The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 12

12 THE OBSERVER, SUNDAY, JUNE 26, 1938 THEATRES Continued from page 14.) tlusic and ttuslctaits TZVrt and CONCERTS 26 a line; Minimum, 7a. S701 TUES. NEXT, at 8.50. Haxoiu Hott announces PIANOFORTE RECITAL. WINFRED CHRISTIE Bosendorfer-Moor Double Keyboard Piano.

at Wigmore Hall. CttmppelTB. bo, New Queen's Hal, and usual agenls. TFitms of tye Week NORTH SEA AND SOUTH RIVER LEJEVNE A MUSICAL STOCKTAKING LEGITIMATE DISSONANCE BY A. H.

FOX STRANGWAYS International contemporaneity, of which we have been thinking and talking this week, is a periodical stocktaking of intelligible musical ideas and ol the compression to'which they can be legitimately subjected. There are no rules for making an idea. It crops up, can be seized, put in a setting, made use of, but we take thought and make it. It embodies things that we are coming to think desirable, and as these change with time so does the idea, and so does the musical idea, the tune. Something in it is contrasted with something else.

Palestrina made a mosaic of phrases, Handel distributed masses, the seventeenth century concentrated on antithetic statement, the eighteenth on rhythm, Beethoven on key leverage, Wagner on dramatic phraseology, Debussy on dissolving views. The present century, knowing in its heart that it will have one day to come back to the phrase and the mass, because these are, as Bach showed us, at the bottom of all music, has spent a generation on experiments to prepare for that return which it has not yet the courage to make. Discarding dramatic phraseology as too definite and dissolving views as too tainted with beauty, it has stalked that elusive animal, musical creation, by means of orchestral antitheses, jazz rhythms, and wild-cat schemes of key. The musical idea, then, has altered from age to age. But whatever that might for the moment be, there have been aiso various notions of how much compression! and how much spacing out it would stand in its formal elements, texture, and dy-j namics.

A brief epitome might come into favour, like the successive numbers of "Dido and Aeneas," or a leisurely cxpati-ation as in the later pianoforte sonatas of Schubert; Schumann's device was the epigram, Chopin's the periphrasis, Ravel's iaconism. Dissonance, which started life as a method of engineering rhythmic emphasis, came to have its ugliness accepted (in Blow's crudities," or Wagner's "music of the future." or elsewhere) as an ingredient of. not a foil to. beauty. Climax again, the considered lay-out of the dynamics as a whole, the sixteenth century found in the spacing of the voices, the seventeenth in divisions," Mozart in complexity of the partwriting, Berlioz a substitute lor it in orchestral rarities, and so on; and at all limes increased volume of sound has lain readv to the hand of the composer who could invent nothing more subtle.

Contemporary taste is certainly for the epitome; instances like the Xouvel age of At. Markcwitsch. who did not know when it was time to sil Hm.m 1 1 Tl, now sought may be one reason why formal climax is at a discount, but a stronger reason is the disappearance of tonal landmarks, which places difficulty in the wav of introducing either a ciimax or a final cadence, except bv means of mere noise; the modern piece of music not seldom dies of inanition in a single note. or with an epigram on its lips in the shape of a carcfuily prepared discord. To base1 a iKrce of music entirclv on 1 sonnncp siacn's done in O.

Mw-U du Seigneur, is to Xati throw awav its chief element of rhythm' and cause it to stagnate. To employ it as an i(ncidenta! fringe to adorn substant.ve harmo fs.rencK cantata is to confess the impotence of both; for the dissonance is weakened by not having its proper Yvork to do, and the harmonv should have been cogent enough to stand alone. The right use of dissonance was shown such of is in of 1 77 at NEXT at 8.30. U.UWU1 HOLT announces THIRD SONG RECITAL By SPECIAL, REQUEST. ALFRED O'SHEA At the BlUthner Piano.

IVOR NEWTON. at Orotrlan Hall. Ohappell's. Q.ucen'3 Hall, and usual agents WIGMORE ToSoKROW 'MOn7i7E 30. BACH PROGRAM ME ALBERT-LEVEQUE PIANOFORTE J'LUTE R.ECTTAL.

1 RENE LE ROY Slelnwav Piano. Tickers 1 64.. 3s. 1BB5 TILLPTT. 124.

W.l. GROTRIAN HALL. TUESDAY NEXT. i MARIA MAROVA Sontrs by Modrrn Com B.45. GTOT-T-lRn-StplnWfR Pi, IBBS TILLST 5a.

1. 8. JO. I TOMOSE HALL. WEDNESDAY NEXT.

GWENDOLEN McGILL VIOLONCTLI i. Smtly Nicholas t.ol'ru Bosendorfer IBBS A- TIL LETT 1:4 Ecrr al. li'trriftnan IPIbticiI. 3s- 1 9s. 14.

W.cniore-.st COW DRAY HALL HPN1U FTTA-STREET ELENA ANTONIO LIAROSA ''delinnac (. FORTE FCITAL, -FTl FKN ATKINS. Ci''Cicert Direction. i MANCHESTER HISTORICAL r. MEir.rhfS'p PAGEANT.

7 pm. dally, 2.43 m. 700 Chorus. -ODKS in On' ra, if Mftnrhpsicr. 0 to 1 p-rn.

TATTOO. Ctttf.A SAHCEtl I s. irt Irnrn B.on-HAH1VO T'Ti Hal! THEATRES (Continued Irom precedms column.) YNDHAM'S, J8. Tnjq 8.30. i( GEORGE AND MARGARET." t'oin-'dv by SAVORY.

JOYCE HARBQL-R A EAXTFR. ROVALD VARD PATRICK NOK1. HOWL ETT. JOHN EO.XE-R. AN CAKSOV HANDL Pr.i.'ii.ri ci L)v OHAK ESPEAF1E FFHTiwai STH A -OHO-1" PO -A v6n A Jln Vl'rrv- RfCinr-jl n7 Bi FIRST LONDON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL." th line Ac- of Quf-f EI a tw i ft IU- fa Druna.

DancLRe. ar.rl orchestra: i CHORAL CONCKRT urn- ne.ia vr nr.v nrr'ir M.r Tudor PARRY jm'P? At the CONWAY HALL Monday June 27 fi 30 THE ALLim ARTS IN THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE S-pecracle -nr. scene Irom nrst-Scnown Ooera SOI 07FT' ORFT" SINTjrNG-LARSEN At f-e I.YCFVM THEATRE. June 28 at 2 JO p.m 6d 7s fd 5s 3s 2s fid. Ba-x O.l'.r- re Bush House.

WC 2 TIM i Or MALVERN FESTIVAL. AUG. 1st AUG. 27th. Pe by fl Dun.sany.

Mun ro fr.ia iri'm Mnlern Fes-na -ph, wnilc'iall VARIETY ENTERTAINMENTS utc; PALI ADIUM. Ger 2 3: 6 21. Mat1: WrJ 15 a V.e Amhrop" Prpf r.1 a B-irori. A-t' Wf-lern B.rDl B'c'r-r fc p-k 1 fv fp C- p.MT A- IRiNrrE of wa! rs NAVNTON WAYNE frtvotitf i CnlRIS JOAN 1VARNFR I -nnnn hi D. I -t ol I's 1: LNDMILL.

71 Yra: RFUDF n'ctil'-. A Darr-n p-ivi'-pT Art Exhibftiong. PJclLire Theatres, menls will he found on nase Entertain-1 CHARITIES NATIONAL HOSPITAL IOR DISEASES OF THE HEART WESTMORLAND-STREET, 1. T'ir Azvra'i tric ct Jirnrt rpj In s.r.a THE BRITISH SAILORS' SOCIETY Dnna.tlor.js eratr-inDv by Rt. Hon.

Blr FRSTDK. RYKES, llor. Trf-i5ureT, 6 SO, Commcrcial-Toad. onrion, 14 FOUNDED IN 758. Ma'v KLnsf Ororse VI.

Kr EJiaiwth. Her MaV's'V Q'jeen Majy. Presrldent: IILs Grace Dufce oi Portend. ROYAL FEMALE ORPHANAGE, BEDDIXGTOX. CROYDON.

PROVTTJES FOR 1 -J ORPHAN GIRLS. Particulars pldly by the Secretary. Whitehall 9632 fe 2.30. Evgs. JO.

Tu, LILIAN BRAITHWAITE COMEDIENNE By IVOR NOVELLO BARRY JONES. The Play by MURRAY MACDONALD. XOVELLO EXCELS." Daily Mail. "I.1LLAN BRAITHWAITE I MAG XI I CENT. Eyenin Weirs.

'm TM a ru -i RLV'JE NINE SHARP FT MlpNS A DDE LEY OH IT. ITCK A SO S.m-JS KICHARD HAYDN Irnic i Mi's. Wr-il. Th TTTE THEATRE GUILdT JOHN C. RTLFOS I.YN FOXTAXXE AT "SP Comedy.

AMPHITRYON 38." season mvst 1. Wed OUR CLASS, PEOPLE OF ST. JOHX ERVIXE. NICHOIAS H-NFN AMI'S llABroi'RT N' Bl'RSiRD LEE m- .1 nl.1 ATHl S'- URSri 4 QPEN AIR THEATRE. -1- RKCrF-NT PAP.

THE TEMPEST Ylari-'s :5 1 akr-ira ..1 Ma Hob 'in rt 1 Theatre cn nf PLAYHOUSE. 7774 P.T r. V.T?..THtR3 it SAT R--s 3 NCt .1 ESMOND KN'i KSOVi THE INSECT PLAY, hv BROTH V.PJ$ -C Apr EmYBOm- ML'OHT 3 fits IT Tfe "PRINCES. nci. a', sin.

Mais. Wed. FIHTH SHEPIJARn WILD OATS. A Nrw Sont and Flm BTdney HOWARD Ar RISCOE 1 rrj PEARf H'i-in Dn l1, 'e J.E LONG UPROAR OF I AUCHTLH rrj IT. JAMES' GOLDEN BOY OSOV7 NF'A' OSK ST.

MARTIN S. 1- YVONNE ARXAUD iv. EOXALD SQUIRE. ax. ADHIAXXE ALLEN PLAN FOR A HOSTESS.

-ener 1 SAVILLE. T- in 1 i FOLLIES OF I pay CAV0Y. NO SKY SO BLUE. LEA SFIDL CfKlKUDt NO SKY SO BLUE. STYE GFRA R.amnr.ri A.

an Bo-lc STRAND. E'. v. ROBERTSON HARE BANANA LONDON'S SHAFTESBURY 'Cr-r 8 Vy. S- POISON 1 M-ARGARFT Br TV.r CTREATHAM HFLL Bar i DRAYTON Al FK ED RIDGE.

ii: BEN TRAY PEN. I TFR 7.0ERA: Dr ama NANCY PRICL WHITE0AKS. TAUDEV ILLE SEXES A Broad tj AND SEVENS. 11. p.

1 TICTORIA PALACE. i an EDDIE ST DENTS OFriRr'-' GRAY TS ME AND MY GIRL. THE HAPP1F-T IN TOWN "WESTMINSTER. jr r. 4 Fcs Ma' WRTGHr -a' re In GOGOL'S Or.P MARRIAGE.

ct.ute.'X".: Precler! b-. S' T-jrlor for a i a i a DE I LLE "i f- ITEHALL. LOTS WIFE A modfrn by P'-'r 11' rk.cr KORA SWIXBURXE, CECIT, PARKER. (Theatres coniinued in net column.) Forchester Castie, Hampshire. IH There's no sireeter CONCERTS OF THE WEEK THE SCHUBERT SOCIETY Reinhold von Warlich sang Schubert's Schone Miillerin at Dudley House on Wednesday, and in the very first song gave such colour to Radern and Steine that afterwards the finest touches were as the fulfilment of a promise.

A perfect performance of the Schone Miillerin is one of the most unattainable of all ideals; on Wednesday the passionate outbursts in Ungeduld left perhaps something to be wished for, while transposition, as 'in Des Miillers Blumen," meant sometimes that the relation between voice and pianoforte was disturbed. Yet we were taught that "Das Wandern may be portrayed without explosive accents; the spirit was there; and from beginning to end every syllable could be heard, without a suspicion of hardness. Gerald Moore accompanied' with the utmost respect for the music and the Utmost regard for the singer. GEORG SANDOR Mr. Sandor made the double keyboard instrument a welcome guest at Wigmore Hall on Thursday, for he combined the discretion of an organist with the capacity a pianist.

He did more, for we shall remember for many days to qome youthful intensity, his vivid sense of contrast, and his fine grasp of modulation in the Chromatic Fantasie. With Schumann's Toccata he was less successful, 'for he could not match Horowitzian speed with Horo-witzian clarity. His technique is. in accord with his nervous temperament, and interesting rather than phenomenal. The octave coupler found appropriate use the Pictures at an Exhibition." It gave a little life to the pitiless repetitions Promenade," heightened colour and contrast, and.

being used imaginatively, made possible another hearine of a work again, TWO PIANOFORTES Dorothy Manley and Myers Foggin be gan at Aeolian Hall on Thursday with Clementi and Arnold Bax, and then drifted from one ingenuity to another. Lord Berners's "Fantasie Espagnole" provided relief in being a duet for one pfano, though it could perhaps have gone a step further and become a duet for one plaver. Schubert's duets, the inexhaustible, could only be orchestrated if transcribed at all: COMING ENGAGEMENTS Morula y. Conway Hall. Music In Shakespeare's 8 Wlemore Hall.

Alhert LerOque fplano-Inrtei and Rene Le Rov (flautist -GrotnaTi Hail. Alnya Lewis, (old songh.1. Tuesday. I.vreum' Damon and Pvthlas. ri I 'i Don Pasquate.

fi "i Hall. Dolmetsrh. a -Wiemoi-e Hall. Winifred Christie irlnuhle ke'boarrl planofortel. 8 4'.

Groti-iun JIjII. Maria Marova (vocal- Wednesday. 8 -Wigmore tolincellni 8 S'' Grotnan alist i. Hall. Hall.

Gwendoline McGill Alfred O'Shea (voc- Thursday. 8 "0wdrav Hal Elena IJarosa and shne and niannfnrtoi Ar.tonio Dp lunar Hall. fahakpspeare in music --Wtflmcire Hall. Guierne Crelth pjannfot tf i fl V). Giolnjr; Hall.

Silvia Shatto (vocalist). Friday. a Hall. Etlzabpthan Dance. T7J hand, as eminently reducible.

For the rest, one could hardly apply a gift of interpretation to Germaine Taille- Ji firm rtir, Anson BKeieys Po.ka. Tne two voting plavers did 1h.n. .1... were neat, rhythmical, and scrupulously balanced, ISTERSATtO VI I AT THF A society called The Opera Group pre-senlerl Blow's "Venus and Adonis" and Dihditi's Ephesian Matron" at the Royal College on Sunday last. Blow wrote this when pupil, was his zenith, and it is a curious instance of the style without the genius.

A theme ITODs tin. in PnnnlA nf liarc ii iiicv wuuin carry nis tune, that was enough. The words, when we could hear lliem. which was seldom, were quite funny; Blow's quite dull. The dancing in Venus and Adonis was quite effective, and the last chorus was better music and better sung than the rest.

INTERXATIOS'AL. CECIL SHARP HOUSE A programme of our national dances 1 was arranged for the entertainment of i foreign visitors at Cecil Sharp House on Tuesday; it included specimens of sword morris, and country dances, with a couple i 'rrn show us how their humour and pathos is understood in Holland. Of the dances mere is nntning new to say, except, perhaps, that they always come to us freshly fresh and newly new as the Hindustani song says. We think we will stay for half-a dozen of them and then slip out; but then comes "Nonesuch" that we must see, and the ''Horn Dance" that brings the heart into the mouth, and "Leapfrog," Cecil Sharp's favourite, and who couid go before the Running Set The sword dancers are to be praised for their strict time, so different from the early attempts at Aldeburgh; well, practice does make perfect. It is tvpical of the way eveiyining nas now suntc.in.

and is known so well that it can be played with: and that Miss Avril and Miss de Jersey are still there to inspire the dancers is a pledge that things will remain so. I AX HOUR AT WESTMINSTER The Internationals met at the Abbey on Thursday for an hour of English i Church music of the last four centuries, taken in historic order. It was almost all a capella, and sung by the choirs of Westminster Abbey. St. Paul's, and the Chapels Royal.

The second anthem was Purci'U's Hear by prayer." the most in-1 dividual music of all that was heard, circling round a poignant phrase of three notes; it is a quarter of a millennium i since it was first sung there, the com- hs wci lunowea 1 b-v a of all the names we I lrC CIoft; Weeikf- uanl the I and whose work sounds like a mine of quotations. One less often heard is Matinee Greene, who is thoroughly worthy of such company. BERYL ROGERS Beryl Rogers gave proof of agreeable talent al hfr fircr Tint-n-iOrrl. ropi'tl DESPIAU CHARACTER and clarity BY JAN GORDON Charles Desplau is sixty-four. This' fine exhibition at the iWildenstein Gallery is the first serious exhibition of his sculpture In London.

As a draughtsman he has been fairly well known, but as a sculptor more by photographic reproductions and rumour. Since Despiau was already making a name in Paris at the beginning of the century, we may well be accused of tglecting one of the greatest of sculptors in Europe for forty years. And yet for such neglect there may be compensations. The present exhibition is one of them. The things with which we are too Intimate lose their power to amaze.

Every work by a well-known painter calls up comparisons in our memories, and sometimes in our enhancing memories, with former works. The artist is always in the process of struggling with his own ghost. Thus, when a master comes to us at the height of his mastery, en plein, haunted by but few ghosts of recollection, there is a notable increase in the shock of delight as well as in the emotional receptivity which is so important an element in the complete circuit of artist and audience. To delay intimate acquaintanceship with a still growing master may not always be disadvantageous. In a brilliant early "The Sense of Beauty," Santayana says, The artist who is' not artist enough is sure to float in the region of the indeterminate.

He stimulates but never informs. This is the method of the individuals that have more genius than art." Santayana uses the word genius to denote the urge to express, the word art for the capacity of expression. i To-day we tend to exhalt genius above art, so that most of our experimental art is genius struggling to suggest what it does not fully express, and, as Santayana adds, The crudity we are too distracted to refine we accept as originality, and the vagueness we are too pretentious to make accurate ive pass off as sublimity." THE ECLECTIC Nobody can accuse Despiau of having halted at the borders of expression. Though in spirit his work is lyrical it is often almost startlingly realistic in appearance. And yet if one examines several pieces in pursuit of comparison the reality emerges as a flexible realism, a super-realism, which is harmoniously attuned to the subject.

If, for instance, here one takes the heads standing close to one another. Nos. 7, 8, 9, 14, 18, and 20, each one alone seems realistic enough, full of life and character, yet each is couched in a slightly different idiom. Thus Jeune Fille des Landes is reminiscent of the Greek. Marguerite of the Oriental, in Cra-Cra the sensibility of a child is represented in hard forms, but Paulette," a woman, touches on a softened Laurana, while in Tete d'Homme there is more than a hint of Barye.

Vet each of these chosen eltects is used to heighten the sense of character and carries its own emotional justification. The majority of these notable pieces, such as Mrs. Chester Dale," Tete d'Adolescent," M. L. Levy," Mme.

Charles Pomaret," or M. Lievre are portraits, but this is due to Despiau's circumstances. He -has had no easy triumph, and formerly had often to spend long days colouring picture postcards in order to survive. Nevertheless, the same quiet lyricism and expressive synthesis is evident in his larger works, and the subtlety of his imagination may here be studied by comparing the small sketch of Aissa with its larger and yet more beautiful development, both of which may be seen from a similar angle. YOUNGER FRENCH SCULPTORS conveniently an excellent collection of drawings by the younger French sculptors has been gathered at Dr.

Walter Gernsheim's Gallery, 5, Stratford-place. Here we may study how such artists as Auricoste, Carton. Charles Malfray. Berthe Martinie, Chana Orloff, Wlerick, and others are developing the traditions of their four great predecessors. THE DANCE The exhibition at the Leicester Galleries of The Dance," should need no recommendation.

From Callot and Row-landson, and a most interesting painting, ascribed tentatively to Thomas Patch, the collection covers the stage to the present day, including such British artists as Roberts, Meninsky, Gwendolen Raverat, John Armstrong, Na-dia Benois, and Sic-kert. Degas, including his sculptures, naturally dominates the whole. One is glad to renew acquaintance with those two fine stage designers. Larionow and Gontcharova, and there is an excellent selection of lithographs by Garvani. THE WOMEN ARTISTS Of the two exclusive woman's art societies, the Society of Women Artists and the Woman's International Art Club, the latter claims an added interest by introducing us to a new group of foreign painters each year.

The Women Artists, now holding their eighty-third exhibition at the R.I. Galleries, Piccadilly, stand on their individual merits. By some curious paradox the Women Artists would probably make a more harmonious setting for visiting foreign pictures than actually does the International, for there is a larger number of paintings which reveal Continental influence, and the effect generally is one of more gaiety and colour. Actually the present show is a quiet one. The president.

Dame Laura Knight, R.A., has contributed one effective but not dominating work, the other members maintain, without adding much to their reputations, and most of the more outstanding pieces are contributed by the non-members such as The Road to Barcelona," by Francis Hodgkins; Kingston Docks, Jamaica," by Suzanne Cooper; Portrait Study of G. K. Chesterton," by Maria Petrie; Flu," by Margaret Thomas; London Pride." bv Hilda Davis; and The Church on the Hill," by Margaret Geddes. BY C. A.

There are two films on view in London this week that I ask you, as a favour to yourself and me, to make a point of seeing. They are quite short. Neither of them runs for more than thirty minutes. One is English North Sea, at the Carlton. The other is American The River, at the Berkeley.

Both would be catalogued, I suppose, under that discouraging title documentary," I would prefer to say that they are films of real life, real places, and real people. I don't often ask you to believe that films are worth a vast amount of trouble. These two are North Sea has been made by the G.P.O. film unit under the supervision of Alberto Cavalcanti. In sharp contrast to the usual disclaimer of authenticity on modern pictures, the opening title runs, "The story qf this film, and all the names, characters, and incidents mentioned or shown, are entirely authentic.

The film reconstructs, as it actually happened, an incident common in the life of deep-sea fishermen." The film was shot during the great February storms of 1937, and the players are Post Office officials, and the trawler-men and townspeople of Aberdeen. North Sea describes, very simply, the adventures of an Aberdeen trawler, the John Gillman, when her radio aerial snaps and her pumps are choked by the high seas somewhere off the Fair Isles. The film begins, very early in the morning, in the quiet streets of Aberdeen. From number nine and number seventeen and number twenty-something come the crew, calling Cheerio to their womenfolk, swinging, pack on back, down to the harbour. The skipper has a little house with a little garden.

The washing flaps on the lines. The smoke curls up into the morning air in long spirals. Casually the John Gillman slips out to sea past the rows of shipping. Where are ye goin'? North Sea." All in the day's round. i Great seas strike the John Gillman two days out, just after the cool voice of the Meteorological Office has issued its gale warning to shipping.

For five days you drift on that broken trawler, lashed 1 by wind and water. Back at Wick Radio Station the tired clerks are calling all ships in the neighbourhood of the Fair Isles. In Aberdeen the women wait for news. They siug For Those In Peril On the Sea in the kirk on Sunday. A salvage tug goes ploughing out into the high seas.

But the John Gillman rights itself. They temporarily repair the broken mast. After a week of silence the voice of Wick Radio Station comes over the tossing waters. The trawler crawls back to Aberdeen under its own steam. John Gillman calling Wick Radio Station.

Please cancel salvage tug. Thanks for your assistance." Another job done. I can only give you a pale equivalent in words of the thrill of this picture, which gets its drama from bare unadornment, from sheer fact clearly stated. It is only fair to add. though, that much of the charm comes from the sound of the Scottish voices, which supply that touch of romance, of strangeness, that one aches for at times in documentaries.

It has sometimes seemed to me the weakness of English realist pictures that, with all their honesty, they are a little afraid of beauty. It if a form of self-eonsci nncnocc that has kept us out of the front rank of manv arts, and it alarms ma cu i hold on the better makers of our cinema fine words are not sentimental, and can only add to the stature of the speaker. We shall never be a. first-class filmmaking country until we dare to be fine The River, a story of the Mississippi, is afraid of nothing. I reviewed this film three weeks ago when I saw it on television, and I have nothing to add to my former comments except the insistent request that you should go and see it.

Even on my. small home screen it seemed to "12 one of the bravest adventures in filmmaking since the early days of the Soviets. It is beautiful cinema, with daring sound, photography like a diamond, and a commentary that uses words as though each one were a jewel. There were those who prophesied that, with its strictly American problems. The River would never be a commercial success in this country.

It is for you and me, who have asked so often for something better than the screen normally gives us, to prove that these people were wrong. The Three Comrades (Empire American). Director: Frank Borzage. Players: Margaret Sullavan, Robert Taylor, Robert Young, Franchot Tone. It is a pity that The Three Comrade's begins with that devastating line, Colonel, now that the war's over, may I call you father?" because most of what happens after Is remarkably sincere and moving.

It has, of course, been radically edited for film consumption. The original Remarque story was a fierce indictment of Nazi Germany. The cinema has shorn away most of its political argument, and it remains a tense personal story of three and a consumptive girl, fighting for life and happiness in post-war Germany. The girl is patched up and dies, because there is no more money to keep on patching her. One man is shot in the streets.

The others emigrate, without much hope, to South America. The fVlm ends with the noise of fighting in the city. It is a harrowing, unresolved picture," with the dice all loaded against happiness. But as a study of personal relationships it seems to me rather fine. The leading players, of course, are all Americans, one of them being Mr.

Robert Taylor, and it is hard to take their Germanic background very seriously. As any three young men and a girl, though, they impress you with their honesty. Mr. Franchot Tone, in particular, gets under the skin of his part and acts as he has not acted since Bengal Lancer. Miss Margaret Sullavan does the right thing all the time.

She is enchanting. Her part unfolds delicately, like a rose. Nothing is forced, nothing fumbled. The camera has been used to bring out al! the values in her good eyes and frank face, and she speaks the lines sensitively, as though she hersrOf had thought of them. I don't recommend Three Comrades as a breezy afternoon's entertainment, but it is one of the films that personal am very glad to have seen.

You and Me (Carlton American). Director: Fritz Lang. Players: Sylvia Sidney, George Raft. The mollifying influence of Hollywood has been hard at work on Fritz Lang since he made Fury. The man who once shot and burnt and strangled without a qua'rrt is as gentle as you or me in You and Me, perhaps gentler.

He still deals with crime and the criminal classes, but in a ha.y, affectionate way, as an adult might look back on the truancies of boyhood. His heart, it seems, is no longer in murders, but in the beauty of motherhood, and the homely heaven of a combined Bed-sit." You and Me is the sort of sentimental fancy about gangsters that Damon Run-yon made popular, and that needs a Damon Runvon to make it plausible. The scene is laid In a New York store; jewels, clothes, sports, escalators, everything. The owner has a philanthropic fancy to staff it with ex-convicts, the safe cracksman demonstrating can-openers in the kitchen-ware, the gunman working amongst the sporting rifles. In this haven of restored self-esteem Joe.

from the sports department, meets and marries Helen, from the blouses. Both are ex-convicts, but he doesn't know. In from the big world strolls Mickey, an unreformed gangster, to buy a mashie. He has never learnt the beauty of service. He betrays Helen's past to Joe.

He reminds the boys from the cutlery, the shoe department, of the cosy, clubby days in prison. It is Christmas, and he plays on their sentimental fancies. They agree to rob the store. In the toy department Helen is waiting for them. Helen has been to a good prison.

She demonstrates on a schoolroom blackboard that crime doesn't pay, that 113 dollars and 33 cents is all that any cracksman can expect to get. for his trouble. Then she runs away and has a baby. The good gangsters, convinced, come back to work in the morning. The bad gangster is shot by a still worse gangster.

Store-keeper, parole officer and convicts unite to bless the married cou pie. Mr. Lang gives the film a spurious significance by the use of a Greek chorus effect, which combines tha ebullience of Le Million with tha naivety of an infant school reciting tables. Production is handsome enough, and there is a pretty pretence of domestia anguish from Miss Sylvia Sidney. It ia thin stuff though, disappointing picture making, from a director who onca startled audiences with Fury and L'Homme du Jour (Berkeley.

Director: Julaen Duvivier. Players: Maurice Chevalier, Elvix Popesco, Alerme. L'Homme du Jour seems to me a minor Duvivier, just a good sketch, hardly morey ol what this really great director can do for us. M. Chevalier is the man of the day, a theatre electrician who saves the life of a front-page star and becomes, for his golden hour, the Wonder Hero of the Boulevards.

The film has a faint bitter-sweet quality, like a well-mixed gin-and-Iime, and pleasant fancies, such as the scene in which M. Chevalier, the electrician, calls on M. Chevalier, the actor, in his dressing-room and sings Prosper with him to the voice of M. Chevalier on a gramophone record. I don't think M.

Chevalier is quite the subtlest film actor Duvivier has ever handled, and I don't think M. Duvivier is quite at his happiest when dealing with the life of the theatre, but all the common, everyday things are nicely done, and most of the little people, the flower girl, and the boarders, and the Paris workmen are vigorously alive and true. Troplo Holiday (Plaza American). Director: Theodore Reed. Players: Dorothy Lamour, Ray Milland.

I wonder why Miss Lamonr's mouth Reminds producers of the south? I wonder why they think her hair Is suitable for native wear? I wonder why Ray Milland seems The tropic lover of her dreams? To me the pair seem every day More local to the U.S.A. SUBURBS AND PROVINCES bright comedy, with an engaging Cinderella, iMPHj-cvci-auer quality, aDOUr a couple OI contest winners in a soap-slogan competition, a rich old man (Frank Morgan) and a poor young one (Robert Young). The prize is a fortnight's holiday in a Swiss hotel, and everybody concerned makes the most of it. Guaranteed hot-weather entertainment. You're A Sweetheart (American).

Alice Faye and George Murphy, who are not quite an Astaire and Rogers team, but have a sharp individual quality, in a musical romance about a show-girl who loves a tap-dancer who pretends to be a millionaire. Tha radio has already made the title-tune popular. Melody and Romance (British). Musical romance in the English style, with Hughle Green and his gang, a tincture of B.B.C. Margaret Lockwood and an enterprising fire climax at the Crystal Palace.

Scandal Street (American). The Awful Child, the stocking salesman, the innocent heroine and the bridge-table vultures in a melodrama of small-town gossip. Short and shrewd, with Louise Campbell, Roscoe Karns. and a pair of eminently slapworthy juveniles. Lois Kent and Virginia Weidler.

Mademoiselle Dooteur (British). Characteristic Edmond Greville touches of direction in a German spy storv which is no better than it should be, with Dita Parlo, Jorn Loder. Erich von Stroheim and the year problem ending. The Jury's Secret (American). A minor murder mystery, with the real murderer, a good-hearted fellow with unplumbed depths of honesty, on the jurv at the trial of the suspect.

With Kent Taylor, the actor who recently sailed home for America without appearing in a Jessie Matthews' picture, and Fay Wraye, as the girl reporter who knows his worth by instinct. Adventurous Blonde (American). Further adventures of Torchy Blane, yet another hawk-eyed girl reporter, in the pursuit of diiu mystery, vwui uienaa rarren. Paid To Dance (American). Horrid revelations of the dance-hall racket, with Don Terry and Jacqueline Wells.

Dial 999 (British Horrid revelations of the forgery business, with John Longdea and Elizabeth Kent. things as Kiiscinska's Nonet, at any rate has a tune of it. and Blow has made the first movement, and in some of none; lie has, however, the good sense B. Britten's variations, Yvhcre the two no; to overburden it with learning, of interpenetrate and reinforce each other w'iiifh h' has plenty. Dibdin, a cori-and the dissonance is used as a scrvanV tcmI'ora'7 Mozart, has none, or the not a nnstrr merest elements; but he, again, in two not a master.

bars has wivsked out a tune that anv- jbodv can hum and forget again. He This applies particularly to the writing was quite content with such harmonies for voices. Combined voices, and cer- 1 -7s beginners write in a harmony exercise- tainly those of the B.B.C. singers, have a euphony of their oyvo that takes aYvay the sting of any dissonance, provided that the line that each is asked to sing is i.e., that each new note is reasonably accessible from the previous one. Woven harmony and dissonance never hurt the ear with voices as they do wun tne organ, where the mental adjust- ment of keyboard temperament is a con- stant strain.

But the effect is disastrous when the parts are unvocal when, for instance, great leaps are needlessly taken, as in the cantata and in V. Vricko- vic's songs for solo voice. It was a mistake of the Elizabethans to suppose that their music could be equally apt for viols and for voices, and they soon found out that the large compass of strings demanded a different style. The case is now reversed; the voice has come, for good or ill, to be considered as a member of the orchestra, and some composers have apparently yet to learn that it is no good giving it a string-part, because that does not sound." Of those composers I. Krejci is not one: his songs were entirely vocal, and most pleasing even though we were not allowed to knoYv what they were about.

One would like to be able to add the name of the excellent tenor who sang them, and it is probably hidden away somewhere in the sixty-five pages of programme; but the wretched critic who has to get things done by a specified moment has no time to hunt lor it. One comes away from a week of this music w.thout one single phrase in one's head, but the many hours are not quite wasted. Bartok's queer percussion, even if the talk about sonata form with whirh I he pre. seed it. means little on a single "t'uss.

it -a sense oi elation I Hmclcm.lh's "Mnthis" s0.ms a more human than he used to be, and anv- now IUr. Fnr-'v trumpet. Mr. A. Copland's cheery dc-j hght in a world that is full of such lots muigs took away ihe taste of a dismal fugue that scorned about as difficult to write as a crossword is to solve if you are content with an along wruch does not ht either down and Tobacco comes from Virginia and no better brand than the L' 'Three V.

M. Thackeray "THE VIRGINIANS." WILLS THREE CASTLES CIGARETTES 10 FOR 8 20 FOR 1,4 20 FOR 1 6 30 TOR 2'- 50 IOR 3 3 in Olfirr packmn One expects to pay a little for a cigarette of such excellent more Quality 1W il aa wdhu suiiitrLiung 10 near weanesaav at Wigmore Hall. She played Adrian Bouit conduct what d.d not seem Haydn's minor Variations, Bach's to be a s.mp.e score. The rest of me Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, and Beet-compositions reflected a world that fu: hoven's Waldstein with mature feel-of defeatism. Perhaps it is; but Yvhy mg and great sinceriiv.

A certa'n lack drag that mto music? of buoyancy w.is the only serious failing.