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SELES LIVER FATE oo DELICACIES - | 28 the machine can do much less, and the people must of necessity do much more. All this is to the good, but it is good still only on the technical level. If the new honesty of documentation is to make any permanent claim on our ap- plause it must’ be accompanied by a parallel. importance of dramatic ma- terial. But this is a bad’year to ask our producers for serious themes; and in any year it is intellectually and emo- - tionally more difficult to create drama than melodrama. - A crime story is calculated to offend none of the self-appointed guardians of screen purity so long as certain “@ . | simple rules are-observed; and a-crime story, which assays good and evil by a legal code, obviates the much more difficult task of dealing with these two GET SOME TODAY! (iin. “Eine ia os ots wee 7] TRAVEL... FREIGHTER specialized and isolated aspect of hu- man experience; at the same time it- offers a quantity of picturesque detail Detailed information on passengér-carrying freight- | that the documentary camera can linger ers to all parts of the world is now available in complete, concise booklet. Describes ALL the pleas- upon. It is telatively safe and relatively ant trips (to Europe, West Indies, ete.), so hard/easy, thus, to illuminate it with com- NEW REPUBLIC with our minds. If any real use is to be made of the new style, the scripts will now have to grow up to the Cameras, Evil fo order. The French “Le Cor- beau” (The Raven) arrives here with’ & curiosity value unique among im- ports. This is the picture that was made in France during the occupation with at least the blessings, and in all like- lihood the encouragement, of the Ger- mans. It was. released in Germany dur- ing the war, when it was used to sub- stantiate the claim that the French are a decadent people. Genét in the New. Yorker sadly called it one of the half- dozen greatest French pictures ever made. The ban placed on it in France after the Liberation has only recently been lifted. “Le Corbeau” is a striking evoca- tion of remorseless pessimism, but it doesn’t seem to merit Genét’s reluctant praise. Anyone at all familiar with the French cinema should be able to work up a list of a dozen or more films for higher acclaim. An account of how a. pathological Sein a EN ee Terni inning a co Temenos ee to learn about elsewhere. Tells ports, length of voyages, prices. (Complete: also lists passenger ships, airplane fares.) -For comfortable, low cost travel, wrap up 26¢ and mail for “Travelways.” plete factuality. writer of poison-pen notes uncovers the rottenness all-pervasive in a French Harian Publications, 6 Blvd., Greenlawn, N. Y. RESORT OPEN ALL YEAR—FOR ADULTS Formerly the palatial 592-acre. Macy estate in the beautiful ‘Hills of the Sky.’ Luxurious rooms, many. with open fireplaces. Walking, biking—magnificent mountain trails. Horseback riding. Skiing, ice skating. Recordings, ping-pong, Wbrary, informal dancing. Delicious food. Basy transportation. American-Jewish cooking. Attractive Winter rates For reservattons or booklet write or eall HATHAWAY LODGE, Haines Falls, N. Y. ‘Telephone Tannersville 299 ATHENAEUM SOCIETY ANTHENAEUM SOCIETY. Write or meet in HATHAWAY, LODGE Cases in point. The two most recent crime documentaries—“Call North- ‘side 777” and “The Naked City”"— well illustrate the predicament. Each picture, one in Chicago, the other in New York, uses its city with taste and photogtaphic excitement. They have a visual freshness that compels your at- tention and a circumstantial frankness that compels your belief. And the revitalized camera work is reflected in local Societies, book lovers, writers, aesthetes, (the performances. James Stewart has friendly, thinking people. Branson, Missouri CHARTS ———— eee CHARTS provide a long-term, visual, record of securities. Monthly, high-low, price ranges, for individual stocks are available at low cost. Write. Graphmetric Charts, 2927 Forest, Kansas City 3, Mo. LANGUAGES 29 LANGUAGES by Linguaphone. Russian Spanish, Portuguese Direct conversational method of mastering any language quickly. easily, correctly at home. Available under GI end for FREE book. LIN- RCA Bidg., Bill of Rights, GUAPHONE INSTITUTE, 86 New York, CI 7-0830. . ORANGES eee HAND-SELECTED, -juicy, natural-color Florida oranges, family-size bushel package, is- express prepaid, $4.00. Add 50¢ west of M sissippi, north of New York City. Mrs, G. Bond, P. O. Box 146, Oakland, Florida. never seemed as good as he does in “Call Northside 777,” and though Barry Fitzgerald reaches no new heights in “The Naked City,” he dances through the script with a pug- nacious vitality that is at least com- parable to his great stage appearances with the Abbey Theatre. Both films are fun to see, and they carry the new technique about as far as it-can be taken. But they cannot stand any closer analysis, for their dramatic content is old and safe and Ge. polished featureless by long contact provincial town, the picture is so sweeping in its depiction of depravity that it sets up no counterfoil of de- ‘cency to produce a dramatic impact. Furthermore, despite some beautifully thought-out characterizations, I felt a strain in the acting, as though the cast ‘were pushing against a current, and there were details of plot construction that seemed to me foreign to the French love of consistency and logic. I objected, for example, to the quite illegitimate focusing of suspicion on a young girl of the community. Little incidents, seen only by the audience, point unmistakably to her guilt, and the final exposé, therefore, becomes fraudulent. The film looks to me like what you would expect of a group of talented people whose treacherous designs were tripped up by their artistic instincts, but I can't be sure how much I have been influenced by knowing that the Ger- mans were working somewhere behind the scenes. ROBERT HATCH