5.
Liebelei
„
box 13/4
thenselves. They are ton achvel
with their farcical predicament to find
time for those slick generalizations upon
Art and Life that gave their prototypes of
the stage an intellectual background of
sorts.
It is impossible to believe that George (he is
not even called Leo) could construct a successtul
play or Tom (Otto has dwindled into Tom) paint
an amusing pieture, but as farcical puppets whose
Triendship groans under the strain of sharing the
favours of the woman they both adore they are
uncommonly lively. Gilda, the one character to
retain her name, is not encouraged to be hysteric¬
ally intrespective. She is asked only to look
irresistible, to love two men with equal intensity,
and to be incapable of living either with or
without them, all of which feats Miss Miriam
Hopkins accomplishes in a very amusing and
natural manner. Mr. Gary Cooper and Mr.
Fredric March depict with humour and precision
the rivalry, the friendship, and the embarrass¬
ment of the men between whom the butterfly
lady flutters with such disconcerting impartiality,
and Mr. Edward Everett Horton, though a mere
laughing-stock, is a very funny one. It is a
very funny farce—but what an effort it must
have been for its author to resist the allure, not
merely of some, but of all the“ Noelisms“ of
the play!
NEW GALLERV
The Constant Nymph.—The Constanf Nymph
has been in its time a novel, a play, and a silent
film. It was inevitable a talking film should be
made of it, and to be expected that the direction
would be in the hands of Mr. Basil Dean. His
treatment belongs to the theatre more than 10
the cinema. His two or three attempts to illu¬
strate emotion in the idiom of the scrcen fail,
and his misty photographs of trains rushing to
and fro as Tessa wrestles with her arithmetic
belong to the elementary stage of cinematic
technique, but so long as he is contented to be
straightforward and unselfconscious, so long is
the film an honest and satisfactory piece of work.
Honest and satisfactory, adjectives which best
describe sometning lacking in inspiration and
intensity, and Mr. Dean, while keeping the film
free from distertion and vulgarity, has allowed
the magic of what is, after all, a singularly moving
story to escape besween the lens of a camera
d static when it is on its
which is too form
best behaviour am old-fashioned and naive
when it is experimennug.
The film, like the novel, hinges on the rela¬
tionship between Lewis Dodd and Tessa, the
constant nymph of the title, and Miss Victoria
Hopper and Mr. Brian Aherne are excellent
enough to carry the film to success on their
shoulders alonc. Miss Hopper, at the beginning,
scems to be a little out of her element, but, as
the film progresses and Tessa turns before her
time from a light-hearted child intu a tragic
woman, her acting gains immensely in authority,
and when poor Tessa dies in that shabby bed¬
room in Brussels, every aspect of her lovable,
tempestuous nature has been made known to us.
Mr. Aherne is kinderto Lewis than other actors
in the part have been—his hardness is toned
down, his seltishness miligated, but his perform¬
ance is splendidly consistent with itself. The
rest of a large cast, which includes Miss Marz
Clare, magnificently vulgar as Linda, Miss Jan
Baxter and Mr. Athole Stewart, are thoroughly
happy in their interpretations of their parts, and
Miss Leonora Corbett makes an intelligent effort
to show how jealousy and an unadmitted sense
of inferiority can turn a pleasant, normal woman
like Florence into something evil and vindictive.
It is a pity, though, that the scene in which
Florence finds Lewis’s father has a title is
omitted, for it illuminates one side of her
character perfectly. Some of the scenes in the
Tirol are beautifully photographed, and
altogether this is yet another film which will add
tothe rising prestige of British studios.
ACADENV
Liebelei.—This is taken Trom a story by Arthur
Schnitzler, and it is a straightforward tragedy,
without much elaboration of plot or character,
of lovers who mect with misfortune at the
moment when they are about to be happy. Al
this moment a young officer in the Austrian
Army, who has attached himself to a simple and
modest singer at the opera, is forced to fight a
duel us a result of an old love affair. And so
the tragedy occurs in the grand manner, un¬
deserved, but nevertheless the result of a tragic
failing. It is perhaps because it observes this
classical rule that the film, though it lacks any
depth, never loses a certain integrity of senti¬
ment and remains always clear and clean. The
contrast between the obligations of a military
caste and ihe more natural emotions of the
lovers is made with some delicacy, and certainl)
with no excessive emphasis. But much is due
nt acting, especialiy of Herr Wolf¬
t5 the er
gang Liete, eimer as the young oflicer, whose
portrait of a charming and ingenuous young
man is both consistent and attrat jve. The
settings are agrecable, and in particular a ride
througk a romantic snow-covered landscape and
a number of scenes at the opera house, with
the music of Mozart and Beethoven ingeniously:
used to assist ihe drama.