New Films In London Entertainments Mr. trnst Vajda, in Thle Great Garrick, has based his story on a practical joke of wvhich Garrick is said to have been the victim. Mr. Brian Aherne has the part of Garrick. Three other American films new to London are That Certain Woman, with Miss Bette Davis as a gangster's widow, Thze Bad Man of Brimstone, with Mr. Wallace Beery ably supported by an old-fashioned revolver, and The Awful Trutth, in which Miss Irene Dunne and Mr. Cary Grant move with an unfamiliar and engaging air through situations common on the screen but here unexpectedly divert- ing. Young antd Innocenit is a British film, directed by Mr. Alfred Hitchcock, who always attempts to make the most of humour and of suspense. PLAZA The Great Garrick.-Any famous actor would have served equally well as the subject of this film, and though it appears to derive fronm an actual legend about him, the story is merely put forward as an episode that might have happened to Garrick. Usually the inven- tions attached in fiction to famous persons are more tedious than the truth, but here the plot is highly ingenious, and at moments even in- telligent, perhaps because it has been com- posed for the film by Mr. Ernst Vajda instead of being substantially altered, according to the usual custom, from a story designed for another medmtni. Garrick is on his way to Paris when the actors of the Comedie Francaise decide to play a trick on him; they occupv an inn on the road, and in the disguise of innkeeper, waiters, servants, and guests act a concerted play with the intention of making him ridiculous. Unfortunately they cannot act so well as Garrick, who merely takes his cue and turns their play the other way round. But if he can penetrate their disguises, the be- haviour of a gentiine and accidental visitor to the inn (Nliss Olivia de Havilland) seems to him even more blatantly amateurish, an amus- ing point whichi might have had even more curious results than are allowed in the film. Mr. Brian Aherne allows himself a more swaggering manner than seems consistent with a very great actor, but he manages the looking- glass paradoxes of an actor acting as an actor with considerable skill. REGAL The Alwful Trurth.-This is a comedv in which character and situation are neatly inter- woven. A liberal-minded young man (Mr. Cary Grant) is expansive on the subject of tolerance and the right of others to lead their own lives. His attitude is clearly defined in the opening scene, and when he is confronted with a situation contrived solely to test lhis theories, at heart he remains true to them. He does not really believe that his wife (Miss Irene Dunne), who turns up in the early hours of the morning with a musician, has been unfaithful, but petulance and temper aie temporarily stronger than his common sense. The ensuing divorce is obviotisly not going to be made absolute, and the audience is there- fore encouraged to watch with the appropriate air of detachment Miss Dunne's artificial love affair with the earnest and humourless young man from Oklahoma. Mr. Grant thoroughly appreciates the absurdity of the situation, and he is never happier than when he is playing Miss Dunne's own game and exchanging with her and their dog jokes which belong essen- tially to their own household. The situations are well contrived and the dialogue well adapted to them. Miss Dunne, with a song, an impersonation, and a calm overture to romance is a perfect foil to Mr. Grant, wvho I combines an attractive diffidence with an enormous conceit. There is nothing un- familiar in the formula, yet the direction and the acting make the comedy extremely amusing and, oddly enough, unexpected. GAUMONT Young and Innocent.-As with several films directed by Mr. Alfred Hitchcock, here the actual plot has little originality; it is the story of an innocent young man (Mr. Derrick de Marney) who when accused of murder escapes with the aid of the chief constable's daughter (Miss Nova Pilbeam) to find the evidence that will acquit him. The merit of the film lies in the treatment of single episodes, and there are several of the kind that we expect from Mr. Hitchcock. These conven- tional adventures are made more exciting and at the same time more plausible by the con- trast and mixture of incongruously domestic events, as when the fugitives get entangled in a children's party at a country house. Even more characteristic is the method of sustain- ing the suspense by a slow accumulation of detail. There is, for example, a scene where the real murderer is discovered and recognized by a peculiar twitching of his eyelids. The man is playing the drum in a band, his pursuers come nearer and nearer without knowing it, he becomes more and more dis- composed, the drum beats falter, and as each small event accumulates the suspense and the agony increase. But there is no point in using the same slow technique at intervals through- out the film, as it is used, for example, when the heroine is to meet the hero by appoint- ment and every one knows that she will meet him. Nevertheless there is enough ingenuity in the film to make one wish that the story was more worthy of it. EMPIRE The Bad Man of Brim,stone.-Mr. Wallace Beery here represents, with his usual accom- plished ferocity, an unspeakably bad man of the Wild West. There is no kind of robbery or murder that he will not commit, and what is worse, and surely contrary to the tradition of Wild Western stories, he is altogether lacking in the spirit of sportsmanship; when the young hero points a gun at him he suggests that it is more honourable to use fists, and then himself draws two pistols. But it will be no surprise to the student of American fiction to learn that throughout the film he is constantly in tears, and that he meets his appointed end with all the ecstasy that is expected of martyrs. Finding his long- lost son, he follows him about with dog- like affection, helping him by stealth and grateful for the smallest recognition in return. Since the young man has all the sentiments proper to a hero and turns both policeman and lawyer in an attempt to bring law and order to the West, the situation is rather amusing, and, indeed, the whole film has a certain ironic detachment which makes it possible to enjoy even its most preposterous episodes. The film is burlesque melodrama but the btirlesque is an unscrupulous method of making the melodrama palatable to modern tastes. NEW GALLERY That Certain Wom,an.-Miss Bette Davis establishes at the outset the fact that Mary Donnell has gifts of mind as well as of heart, a fact for which one is exceedingly grateful. Had it been otherwise and Mary been shown as just another of those film heroines, all mother-love and self-sacrifice, Thiat Certaini Woman would have been tedious in the extreme, but as it is Miss Davis's acting elbows the unimportant story off the screen and keeps the character of Mary firrmly in the foreground. Mary is the widow of a gangster, who was shot in the St. Valentine's Day massacre, but she has put her past behind her, calls herself Miss Donnell and gets a job as private secretary to a rich lawyer (Mr. Ian Hunter). The important thing is that, as Miss Davis presents her. Mary is the sort of girl who couldl train herself to be an extremely valuable private secretary. She has breeding as well as brains, application, common sense, and abundant self-control, and although the story increases in banality as it goes on, Mary refuses to sink to its depths. She marries a young man (Mr. Henry Fonda), who disgracefully surrenders to his bully of a millionaire father (Mr. Donald Crisp) on the night of their wedding, the divorce goes through, ahd, unknown to the husband, Mary has a child. The welter of mother-love and self- sacrifice now comes into its own with a ven- geance, but Miss Davis survives it all, even the happy ending, and keeps Mary miraculously uncontaminated, a person we know and respect, even though we meet her in an artificial and second-rate setting. Broadcasting will be found on page 23 Week-end Concerts are on page 19 NEW FILMS IN LONDON MR. BRIAN AHERNE AS GARRICK