... The new crop of films includes three that fall into three different categories comedy, contemporary drama and thriller. Pick of the bunch is the comedy The Notorious Landlady made by Columbia and starring Jack Lemmon, Kim Novak and Fred Astaire. Set in England, in the dotty world of Ealing Studio comedies, the story tells how William Gridley, played by Jack Lemmon, a newly-arrived U.S. ...

... Women M.P.s designing gardens intelligence tests; and this week's novels With all you've seen and done, all the people you 've known-- you ought to write a book. This must be one of the most frequent ex pressions of relatively uninformed opinion that exists. These enthusiasts seldom consider whether the much-experienced person so ad dressed is capable of writing acceptable prose. There are ...

... LEADER OF THE DUTCH Authoritative biography of Prince Bernhard Let it be said from the outset that Alden Hatch's authorised biography of H.R.H. PRINCE BERNHARD OF THE NETHERLANDS (Harrap. 25s.) is something much more than a long diatribe about the Prince's feud with Field- Marshal Montgomery. Unfortunately this very penetrating account of a varied career has already suffered from the one-sided ...

... MARSHALS OF FRANCE R. F. Delderfield on the Napoleonic Wars The twenty-six Marshals of France, from Murat, the inn-keeper's son who became King of Naples, Masséna, the smuggler and fruit seller who grew rich on the loot of Europe, to Poniatowski, who sought in the trade of arms freedom for his beloved Poland, were created by Napoleon in the brief years of the Empire to consolidate the glory of ...

... The golden age of Burgundy was certainly luring the rule of four dukes of the Valois line luring the century following 1364. Its struggle or survival and aggrandisement began in \.d.1002 and ended in the disaster at Nancy in he 1470's. In that golden century, at times Jurgundy's share of France and the Nether- ands rivalled that of the French Kings, and lie glories of her civilisation that of ...

... BOOK REVIEW The Commonwealth a vital factor in civil aviation By its nature, the Commonwealth has proved a forcing ground for civil aviation not only because of the distances involved from country to country and the needs and desires of inhabitants to travel between those countries, but also because the rapid and comparatively recent economic expansion of Commonwealth countries has meant that ...

... THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE At the Aldwych Theatre Brecht's little-performed epic allegory, finished in 1945, eleven years before his death, joined the repertory of The Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company last week. It has more than ninety parts, and even with doubling, more than thirty players are needed. This political allegory is receiving its first profes sional London production in English. ...

... My Latin remains my Greek is gone with the wind. In old age, I have gained so much from the prose translations of E. V. Rieu that I question the claim that only a poetic transla tion can achieve the dramatic tensions of Homer. To imitate the rhythms is difficult in any literary form. Obviously a poet has the best chance, and Robert Fitzgerald, in his THE ODYSSEY (Heinemann. 35s.), goes a long- ...

... THE ARAB WORLD An analysis of the changing East Morroe Berger, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Programme of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, has written a most penetrating analysis of THE ARAB WORLD TODAY (Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 36s.). It is all the better, without doubt, for the fact that the author has somehow contrived to stand personally aloof from the conflict of ...

... James II-- following the precedent set by Cæsar-- wrote his war memoirs, and he has been followed by a majority of war leaders down to Montgomery. Sir Arthur Bryant has justified James II's claim to be a war leader. In his youth he was a bonny fighter by land and sea and, with allowances for the relative size and weights of armies and fleets, he is entitled to rank as an Eisenhower-Foch ...

... RAZZLE-DAZZLE TEXAS Survey of the people of the most exuberant American state; the Paris Music Hall; and this week's fiction I read a delightful story the other day-- that a new secretary answered a telephone call, heard the operator say that it was long-distance from America, agreed with her, and hung up. Well, it is a long way to America and still farther to the remarkable State of Texas, ...

... YOUNG GOEBBELS The early diaries of the Nazi propagandist Hitler will always remain fascinating, since his kind of megalomania is not only gruesome in itself but also changed history to such an extent. And to a lesser extent Fascism and neo-Fascism are fascinating, in so far as they retain a compulsive pull for people in many parts of the world. This is, as recent events show, a truism. And it ...