The Times (02/Jan/1939) - Films of 1938
(c) The Times (02/Jan/1939)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, The Lady Vanishes (1938)
FILMS OF 1938
The film is primarily a visual art, yet in the making of many films this all-important fact often appears to be either overlooked or deliberately ignored. The cartoons of Mr. Walt Disney have always made a direct appeal to the eye, and it is perhaps significant that his first full-length film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, should have turned out to be not only an artistic triumph but a great commercial success as well. It is true that Mr. Disney had a widely popular fairy-story to translate, a story, too, which could easily be imagined in pictorial terms. Nevertheless, the magical transformation of the written word into a long series of moving pictures, using only drawings, was a visual adventure of a kind not previously attempted. It is said that 2,500,000 drawings were needed and that 570 artists were employed, yet the effect suggested the labour of only one man who, though still timid of seriousness, possessed an unequalled power to give at once unity, lightness, and feeling to a work of art.
Perhaps the greatest advantage enjoyed by French films is that they are not, as a matter of course, expected to have luxurious settings. It may be that the natural frugality of the French would disapprove of indiscriminate opulence, or it may be merely the result of intelligence; but, whatever the reason, the consequence is that their films are at once more convincing and give more varied pleasure to the eye than most of the productions of other countries. In Gribouille, for example, the bicycle shop owned by M. Raimu was not a glittering emporium but an ordinary little shop full of commonplace contrivances. Another French film of distinction was Le Roi s'Amuse, in which the acting was flawless though the idea behind the film would have been better expressed had it been in the form of a satirical essay. Legions d'Honneur, which reached London with a recommendation from the Venice Festival, had much to commend it; the scenes of French colonial troops riding on camels in the Sahara, at war with desert tribes, or camping at night were extremely picturesque and brilliantly photographed. But as with so many films that have a background of documentary interest, the difficulty was to find a suitable foreground.
During last year the British film industry suffered a severe financial reverse: too much money, it seemed, had been wasted upon stories scarcely worth the telling. The year, however, saw the extension of the Film Act for another 10 years, and, oddly enough, the appearance of at least half a dozen films of genuine merit.
Sixty Glorious Years was a brilliant sequel to Mr. Herbert Wilcox's earlier chapter of Victorian history ; The Lady Vanishes proved Mr. Alfred Hitchcock to be a subtle master of suspense and humour; Pygmalion lost little of the Shavian wit in the process of translation ; and Bank Holiday and Owd Bob were both nicely balanced essays on various aspects of English life. The Drum, with its action set on the North-West Frontier, was concerned with one of those mysterious risings which are always on the point of setting the whole of the East in a ferment of religious rebellion.
The resources of the cinema were concentrated, and the effect at times was almost overwhelming.
Among the distinguished films of fact mention must be made of North Sea, an impressive and truly informative description of the ship-to-shore radio service of the Post Office; the series of films made for the Films of Scotland Committee; and Dawn of Iran.
America, for the first time, contributed a documentary film of note, The River, which described the history of the Mississippi. The fictional films from America were for the most part well below the average standard. The exceptions included Stage Door, A Day at the Races, You Can't Take It With You, and The Citadel, directed by an American but with a predominantly English cast.
