... . By Margaret Archer. (Jarrolds 9s. 6d.) Poison and sentimentality. The rustics talk in indefatigably rustic dialect and there 's an Irishman who savs bad cess to him and a cup of tay. R. C.-C. ...

... A FILM that purports to clarify the case against anti-Semitism within the space of two hours is an audacious thing; a film that selects this special moment for doing so is even more audacious. It is obvious to any decent man or woman that persecution of any kind is both evil and stupid, but the particular bias of many people at many times against the Jews is a pheno menon that springs from ...

... YOU shall not know by what strange accident I chancèd on this letter, says Portia, at the end of The Merchant of Venice, when Shakespeare is bluffing shamelessly in order to get the play ended. Similarly, you need not know by what strange accident I was obliged to see most of Traveller's Joy on my feet, standing at the back of the Criterion stalls. I had not stood through a play since ...

... . By Jan Ciechanowski. (Gollancz 18s.) Yet another account of the betrayal of Poland. The author writes with clarity and authority. He was Polish Ambassador in the United States until his Government ceased to be recognised. it- ...

... . By Mary Durham. (Skeffington 9s. 6d.) Conventional crime but quite an ingenious solution ...

... OUR BOOKSHELF Rupert Croft-Cooke OUR REVIEWER'S CHOICE MEN AT HIGH TABLE and THE HOUSE OF STRANGERS. By Gerald Bullett. (Dent 9s.) JOY AND JOSEPHINE. By Monica Dickens. Michael Joseph 10s. 6 d.) KNOCK ON ANY DOOR. By Willard Motley. Collins 10s. 6d.) GOING MY WAY. By Godfrey Winn. I Hutchinson 12s. 6d.) MEN AT HIGH TABLE and THE HOUSE OF STRANGERS. Mr. Gerald Bullett has the faculty of in ...

... CINEGUILD'S Oliver Twist is such an excellent piece of technical work, so responsibly and affectionately made, and so certain to add lustre to the British film industry, that it seems ungrateful to suggest that it may not be wholly successful as an entertainment. And yet a critic can only speak as he finds, and whereas I came away from Cineguild's first Dickens film, Great Expectations, ...

... . By Bernard Newman. (Hale 16s.) A mass of tittle-tattle about the various countries on the Baltic, peppered with inter jection marks and the first person singular. BOOKS IN BRIEF ...

... . Bv Olive Hawks. (Jarrolds 9s. 6d.) The author's deeper purpose, the pub lishers say, is to examine the relationship of men and women in the modern world. I seem to have heard that before somewhere. M ...

... SITTING PRETTY.-- What might have been a negligible Hollywood comedy about a young couple who advertise for a baby-sitter and jet one in the person of a dryly efficient male novelist, is saved by its cynical sketches of small-town life and Clifton Webb's tour de force is an Admirable Crichton of the nursery. Rather Surprisingly funny. kreutzer sonata. A notable Argentine ilm in Spanish, ...

... LA FERME DU PENDU.-- An earthy and candid story of life on a French farm in the remote district of La Vendée. The film is a tragedy of lust: the lust of an elder brother for his land, of a younger brother for women. Very strongly played by Charles Vanel and Alfred Adam, with immensely powerful individual scenes, but the whole thing just misses greatness by a tendency to over-simplify the ...

... ■SI . By Lord Tedder. (Hodder and Stoughton 9s. 6d.) An edition for the general public of the four Lees Knowles Lectures delivered by Lord Tedder at Cambridge in 1947. They have already been published by the Stationery Office for Service use. ...