... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. THE most im pressive films I have seen in the past fortnight are both about war in the desert. One is British, the other Russian. Both, oddly enough, have numerical titles, The British film is NINE MEN (New Gallery). The Russian film is THE THIRTEEN (Tatler). Nine Men is directed by Harry Watt, the man who made Target for To-night and London Can Take It. Watt is one of ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. IT is not often that earnest filmgoers have an oppor tunity of comparing the past with the present. Ours is an ephemeral art. What is here to-day is gone to-morrow-- and it seldom returns. But for once there is a return that is worth while, and one that does afford a certain amount of interesting comparison. At the London Pavilion is a revival of Miss Hedy Lamarr's first ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. TO dislike something very much does not neces sarily mean that one likes its opposite. But as a rule a strong prejudice in one direction does imply a corre sponding predilection in the other, and this is certainly true of Sir James Barrie, a selection of whose letters has recently been published under the dis cerning and vigilant editorship of Miss Viola Meynell. Barrie ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. DESTINATION CHUNG KING is the auto biography of a Chinese lady, born in Honan and bred in Peking, who, in 1937, when barely twenty, came to London to study obstetrics. Her natural bent was for literature, but Science was our god, a beneficent god to make of China a rich and happy nation. At that time she was a pacifist, and had many bitter arguments with her childhood ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. IT is so pleasant to watch those ex cellent artists. Gaby Morlay, Michel Simon, Eric von Stroheim and the rest at work again, that few people will grumble if the new French film at Studio One, DERRIÈRE LA FAÇADE, is not arranged quite as impeccably as their talents merit. Derriere la Facade was in pro duction when the war broke out. It was actually showing in Paris when ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. HOUSE BOUND is a war novel, as all fic tion that sets out to describe the contemporary scene must be, in some degree. Rose Fairlaw's role has hitherto been the passive one of anxiety for her children, who are just of an age to be closely in volved-- Mickie, her husband's son by his first marriage; Flora, the only child of her first marriage; and Tom, who belongs to her ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. THE categories into which novelists can be divided are manifold, and if they are seldom very water tight or precise, at any rate they clear the ground and make a basis for discussion. The oldest, the best-known and, on the whole, the most useful of these categories, the romantic and the realistic, for many years divided fiction into two camps. Romance and realism are ...