The Cinema TOO OLD TO WORK AT SIX

Poor Little Rich Shirley
From our Filsn Correspondent
Soon Shirley (in her present baby roles) will be due to retire . . . the strange thing about watching the sequence of this little veteran's pictures is that one feels that each one must herald the " positively last appearance" of the star. Some would not wish her gone, others would rather she had never come, but none can deny that her career is unique in stage history.
In her latest piece of work. Poor Little Rich Girl, it is apparent that the curves are becoming more opulent and less chubby, that the effort to impersonate has become more of a conscious undertaking, that the voice's first fine careless rapture is being lost in the race to keep abreast of the crooner, and that the enlarging feet do not find it quite such nursery play to out-star Astaire.
Playing or Play-acting?
Shirley is showing signs of her age—an indelicate thing to say of a lady—but these are outspoken times and we feel " &finally " (as she herself would say it) that Shirley should retire for a time, perhaps to emerge again later in the fullness of her power. Then we shall be able to take her seriously, whereas if she stays longer with us now, who knows whether we shall not lose confidence in her?
What we want to be reassured about is not Shirley's abilities to play act but her abilities to play. We don't want to know that at the age of six she can sing in tune —nearly, that she can tap out complicated rhythms with her baby feet, that she can act any part with perfect assurance, that she can not only learn her own script for a film but also everyone else's, and put her elders right on the set if they waver for an instant.
Being Natural All the admiration that we can summon for the appreciation of such a prodigious child is somehow small compared with our feelings for the same child when she shows signs of doing the quite normal childish things. Throughout Poor Little Rich Girl I had a horrid feeling that perhaps the enormously clever antics of singing and dancing before a " mike," and imitating parrot fashion the amatory gestures and expressions of the popular music-hall star were all poor little rich Shirley could manage. 1 only hope she enjoys real games as well as film story games, and that the hard necessity of earning her several thousands sterling a week does not interfere entirely with " having fun."
Melchior—The Mountain Nearly as sophisticated as Baby Shirley is that finished continental actress, Olga Tschechowa, who is not the most interesting star of a Viennese musical comedy film called Sylvia und Ihr Chauffeur at the Academy, but is at least the most beautiful.
The whole excuse for the film is the character of Melchior—late singer in grand opera—present cook-entertainergeneral to a penniless lawyer who has found being a taxi-chauffeur preferable to carrying briefs to the Bar.
Melchior's full-blooded part, full of song and action and comedy, is taken by a mountain of man, Leo Shzak, whose good temper is as apparent as his ability to sing.
This film has an impossibly tangled plot, it has a collection of catchy tunes—"Ich bin glucklich, du hist glucklich" you may have already caught from your wireless— and it has at least three new stars whose ascent in the film firmament may be worth watching—surely this is enough to cornmend Sylvia und !hr Chauffeur to those who like entertainment light—but not fluffy.
Death of a Bishop
The Bishop of Regensburg has lost his Auxiliary, Mgr. John Baptist Hierl, who died in the diocesan city in his eighty-first year. This venerable prelate, himself a Bavarian, was raised to the episcopate in 1911; previously he was Provost of the Regensburg Chapter. His titular see was Teuchirian. In December, 1927, he was honoured by appointment as an Assistant at the Pontifical Throne,