New Films In London Victor Hugo's " Les Miserables " is obviously too gigantic a work to be com- pressed successfully into one film, how- ever long. Pathd-Natan have therefore divided the story into two distinct parts, each complete in itself, and the first part is now to be seen at the Academy Cinema. Part one shows the progress of Valjean from convict to a respectable and promi- nent mayor. The Man Who Knew Too Much, at the New Gallery, marks the retUrn of Mr. Alfred Hitchcock as a director of film meloc,rama. ACADEMY Les Miserables.-The merits of this film are mainly negative; Victor Hugo's rhetorical mysticism has not become absurdly sentimental, nor have his characters lost all their individuality in melodramatic piety. But to avoid these pitfalls it was obviously necessary to use as much tact and patience as would have given very positive merits to a less exacting subject. Careful and sometimes beautifully, realistic settings do much to give reality and shbstance to the more exalted events, though the effect is sometimes spoilt by a titesorne device of tilting the photographs at an angle of some 30 degrees froth the straight. And the director, M. Raymond Bernard, has prudently resisted the temptation to make any violent assault on the emotions by dwelling on scenes of cruelty or distress. Even the dcathbed of Fantine is cunously reasonable, perhaps because its com- position as a picture is so carefully studied. But the chief burden inevitably falls on the actors, and particularly on M. Harry Baur as Valjean. His chief concern was to construct a character in the round, and this he does with so much success that there is never any question of doubting its plausibility. It is a triumph of realistic acting carried to the point Where one was prepared to grant to the imaginary man as much licence as to an actual and living character. No doubt in the process many of the most obvious charac- teristics of the novel are lost or concealed, but if the film had attempted to emphasize them the result would almost certaihly have been intoler- able. M. Honegger's musical accompaniment is unexpectedly unobtrusive, but it well repays atten- tion, and at intervals is discreetly antiseptic. NEW GALLERY - The Mc,n Who K'iewv Too Mitch.-Mr. Alfred Hitchcock has a rare gift for the macabre. With the aid ot a few shadows, a dozen stairs or so; and a sinister-looking figure, he manages to keep his audience ih a suspended state of expectation. There is everything; there is nothing. The story has obvious weaknesscs; the clues cry out for notice, the villains are patcntly villainous; the virtuous are tiresomely virtuous: the nielodrama is crude, so crude that all interest in the protagonists, as characters, is with one exception killed almost at the outset and the action for long stretches at a time has no surprises. And yet so sure is Mr. Hitchcock's tduch- in creating an electric atmosphere of ex- pectancy that the audience, against its rational Judgment, is enthralled. As in the best of melo- drama, reason has no part. Betty, the Lawrehces' only child, is kidnapped because her parents in- advertently know too much of a plot to assassin- ate a foreign politician on his visit to England. The child's safety depends on the parents' silence. The headquarters of the gang is in Wapping, and it is Mr. Hitchcock's success in suggesting every kind of sinister possibility in the' dentist's waiting- room, added to the real drarha implicit in the I presence of a defenceless child ameng murderers, that keeps interest taut. The idea of the de- fenceless child may sound sentimental, but Mr. Hitchcock niakes it effective by studiously avoid- ing all the easy opportunities he could have taken, and even the scene between Betty and her father, rashly determined upon a rescue, is filmed with admirable economy and directness. The climax has a parallel in history in the siege of, Sidney Street, and what must have been ihrilling in real life is almost equally thrilling on the screen. Mr. Leslie Banks, Miss Edna Best, and Miss Nova Pilbeam play the typically English Lawrence family with a 'straightforward- ness demanded by the simple outlines of their characters, but there is real subtlety in the acting of Mr. Peter Lorre, the anarchist leader. PLAZA The Pursutit of Happiness.-" The terms 'sparking' and ' bundling,' " suggests an adver- tisement of this film, " may be unfamiliar. They refer to the ancient customs of courtship when young folk who were sparking or courting used to sit on the bed (fully clothed) and draw the covers over them to keep warm and save fire- wood." An American custom, it might have added, strictly -rational and, as presented in The Pursuit of Happiness, almost painfully respect- able. The period is the American War of Independence, and a blustering George 111. begins the film by telling an apprehensive Pitt that he will buy thousands of Hessians at ?7 a head to beat the rebels for him. Among the thousands is one Max (Mr. Francis Lederer), who, when he gets to America, finds the promise of the Declaration of Independence much more sympathetic to his nature than the discipline of the army. " Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness "-pteciselY the right things for a romantic and pleasure-loving young man, abd Max duly deserts and finds himself in the same Connecticut village as Miss Joan Bennett and her parents, Miss Mary Boland and Mr. Charles' Ruggles. Max soon discovers that the Con- necticut idea of liberty and the Hessian are very different, but he has Miss Bennett to console him and a pleasantly gay little comedy ends happily. Hollywood has at last given Mr. Lederer a part that suits his personality. He makes a delightfully attractive, light-hearted figure of Max and is fortunate in a director who knowts how to exploit his qualities. REGAL - The Dragon Murder Case.-In a film, and acted by Mr. Warren William, Philo. Vance is much less exasperating than in Mr. Van Dine's detective stories. He seems to have lost all interest in the fine arts, and although he still has a handsome library he is no longer overpower- ingly pedantic. In fact, he seems to have settled down as a respectable private detective with no more than the conventional accomplishment of being 10 times more clever than the police. And this particular case is a very sound example of his work, though it is a detective story in the flamboyant American manner with a highly fantastic setting. Surrounded by tanks of tropical fish, the police and Vance interview a number of quite exceptionally eccentric persons and attempt to discover which of them was respohsible for the death of a man in a swimming-pool, no ordinary swimming-pool, but one in which a dragon was supposed to live. In spite of all this exuberance the explanation is adequate and plausible and the plot is de- veloped without those gaps and obscurities which often disfigure the detective story when it is filmed. In the same programme with this rather short film there is another of equal length, with the title Kansas City Princess. It cannot be said that it is a work which lingers in the memory, but it is often ingenious in detail and always rapid. CAPITOL Bella Donna.-This film of Robert Hichens's novel lasts for over an hour and a half, and it seems much, much longer. There is every- where evidence oC immense pains to make it quite clear to the audience what kind of woman Mona Chepstow is and to defipe the antagonism that exists 6etween her and Dr. Isaacson. When the scene shifts to a very 'studioish Egypt there is the same ponderous crossing of t's and dotting of i's, and the relationship between Mona, now Mona Armine. and the rich Egyptian, Mahmoud Baroudi, develops along the dull, set lines of the novelette-and " Bella Donna," as Hichens wrote it, was something more than that. Poor Mr. Conrad Veidt, who for some inscrutable reason is cast as Baroudi, is forced to go through all the tricks of the cohventional villain, and it is not his fault that nothing he says or ciocs carries the smallest conviction. Mjss Mary Ellis, as Mona, has almost as unequal a struggle, but she at least does have a few moments of genuine drama, and during ihe scene between her and Isaacson (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), she determined at all costs to keep him away from the husband she is slowly poison- ing, and he equally determined to save his friend's life, the film flickers for a few precious and isolated moments into life. OTHER PICTURE THEATRES ASTOMAi.-T hank Your Stars and The Great Flirtation. CAttLTON.-One NItht of Love. CIKEtdA HOUSE.-Forb,tdden Territory and Paris Interludle. CuRgoxt.-Refugees and .Snoiv. DOMiNION.-The Camels are Coming and Fog Over 'Frisco..- EMPiPrE.-The Merry Widow. LEICESR SQUARsE-TA2nsatantfc Mf-crry-G-Round LoNL4oN PAVILION.-The Count of Monte Cristo. MARBLE ARCU.-Jew Stiss. Na:W VICTORIA.-The Camels are Coming and Ti a..k Yoar Stars. PoLYTEcHNiC.-The Unfinished Syniphony and .4n Eastent Odyssey. SroLL.-Q4een Christina and Paris Interlude. TIVOLi.-The aros Duke. NEW FILMS IN LONDON - -- -- l . "LES MISERABLES -