... . By James Branch Cabell. by Rupert Croft- Cooke (The Bodley Head 8s. 6 d.) MR. CABELL is one of those writers who divide us sharply into pros and antis. One may, with reason, be an addict and know all the long cycle of his novels, and feel familiar with his eccentricities of speech, the liberties he takes with time and place, and his slv and chuckling humour. Or one may, with reasons that ...

... . By David Keith. (Collins Crime Club 8s. 6 d.) THIS is not a who-done-it, nor a straight thriller, nor an adventure story. It is a rather ostentatious piece of melodrama with a sprinkling of hard-boiled humour. The characters are for the most part unusually ugh customers, as one may gather from the blurb' catalogue of them-- a raddled milliner, a bestial balloon-seller, a trio of glamorous ...

... REVIEWS by C. A. LEJEUNE THE charm of The Glass Menagerie is as brittle as its title: try to grasp it too firmly, and it shatters in your hand. The play from which it was made was not universally popular when it came to London last season, although I have known people who went three or four times to see it; nor would I dare to say with any certainty, This is your picture. I myself fought ...

... HIGHLY DANGEROUS, which marks Margaret Lock- wood's return to films, is a modern spy-thriller especially written for her by Eric Ambler. The story is set in a Police State behind the Iron Curtain, where, it is believed, germ warfare is being prepared. To dis cover the truth of this, Frances Conway, a young entomo logist working in the British Biological Control Labora tories, is asked to ...

... It makes a change when THE ARTIST RUNS RIOT says J. C. THE WIN BY now, of course, it is the thing for an audience to applaud when the curtain rises. It comes automatically: a salute to the setting, whether this is by Messel at the height of his flourish, or whether three walls glumly enclose a chair or two, some unlikely bookcases, and a telephone. All very well yet it is seldom that a ...

... Odecrn, Marble Arch In this odd film of the war at sea Holly wood makes amends for anything beastly it may ever have said about the Germans. The hero (John Wayne) is captain of a German freighter, which slips out of Sydney harbour in an attempt to reach home waters by way of Valparaiso. The heroine (Lana Turner) is a German spy, who sees the light during her sea-trip, changes tight, white ...

... by ANGELA MILNE The Temptation of Roger Heriott: By Edward Newhouse. (Gollancz; 12s. 6d.) Intellectual supremacy, political dictator ship, the love of a beautiful woman one can imagine Mephistopheles looking over his little stock of offerings and reflecting that nowadays, for the average victim of civilisation, no temptation has quite the pulling power of money. And it 's money that is ...

... Letter from Paris Aldwych IN comparison, events at the Aldwych are creamily mild. But then comparison would be wildly unfair. The letter from Paris appears in an American sensational newspaper, The Reverberator, during the late 1880's. It contains many details of the private affairs of the wealthy Probert family, expatriates long settled in Paris and now more French than American. The ...

... Full House (Odeon. Marble Arch It would be presumptuous to assert that the Somerset Maugham films, Quartet, Trio and Encore, made in this country, prompted Holly wood to follow our example, and produce an omnibus film from the works of another prince of short story-tellers, O. Henry. But whether it is a case of post hoc or propter hoc, the thing has been done. Full House contains five of mp w. ...

... . By E. H. Clements. Hodder and Stoughton 12s. 6d.) A sensational novel of the old, le Queux school, but most proficiently done. ...

... . By Alex Atkinson. (Peter Davies 12s. 6d.) Life in a provincial repertory company. ...

... . By Ellery Queen. (Gollancz 10s. 6 d.) Twelve short stories. Up to standard. j ...