... By Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. (Heinemann 10s. 6d.) A title to put (Heinemann 10s. 6d.) A title to put anyone on the defensive but, if not instantly, at least by the second chapter the reader will have capitulated. This New England family adventure is written by Frank Gilbreth as if by his brother's wife, if you can work that out, but it seems a pretty first-hand account of how the intrepid Barbara ...

... : By Marion Edey. (Gollancz 12s. 6d.) Perhaps, as the age makes the man and the emergency the hero, so the home makes the childhood auto- biographer. Perhaps, because a rambling farmhouse on the Hudson River was made to be written about, that fact produced a chronicler who has done the job to perfec tion. Certainly Mrs. Edey was led to her task by the conviction that somebody ought to be ...

... Carlton Very little to do with D-Day. Hollywood romance of American officer (Robert Taylor) and English girl (Dana Wyntcr) in wartime London. He is married, she engaged to British officer (Richard Todd); so look out for heartbreak. Phoney England, honest acting. Good nonsense for those who don't remember that particular Sixth of June. ...

... /wr C03oolcslielJ THE LITTLE ARK. By Jan de Hartog. (Hamish Hamilton 1 2s. 6d.) ALONG MY LINE. By Gilbert Harding. (Putnam and Co. Ltd. 12s. 6 d.) KATE TERRY GIELGUD An Autobiography. Max Reinhardt 21s.) Reviewed by G. B. Stern IT seems somewhat premature to speak of The Little Ark, by Jan de Hartog, as the best novel of 1954 (even supposing we read it at the end of 1953), but cer tainly the ...

... ^djold and a oice The Grace Moore Story (Warner Theatre CUSTOMERS who expect to hear One Night of Love used as the theme tune of The Grace Moore Story will be dis appointed. Not a note of that celebrated work is sung; nor, indeed, is there any hint that Miss Moore ever made a moving picture, let alone became one of the most popular stars in Hollywood musicals. The story covers the first part ...

... The Million Pound Note (Gaumont) MARK TWAIN'S celebrated short story, The Million-Dollar Note, has been transported to England and extended into ninety-one Technicolor minutes. The sharp little satire on the power of money, and the neat turn of the original, are perhaps rather swamped by the broader comedy of the English version, but the point is still there, the story is still a good story, ...

... NOWADAYS, it is often mistakenly thought that sound radio's only audience is comprised of people who can't afford a television set. But apart from the fallacy of assuming that all television set owners can afford them anyway, it should be pointed out that there is a rapidly-growing number of car radio listeners who are beginning to compen sate for those who deserted sound for the small by jack ...

... Arts Here again is the evil child who destroys her school-mistresses by a false charge of lesbianism. Lillian Hellman's indignant play, almost a banned classic of the modern theatre, sufTers now from a slow, uncertain performance. On the morning after the premiere only Margot van der Burgh and Clare Austin are still genuinely in the mind. REVIEWS ...

... Mortal Pageant, by Johann Fabricius (Heinemann, 15s). In a novel about fourteenth- century Italy the richness of the trappings could easily swamp the men and women beneath, but Johann Fabricius has a notable gift for bringing the past alive without being clumsily modern, and the very first pages of Mortal Pageant strike one with this freshness of approach. This is a story of the Great Plague ...

... Night Drop, by Stephen Ransome (Gollancz, 10s 6d). Another American murder story, a more conventional one. Detection is in the hands of two private agents, Cole and Speare. (Stop me if you know them already.) Cole is an ordinary type, a foil to his super-intelligent assistant, and what is nice about them is that they do not talk exclusively in wisecracks or say to each other O.K., you win. ...

... Phoenix This revival is, I hope, what many adults will want. Inevitably they will argue, because it is always a play for dogmatism. I join the cheers Paul Scofield's richly developed since 1948 fulfils my own idea of the young man, royal, gentle, infinitely sensitive, who is haunted by the task he is pledged to undertake a tragic spirit in a world repellent to him. (Only Horatio's friendship ...

... Cur son In the same programme is a short but beautifully acted British film, , written by Wolf Mankowitz from a story by Gogol, about a poor Jewish tailor who helps the ghost of a poorer Jewish clerk to collect his debts from a sweating employer. ...