... by SIRIOL HUGH- J ONES SOMETIMES a novel comes up that is more than easy entertainment, more than a way of merely passing the time. (Occa sionally in my gloomier moments I am driven to believe that most of us, myself included, read fiction obsessively because it is there, like the classic answer to the question, Why do you want to climb Everest?) Alberto Moravia is a very distinguished ...

... he Titanic sinks-- and you are there by ELSPETH GRANT THE STRANGE and terrible story of the Titanic disaster still grips, chills and mystifies, though it is 46 years since the largest liner in the world, on her maiden to New York, struck an iceberg and was lost-- with fifteen hundred and two souls. A Night To Remember, excellently directed Mr. Roy Baker, is based on Mr. Walter Lord's ...

... The pursuit of love-by Mrs. Fitzherbert's nieces by SIRIOL HUGH-JONES THE IRRESISTIBLE title of Mr. Richard Buckle's book, The Prettiest Girl In England (John Murray, 21s.), was the phrase used by the Duke of Orleans in 1833 to describe the 18-year-old Georgina Smythe, niece of Mrs. Fitzherbert, and great-great- grandmother of Mr. Buckle. The book consists of Georgina's private journal, which ...

... THE CINEMA by ELSPETH GRANT MR. GARY COOPER has been around quite a time-- on earth since 1901, in movies since 1926 --and, though we were naturally always delighted to see him, we were perhaps beginning to regard him as just good old, lanky, laconic Reliable: as, in fact, nothing more than good old Trouper Cooper. Well, 10 North Frederick certainly rocked me out of that, somewhat ...

... Head of Protocol ;j The Observations of a French Diplomatist B i Before he died, Jacques Dumaine, Head of Protocol in the French Foreign Ministry in the immediate post war years between 1945 and 1951, wrote a diary of the events of the day as he saw them from his windows at the Quai d'Orsay. It is a very frank diary about all the great and the near-great whom he met in his everyday encounters; ...

... RECORD REVIEWS CLASSICAL Perhaps with a keen perception of the growing teenage trend towards the concert halls rather than the skiffle cellars-- which I have mentioned --HMV have recently issued a long-playing record which should prove a boon for those who like what they hear of the classics, but would also like to know a little more about the subject. It is called The Young Person's Guide to ...

... OPERA and BALLET QPERA DE CAMARA DE BUENOS AIRES (Waaler s Wells). How pleasant it was to hear this talented company from South America, and all the more so to see two operas I had never seen before. They are certainly to be congratulated on being adventurous. In the first Opera, Filosofo di Gampagna, we saw a talented company dealing rather well with a very stylised comic opera: libretto, ...

... A PERFICKLY WONDERFUL LIFE Reviewed by ANGELA JIIL\E TAXPAYERS, office-slaves, shuffling victims of the sheer dullness of modern life-- come, seize The Darling Buds of May (Michael Joseph, 12s 6d) and take, with H. E. Bates, a huge and wonderful swipe at the set-up. This writer is not perhaps the one you would have expected to burst out so; but you will quickly perceive that to the surprising ...

... RECORDS by GERALD LASCELLES AN ATOMIC mushroom is viewed through a vermilion haze on Count Basie's latest record sleeve. I thought it a piece of publicity unworthy of his personality. If Basie's music is spontaneous, it only confirms my own feelings that his is the greatest jazz band to have played the European circuit in the last decade. Reaction sets in on the third or fourth hearing, when ...

... t ELSPETH GRANT THE CREDIT TITLES on Mr. Kirk Douglas's film, The Vikings, are promising: small, stylized pieces of mosaic-work (photo- graphed in douce colour), they suggest that are in for an illuminating, tasteful and historically sound survey of Nordic influences in the ninth century. Nothing of the kind. are in for a blood-bath. Mr. Douglas he always wanted to make a picture 0 'his ...

... by GERALD LASCELLES A FINE assembly of British modernists blow most enterprisingly on Swingin' the Blues, a Tempo release of great interest. I find it difficult to choose between the merits of the groups led by Dizzy Reece, Jimmy Deuchar, Victor Feldman, Vie Ash, and Tubby Hayes, all of which follow a fairly straightforward pattern. The name of Tubby Hayes reminds me that he and fellow ...

... by ELSPETH GRANT WHEN SLAPSTICK rears its zany head in a talking picture, it is liable to be put out of countenance by dialogue-- with which it has nothing in common. Slapstick does not belong among normal, vocal people: it thrives only in a lunatic, wordless world of its own-- the world of the harlequinade, of the pantomime paper-hangers and whitewashers, and of the silent film. What ...