYSELF AT THE PICTURES Two Big Films By James Agate FOR some time I have been inveighing against those of our smart playwrights who have thought to write war plays by trotting out the old familiar characters, the old stale plot and the old dreary wise-cracking, and putting them into a war setting. The result in every case has been a shallow catch-penny success-- with the unthinking. |V[OEL ...

... By Horace Horsnell Flare Path (Apollo) FROM Shakespeare to Sherriff, our native dramatists have been strongly attracted by the humours of soldiering. Even Mr. Shaw, in Arms and the Man, succumbed to their charm. And when a war play is written by a service playwright, the humours and heroics are likely to share equal honours. Shake speare's Henry V and Mr. Sherriff's Journey's End-- to cite two ...

... By Horace Horsnell Night of the Garter (Strand) One's first reaction to these headstrong revels, whether delight or dismay, depends rather on one's attitude to farce in general and what one expects of a ten-year-old with that pun in its title. Later reflection may lead one to feel that farce is the true surrealism. And indeed the attempts of modern painters to explore the terra incognita of ...

... By Horace Horsnell Men in Shadow (Vaudeville) HERE is yet another highly topical play, fraught with excitement and redolent of war. Though its heroes are English airmen on active service, it is not another Flare Path, but more severely romantic. It might not inaptly have been entitled Scare Path, for its excitement is of that devil-in-the-dark order of which children are such connoisseurs. ...

... it win fame in a night both for her- he play? have been stressed with t that sentiment and publicity may i accommodating story. Re-savouring jus first night at the Shaftesbury in liniscent eulogists have vied with one n whetting the appetite of those who, oliseum revival, were to see the play rst time. J, however, has a horrid way of over- itself, and there were bound to be ntments. Time ...

... By Horace Horsnell Escort (Lyric) THE west end of Shaftesbury Avenue has made a corner in war plays, and estab lished a kind of unified command. Its three contingent theatres-- the Globe, the Apollo, and the Lyric-- are now the battle headquarters of Mr. Emlyn Williams's blitzed civilians, Terence Rattigan's delightful airmen, and the Royal Navy, respectively. Escort, the latest comer, is a ...

... MYSELF AT THE PICTURES The Bad Girl of the Family By James Agate After two weeks of crook films, re-enter the Domestic Drama. Our Braille stu dent lovingly fingering the Guide to Films for the Blind will have learnt before this that the Hollywood recipe for this genre in cludes the rich family complete with million aire uncles and legacy-bequeathing aunts, the plausible rogue who bags the ...