The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 15

UTERARY SECTION THE AGE. SATURDAY. JULY 17. 1954 15 screen review THEATRE ItV T.O0: The Sentimental Mr. Coward Puts Wilde to Music Society's Conscience A Troubling Study Are We All is a rather tentative translation of Nous Sommes Tous Des Assassins, the title of the French film showing at the Savoy.

For the film, like its title, is a straightforward statement that we are. By Bruce Grant Noel Coward, London's favorite playwright of the twenties, has remained a national figure without repeating, in the postwar world, any of his brilliant early successes. His film, In Which We Serve, remoins his finest achievement in recentyears his theatrical flair seems to have waned. From a Special Correspondent in London bi SAY' trV? til occur as interludes outside the plot and do contain some of the wit and rhyming ingenuity that distinguished Coward's best revues. "Oh, what a century it's been," and the bright trio, "Why is it the woman who pays do much to revitalise the flagging action.

Doris Zlnkelson's sets and costumes are in her usual fresh musical comedy style, and Helpmann ha done what he can with the production, although the ball scene, devoid of big dances and gives him disappointingly few opportunities. An altogether gayer and more stylish "musical" is The Duenna, Sheridan's only operetta which 1 A dramatic close-up of one of the condemned men (Antolne Bal-petre) being seized by warders to be taken for execution. A scene from the French film Are We AH Murderers of Dame Edith Evans and Sir John Glelgud tout his more serious plots creak with Vlctorianlsm, without exhibiting either the talent In creating a "well-made or the sense of character, that established Plnero as a much better dramatist. Lady Windermere's Fan exhibits Wilde's usual femme fatale, in this case sacrificing her reputation (though it is rather obscure what reputation still remains to be sacrificed) for the sake of the virtuous daughter who does not know her identity. Mary Ellis, an actress from serious drama as well as Ivor Novello's musical plays, does her best for this Mrs.

Brlynne, who seems Ingenuous enough to hope that attending balls sheathed in skin-tight black velvet, with a striking Jane Russell decol-letage, will persuade the best Edwardian circles to reaccept her In society. But she tends to heaviness of attack, and her charm lacks the light elegance that a more experienced period comedy actress could give. The same, to a higher degree, might be said of most of the rest: chosen for musical comedy gifts, rather than the right acting style, the cast inevitablly falls to make the best of Wilde. Nor are they entirely successful with Coward, the singing being poor this applying even to Vanessa Lee, Ivor Novello's "discovery" who looks beautiful and poised but sings too loudly, off pitch, and with a frequent "wobble." The exceptions are bene Browne as the Duchess of Berwick, who can speak a Wilde line to perfection; and a charming newcomer, light as. thistledown, named Patricia Cree, who spoke her sole repeated lines "Yes, Mama," "No, Mama" with a demure Innocence that captivated the audience, and finally, blossoming like a delicate white flower, danced her way Into their hearts with wlll-'o-the-wlsp grace.

In this she was partnered admirably by Graham Payn, who is an Australian. So, too, Is the producer, Robert Helpmann. Perhaps this is why Coward has "written up" the part of the Australian. Mr. Hopper, Into a "lead" for Payn, and embellished Wilde with many quips often admiring and sentimental about Australia, Including Payn's nostalgic song, Faraway Land.

By the end, even the most patriotic Australian must be feeling this particular "party line" Is becoming a little overworked and embarrassing. What of the tunes and lyrics The former are curiously im FIRST SOLDIERS' death of the chlld-klller, that better housing would stop children getting on their parents' nerves and one suggestion for reform is hastily dramatised a quick shot of a widow asking that her husband's murderer should not be killed but should be put to work to help support her family. And there is doubt in this onlooker's mind as to society's responsibility according to the film. One is never sure whether M. Oayatte and M.

Spaak are saying that we are all murderers because we permit social conditions which lead to the crimes we order execution on or because God, having said "Thou Shalt Not Kill," does not approve of the despatch of souls before their time, even if the arrangements are Judicial. In the same way it has not yet been sorted out in this brain whether the film wants criminals, as well as society, to be reformed and, if they are to be, whether it is for the good of their souls or for a quiet life for everyone else. Perhaps it is to be on both counts, which is reasonable enough, but a film which sets out to state a case can be asked to state it clearly, Just as an actor who is called on to register fear cannot expect to help the drama along with a look that might be fear and might be astonishment, or might be both, I do not suppose this film is enjoyable. It Is never pleasing to have one's conscience stretched across the screpn. And it may not be regarded as among the best of the French productions we have seen since the war.

Its style is Intermittently ragged and the ending so abrupt as to be surprising. But In the cinema of Ideas, of which "re see so little in this country, It earns its place and Justifies the statement made In the souvenir programme: Imported Idea "Great films always, and good films usually, are inspired by the soundness of some Important Idea. Because the effective functioning of a democratic society depends upon the free and full examination of ideas, it is desirable that the Ideas should be brought before as many people as possible, who may accept them If they are convinced, reject them if they are not, or suspend Judgment if that seems the proper course." Tne acting Is excellent, and excellently directed. Marcel Moul-oudjl, who looks a little like Daniel Gelin, and Raymond Pellagrin, who looks a little like Herbert Lorn, are outstanding as the young killer and the Corslcan respectively. Antolne Balpetre's doctor is a piercing study of what looks like an innocent, man going to his death, and Julien Verdlcr is horribly convincing as the man who could not sleep.

To an amateur of history, the Crimean War possesses a special interest. Any number of reasons have occurred to me why it should do so, but none of these singly, nor all of them together, had seemed enough to account for Its unique appeal. Then I read that literary curiosity, A Soldier's Experience' by Sergeant-Major Timothy Gowing, now reprinted as "Voice From the Ranks" (The Folio Society; London price 15-), THE IT IS AN ECONOMIC AS well as a literary curiosity. It was Its author's only publication yet It seems to have been his principal means of support for 32 years. Cowing was the son of a Baptist minister.

Comfortably brought up, he found himself in 1853, aged 19, with nothing in particular to do and no particular interest, intellectual or otherwise, beyond reading military history. He also read the papers. The Near East crisis suggested an opportunity. He decided that his favorite regiment was the Royal Fusl-leers. He enlisted in it and a few weeks after declaration of war was embarked with the Fusileers for the Crimea in April, 1854.

He was at Alma, Inkerman, Balaclava and Sebastopol and wrote to his parents accounts of operations and of life behind the lines which remind one on every page that the censorship of soldiers' letters Is a thing of much later date. He served in the Indian Mutiny and remained in India until 1876 when he resigned on a sergeant-major's pension of half-a-crown a day. "A Soldier's Experience" seems to have been his response to the need to support the two survivors from his first family (the other nine had died of cholera) and the mother and seven children of his second. He became well known throughout Lancashire for his personal quail-ties, his soldier songs and stories, and his bag full of copies of the book he hawked. There were no middlemen.

telegraph. It employed the first professional war correspondent, the first war photographer. But Tolstoi, recently, led me towards the heart of the matter. It was the first soldier's war. In the Napoleonic wars the ranks were mere ranks.

The British soldier then we have Wellington's word for it was "the scum of the earth." In the Crimea, on the other hand, British soldiers were people, Tolstoi's Crimea diary tells of his talks with wounded English prisoners. He contrasted them with the serfs his 6wn side had pressed into the ranks. His sympathies were with the serfs, ill-trained and Ignorant though they were. But his admiration was for the English private. "Each man had pride in his position," Tolstoi wrote, "and self-respect because he felt that he was an actual spring In the machinery of the army.

Good weapons, skill In their handling, youth, a general notion of politics and the arts give him a consciousness of his own dignity." Today Tolstoi's words might be applied to many other armies, but In 1855 only the English and French WE ARE SHOWN OUR responsibility here in the cases of four men tried and found guilty of murder without a shadow of doubt in the eyes of the law. Each Is sentenced to be executed, and we wait on them during the pre-death throes In the condemned prisoners' cell. The first was a young Resistance fighter who killed Germans and Frenchmen with soulless relish dur-' ing the war, and then carried his arms, his numb, mind and his lenseless trigger finger with him 1 into civilian life. The second is a 1 middle-aged doctor who killed his wife. The third is a Corslcan who killed under the ancient laws which govern the relationships of feuding families on his Island.

The fourth is a worker who battered his child 1 to death with a poker because her screaming stopped him from sleeping. Argument The film works In two ways to raise our doubts about capital punishment. It develops an argu-, merit, pointing to the social causes of crime and In addition suggesting that, in the case of murder anyway, execution Is no deterrent. Then It arouses feelings of sympathy for the condemned men by observing them with a compassion that is fierce, and by acutely noting the little acts of humanity and the vestiges of dignity that somehow survive to the end. We see the morose indifference of the young killer's face lit for a mo- ment by a smile.

The doctor protests his Innocence with the calm of a person who has seen too much to hope again. The Corslcan is bewildered; all he has is his pride, and he goes to his death as proudly as he can. The man who killed his daughter is tormented. We see the Joking guards: the hospital doctor, employed so that society may take its revenge on a good live body. There are two priests, the elder one quick and reliable in his work, his sensitivity blunted and bowed; the younger one passionate in his belief that each of God's creatures is Irreplaceable, unable to carry out his duties.

All this is observed with filmic assurance and with human probity. It is when the director Andre Oayatte and hla script writer Charles Spaak turn from these agonising glimpses to advance their, argument that the quality of the film falls away. The point that capital punishment is not the deterrent it might appear Is well made but this is really achieved in the study of the men in the cell, for to each case it is apparent that he could not have weighed risks and consequences before he killed. But lome of the social causes are introduced rather feebly the local barmaid comments, Just before the SCHOOL ALTHOUGH THE GERMANS were never far behind In Jet engine research (the V-l flying bomb was driven at 360 m.p.h. by a very simple pulse-Jet), It was the genius and perseverance of Sir Frank Whittle that made possible the great successes of jet propulsion today.

When still only a 23-year-old Plying Officer, Whittle had applied In 1930 for his first patent. He submitted his Ideas to the Air Ministry nd a number of private firms, but nothing much came of it. But the R.A.F. did recognise his mechanical Insight and in 1934 he was sent to Cambridge University where he graduated with first class honors in engineering. The Air Ministry then placed Whittle on the Special Duty List, tnd from 1936 to 1939 he devoted his whole time to study and experiment with Jet engines.

A great deal of the work was done at the British Thompson-Houston works at Lutterworth. A number of designs were bench-tested and some ran for many hours. Problems The problems Involved were both tngineering and metallurgical. Although the moving parts of a Jet engine are very few, they have to be nicely adjusted, and be able to work at enormous speeds In temperatures up to 8000 degrees Fnh-rcnheit. Some of the bench testa ended with the complete destruction of models through the disintegration of turbine or compressor.

SIR memorial and nowhere match the real charm and originality of those In Bitter Sweet. The latter are conventional except in the various concerted numbers, which mainly OW HE HAS MADE A belated attempt to repeat his success In operetta, crowne'd by the enchanting and tuneful Bitter Sweet way back in 1930. But Instead of relying on his own creative gifts, he has fallen back on the Tennent management's regular standby, Oscar Wilde, and used Lady Windermere's Fan as a basis for his new musical play, After the Ball, produced by Robert Helpmahn at the Globe Theatre. The trouble with this Is that Lady Windermere, In her original condition, has already been revived by Tennents in a lavish production by John Gtelgud, with an accomplished cast Including Isabel Jeans, Roland Culver and Denys Blakelock; and the famous epigrams In this and other Wilde plays (all dresslly produced lh recent years) have begun to wear thin. For the plays, apart from the now fading wit, little can be said: Wilde wrote one the evergreen farce The Importance of Being Earnest Immortalised In modern revivals by the fabulous Lady Bracknell and John Worthing WAR populace, educated in industry and in the struggles of Chartism and 1848, could produce such armies.

In Gowlng's, the men are all-Important. There are heroic officers and a leavening, at regimental level, of efficient officers. But the officer corps, as a whole, does not shine. Gowing was with a party bringing up supplies to the line. Alongside them rode a young officer, well mounted, who found that the men, bent under their loads and up to the ankles in mud, were not going fast enough.

"Take this soldier's name. Sergeant," shouted the officer as one man stumbled, "and make a prisoner of him when we get home." The soldier threw down his load in the mud: "Sojer lndade I I'm only a poor broken-down commissariat mule The soldier was made a prisoner at once, for Insubordination. But later, when Gowing explained matters to the Colonel, the man was freed, and given new boots and socks. The officer was given three extra tours on the same fatigue, and made to do them on foot. By I.M.

to weigh 10 tons to deliver the same effective horsepower to a propeller at that speed which is obviously quite an absurd situation. The fusler a Jet engine moves, the more efficient it becomes. This is true at least of speeds between 350 and 600 m.p.h. The reason Is that the exhaust gases meet less resistance from the air behind them at higher speeds. At Its ideal operation height a Jet engine works only at a fraction of Its maximum consumption of fuel, whereas a piston engine usually has to oruls at half-power.

Continuous Power. Again, the Jet provide smooth, continuous power, and ha little vibration. To those inside the aeroplane there is little noise, although the noise problem to outsiders Is a most serious problem of the future. A Jet burns kerosene, which offers a smaller fire hazard than petrol. It Is also cheaper, though a Jet has to carry much more kerosene than a piston-plane has petrol.

The genius of Sir Frank Whittle and those who were working on similar Ideas at the same lime has borne remarkable fruit in a very short time. For within ten years of the first Jet aircraft men had flown at the speed of FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: A O. BROADCAST TO SCHOOLS, Thursday, July at 1UU a.m. Snbjeott TIffl JET AGE iff FRANK WHITTLE AND SURGERY WITHOUT SUFFERING Before the discovery of anaesthetics few patients would agree to deep operations. The certainty of death or life-long misery might persuade them, but the terrible pain of many operations made their performance medically impossible.

Not' that surgeons were not highly skilled; they had to be. Every operation was a race against unendurable pain. Two minutes was 'even time" for a major amputation, and tome deep operations were performed (often at the cost of the patient's life) in a matter of seconds. THE JET AGE Necessity Is the mother of Invention. The aircraft jet engine, first developed by Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle during the second world war, came into being because of the comparative inefficiency of piston engine and airscrew when high speeds were required.

Furthermore, piston engines could never provide the power needed "breaking the sound barrier." Sir Frank Whittle's achievement was most remarkable for its triumph over technical difficulties and disappointments. Noel Coward. His new musical play, After The Ball, at London' Globe Theatre, Is produced by Robert Helpmann. touring prior to London production, Originally produced by the Bristol Old Vic, with vivacious period-style melodies by their resident com poser, Julian siade, it later had an outstanding success on television and is now played by many of the original Old Vic and TV cast. The bright stylised Spanish settings are by Tom Lingwood, and the production by Lionel Harris is In the famous Nigel Playfair tradition with 18th century musical plays.

Outstanding in the cast are Joyo Carey as the Duenna, Gerald Croat as the Jew Issac Mendoza, and th4 ravlshlngly pretty, clever and sweet voiced Jane Wenham, an Old Vld actress who has made a successfta screen debut in The Inspected Calls. One distinguished play and opera critic, Philip Hope-Wallace, li already suggesting the revival tn some of Yvonne Printemps' successes for her: praise indeed I services to Dr. John Warren, Pro. fessor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, a world-famous practitioner. Warren was over 70 years of age, but he was alert and progressive.

He asked Morton to bring along his apparatus to the surgical amphitheatre of the Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16, 1846, a momentous day In medical history. There was a large audience of doctors and students. Dr. Warren made a short speech, and that all his Ufa he had longed for a sure method of alleviating pain. Hevhd tried galvanism, magnetism and- hypnotism, but all In vain.

"About flv weeks ago," he went on, "Dr. Morton, a dentist of this city, Informed me that he had invented an apparatus for the inhalation of a vapor, the effect of which was to produce a total insensibility (o pain. I have agreed with him to make an experiment in surgical operation." He pointed to a young man, suffering from a tumor of the neck, who was lying on the table before htm. "Well, Mir, your patient Is ready." Before the tense assembly, Dr. Morton walked up to the patient, whispered a few Instructions, and then administered ether from a small glass bottle and a crude breathing mask.

Three minutes passed by, and then Morton looked up to the. older man. "Dr. Warren, your patient Is ready." Immediately the surgeon began to operate, the patient hardly moving the whole time, though the pain could have been most acute. Tif is History" When the operation was over the young man began to recover consciousness.

"Did you feel any pain Dr. Warren asked. "Feel's If m'neek's been scratched." he mumbled. Dr. Warren bowed his head for a while, and then looked towards the silent audience.

"Gentlemen," he said slowly, "thl Is history." The use of anaesthetics abolished the more obvious horror of the operating table, but the far more serious danger, namely surgical sepsis, was not conquered for another 20 years, and during that time thousands of those whs emerged happily from painless surgery died a tew day later front the poisoning of their blood. It was compiled from his own letters. He censored them and amplified them from other accounts of the Crimea, especially Kinglake. The present editor, Kenneth Fen-wick, has purged them of much of the later and less vivid matter and restored many censored passages from the original letters. He has added 30-odd wood-engravings reproduced from the contemporary illustrated press.

The result is fine. Gowing is excellent on everything, he observed, from hand-to-hand fighting to the conduct of officers behind the lines. My former reasons for the continuing appeal of the Crimea campaign had made up a falr-slied list. It was Britain's last European war before the Kaiser's war which Intruded on my childhood. It was the last war fought in full-dress.

It was the only war against Russia. It was the last European war over a religious issue. Above all, the Charge of the Light Brigade was the subject of one poem and more than one film which were exactly atuned to the taste of a boy. It was also the first war to use shell fire in a big way, the first war to use rifles, railways or the electric Is enormous, and It is this that drives the aeroplane forward. This forward motion is not due to the exhaust gases pushing against the air Just behind the exhaust nozzle.

It Is a pure reaction as defined In the famous law of Newton: "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." It is this fact of physical reaction that gives the Jet aero engine Its great value. For the less air there Is the better the Jet does its work so long a there Is enough oxygen to provide combustion for the kerosene fuel. Apart from that consideration, the Jet would best operate in a vacuum. A Disadvantage The only major moving parts in a Jet engine are the compressor pump In the front and the turbine at the back, which Is turned by the exhaust gases. These parts are linked hv an axle.

Compared Willi hundreds of moving pans in a piston engine, this Is certainly very 1 WH la HurtHWitfft Udm, fix "a In 1952 the first Churchill gold medal was presented by the president of (he Society of Engineers to Air Commodore Sir jranK Whittle. Tne medal Is awarned every two years for ma most noteworthy development in engineering or contribution to con temporary science. AN OLD SURGEON IN Shaw's play The Doctor's Dilemma says this about a colleague: "He's a clever operator, Is Dr. Walpole, but he's only one of your chloroform surgeons. In my early days you made your man drunk, and the porters and students held him down, and you had to set your teeth and finish the Job fast." This 1 an exact description, to It 1 not surprising that the discovery of sauMthetlo, mad in tb 18m, "marked a completely new epooh in tb history of medicine, nay, of the human race." (Sherwood Taylor).

In the days before anaesthesia there were physician In plenty, but surgeons were harder to train. Their position was unenviable, for the public regarded them "with something of the horror which is felt for a butcher or a hangman." Men of sensibility shrank from entering a profession which was compelled to Inflict so much pain, Charles Darwin being an oft-quoted example. Hypnotism Crude anaesthesia was tried, of course. Alcohol was administered until the patient was stuplfled; opium was given In large doses, and in som cases the patient was deliberately given concussion. A few surgeon used hypnotism, and Ui great French doctor Dupuytren one proceeded to Insult a lady patient so violently that she fainted, and In this condition he performed an operation on her nose I As early as 1799 Sir Humphry Davy had shown that the inhalation of nitrous oxide, or "laughing gas," could bring about temporary unconsciousness, but the doctors did not make use of It.

In 1838 Faraday found that ether had the same properties. The honor of establishing anaesthesia as a scientific medical practice is a matter of controversy, but all the claimants are American. In 1842 Dr. Crawford Long, of Pennsylvania, Is said to have first used ether. In 1844 two Boston dentists, Well and Morton, used ether for extractions, but one of Well' patient latr died under nitrous o1d.

Morton persisted In hla experiments, Mid offered his 1,. L' great aircraft engineering firms push research Into practical Jet engines regardless of expense. Squadron-Leader Whittle was promoted successively to Wing Commander and Group Captain. In 1948, as Air Commodore, he was knighted by King George VI for the great services he had rendered to country in war-time and to the world of the future. In principle the Jet engine Is very simple.

Air is sucked Into the Intake and compressed by a centri fugal compressor spinning at more than 5000 revolutions per minute. This air is forced into the combustion chambers where a very hot fire Injected kerosene Is burning. The heat causes the compressed to expand very rapidly and thu rush towards I lie exit, at I lie rear of the engine. The backward thrust ft Jt ndin off the prodatil But Just before the outbreak of war In 1939 the Air Ministry accepted the fact that the Whittle Jet could be regarded as a practical aero engine, and the first flying model, called W.I., was built. It was Installed in May, 1941, and tested over a period of 14 days In a specially built Gloster aircraft without Incident.

The brave pilot was Flight Lieutenant P. E. G. Sayer. Meanwhile the war had been going on for 18 months.

The Battle of Britain had been fought and won by the pilots of the R.A.F., the famous "Few" In their piston-englned Hurricanes and Spitfires But the later model Spitfires reached almost to the limit of piston-propeller efficiency, and It was known that the Germans were well advanced In their own work on Jet engines. So the Air Ministry commissioned An AuttrftUaa-hKllt gkn w- the to his of air remarkable. There Is a disadvantage, howuvrr, fur I he engine is leiulp'cd u.irli'SK IT anything goes wrong with this Joint assembly. A ninclillc.iiion is the prop-Jet (or engine. A kind of Jet eii' is used to drive a propeller or airscrew.

In order to do this, nearly all I He power Is taken out of the Jet stream by the turbine, which is coupled to the propeller, leaving little Jet-force remaining In the exhaust. This type of engine has proved very efficient at moderate speeds, and particularly reliable. At present there does not seem muoh likelihood of Jet engines being used In slower aircraft, such as private planes, commercial airliner doing short "hops," and freight-carrying craft. For at speeds below 350 miles per hour the Jet is comparatively inefficient. Fuel consumption at low altitudes Is very high, and there are problems connected with starting and maintaining Jet aircraft.

1 Half a Ton The main advantages of Jet propulsion can be brlcily summarised. First, there is the question of weight, of enormous importance in an aeroplane. A simple comparison will suffice: a "Derwent" Jet engine weighs about half a ton, whereas a piston engine of the same nominal power would have to neigh two tons. Mora than that, at (00 m.p.h. the "Derwent" produce 6000 horse power, A piston n(tn would need Li R.Li JL.