... FOR the first ten minutes of My Brother Jonathan I should not have believed, even if an archangel had come down from heaven to tell me, that I should be slipping this film into this space above this authentic signature as my choice of the best new picture of the week. The opening of My Brother Jonathan is terrible. We are introduced to a young actor, in an abominably ill-fitting grey wig ...

... . P. Moran, Operative. By Percival Wilde. (Gollancz 8s. 6d.) The name should have been spelt with two o's. But I found these stories of a Correspondence School detective highly diverting. The Lost Ant. By Miriam Blanco-Fombona. (Allen and Unwin 7s. 6d.) A crudely-written tale about an Andean peasant who wins a lottery and becomes a diplomat in London. Chinese Crackers. By Edward Ward. (The ...

... By C. A. Leieune BLANCHE FURY.-- a Technicolor British film from Joseph Shear ing's case-history of a Victoria governess, who takes a post in her uncle's home and finds herself involved in family feud and murder. Blanche Fury (Valerie Hobson) marries her employer's son, but falls in love with her employer's land agent (Stewart Granger): an angry young man who gets that way because he is ...

... OUR BOOKSHELF Rupert Croft-Cooke OUR REVIEWER'S CHOICE LATE HAVE 1 LOVED THEE. By Ethel Mannin. (Jarrolds 12s. 6 d.) NO RESTING PLACE. By Ian Niall. (Heinemann 9s. 6d.) THE LOVELY AND THE LOVED. By Joan Morgan. Macdonalds 8s. 6 d.) TEMPESTUOUS PETTICOAT. By Clare Leighton. (Gollancz 12s. 6 d.) LATE HAVE I LOVED THEE.-- I find it hard to do justice to Miss Ethel Mannin's new novel, for while ...

... Rupert Croft-Cooke THE UNFORGIVEN.-- Of this interest ing novel the publishers state that though Howard Clewes has used a circumstance of war as a peg on which to hang his story, 'The Unforgiven' is not a war book. Then what is? Here we have a group of partisans whose military ranks are stated with some relish, for they are eleven in number and the last remnants of an Army Corps. Surround ...

... . The Derelict Day. By Alan Ross. (Lehmann 5s.) Are there still, I wonder, those speculative book-collectors who buy the first editions of young writers in the hope of a rise,' and regard the critic as a sort of tipster If so, here is an opportunity for them. The Horseman's Year. Edited by W. E. Lyon. (Collins 10s. 6d.) A survey of topics and events of interest to horsemen. And incidentally a ...

... 7C By C. A. Lejeune FARREBIQUE.-- The sub- title, The Four Seasons, gives the key to the picture. This French documentary comes to England with two prizes, the Grand Prix de la Critique Internationale and the Grand Prix du Cinema. It sets out, slowly but impec cably, in the most exquisitely composed photography, to tell the story of a year on a mixed farm in the district of Rouerque, with ...

... BARBARY COURT. By Shamus Frazer. Chapman and Hall 9s. 6 d.) SHAPTON AFFAIRS. By Roger Armfelt. (Pilot Press 8s. 6 d.) ESTUARY. By John Pudney. (Bodley Head 7s. 6 d.) DEATH BEFORE DINNER. By E. C. R. Lorac. (Lrime Llub 8s. 6d.) Rupert Croft-Cooke BARBARY COURT.-- There can be few things more difficult to write than successful extravaganza, for a condition of its success is that, however ...

... . Polly Fulton. By John P. Marquand. (Robert Hale 12s. 6d.) Like the author's description of travelling with a General You were not on bucket seats. It was a plush job all the way. A Count of Six. By Lester Powell. (Collins 8s. 6d.) Somewhere among the million displaced persons of Europe lurked six scientists. I like the lurking scientists better than the heroic Philip Odell who goes to find ...

... WE have had life with Father. Here now is life with Mother. She is worth remem bering; and, thanks to Kathryn Forbes, who put her into a novel; to John van Druten, who brought her to the theatre; and to Mady Christians, who now acts her at the Aldwvch, she holds the mind long after curtain-fall. This is at first surprising. On the face of it there is not much to remember. The play is with ...

... By C. A. Lejeune LADY FROM SHANGHAI.-- A new Orson Welles picture, after all these years, ought to be a major event in the London cinema; but this one just isn't. Principal reasons: it deals ex clusively with unlikeable and improbable people; the plot is confused; and Mr. Welles, who tells the story in the first person, elects to speak in a soft, swift Irish brogue which, though charming in ...

... AT a moment when the fate of the British film industry hangs perilously in the balance; when its conduct, direction and prestige is a matter for the gravest consideration, I am going to choose for scrutiny not the best picture on show in London, but one of the worst; and I am choosing it quite deliberately as an Awful Example. A new British company has introduced to the astonished customers ...