The Film Society

"Little Boy Lost" proved a little disappointing on second viewing. One remembered that "Bing" had not been allowed to play a straight part without, at least, one song and even at first hearing this had seemed to be grotesquely out of place. The second time, the accompanying invisible orchestra—a Hollywood weakness, in unforgiveableness second only to the celestial choir—seemed an even greater outrage upon credibility : and this was a pity, for it was a good story and had an authentic French background and Christian Fourcade delivered, or was schooled to deliver, that high standard of performance in the title role that we have come to expect from all child actors on the screen.

I missed the showing of "The Little World of Don Camillo" and have to report the favourable reaction to it at second hand. The feud between 'Catholic priest and Communist mayor may not rise to any great dramatic heights but Fernandel, the French comedian who has been likened to our own George Formby, fully justified his surprise selection to play the part of the priest and successfully reproduced much of the charm of the central character of the book. In any event a sundrenched community of Northern Italy makes a pleasant study for a wintry, February night in England. The film was directed by the famous French director, Jacques Duvivier.

Only as recently as last term in these notes I was lamenting the absence of light-hearted American comedies, and now "Roman Holiday" comes along, which is nothing if not light-hearted. For once it is a pleasure to eat one's words. The two leading roles were charmingly played, nowhere more so than in the scene before the stone face of La Boccadi Verita. It is astonishing what freshness actors can achieve despite the dull routine of film-making. Towards the end the sentiment threatened to get out of hand, but fortunately it didn't, and the twenty-four hour holiday in Rome passed to its logical conclusion. William Wyler may not be a second Lubitsch, but he certainly made a good job of this one. Chief honours, however, should go to the script-writer who invented a story that seemed to play itself. It was a happy film and one can readily imagine that everyone enjoyed making it. "Les Vacances de M. Hulot" was a complete contrast, but, in its own way, completely successful. It was very simply made and must have cost comparatively few thousands of pounds; it was a closely observed study of life in a small hotel on the Brittany coast. The humour was not derived from extravagant situations : almost everything could almost have happened in real life. In this age when nobody is allowed to be himself, but must be compared with somebody else, Jacques Tati has been hailed as the French Chaplin. The comparison is more apt here than in the earlier "Jour de Fete". The scene in the small lounge of the hotel where the clumsy Hulot contrived to disarrange with his hunting crop more pictures than he managed to set straight, was directly in the Chaplin tradition. 36