London Sees "The River," Saga of Mississippi Delights in Its Sheer Simplicity and Majesty There. was history made in the the poverty of the bare, parched soil; cinema recently, when one of the the good lind washed far out into the noblest films that America has ever Gulf of Mexico, the dust left behind, produced, "The River," was shown and Kunger, and squalor. "We built to the English public for the first a hundred' cities and a thousand time—by television, writes C. A. towns, but at what a cost. We left Lejeune in the "Sunday Observer. the country slashed and_ burnt It was an event as significant, in we planted and ploughed with regard for the future." The f is quiet way, as the first full-length ends up with a promise of decent cartoon, or the first talkie. Films, living for a land that will plant of course, are a regular part of the where it has loosened the waters, television service, but with one ex-turn the old enemy into a friend ception—a Western last year—they and benefactor. "Where there's water have always been short films, Disneys there's power. Power to make a new and newsreels, brief nature pictures.
Tennessee for a, new generation. and. comedies, bot them. ava, keen comparative Mif: all Shave: Power enough tó, make the wer Work." previously made some sort of a public "he film is rooted in American debut. "The River" runs for thirty history, American geography, and minutes; its print is brand new and American politics, but there is some-bright; it comes to England with thing in it for every imaginative spec-golden opinions from its own country. tator. The photography is as bril-It would have been am adventure io liant as a diamond; the pictures are sec it anywhere, in any theatre. It so cunningly chosen that you and I. was like a kind of white witchcraft who have thought of the Mississippi, to see it alone by the fireside, to have if we have thought of it at all, as those fresh images and words, cz z long river with a confusing array ried over 4000 miles of sea and who of double consonants, find ourselves knows how many miles of land in their small tin cans, suddenly set free on the air waves, to break through brick and wood and glass and confront you in your own room.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.