Foggy Spot in the Sun

Certificate A: Odeon. Marble Arch Director: Arthur Lubin
WHEN the sun shines in London nowhere gets a bigger share of it than Marble Arch. And no building there embraces the sun more ardently than the Odeon---looking as it does due south over the park to where Westminster Cathedral rears its tower high above the tallest tree.
But inside this week is the gloom of a Victorian mansion where murder is premeditated and done and where deviltry wears the mask of innocence.
In other words, if you want to get away from the glare and the petrol fumes and experience an occasional cool shiver of the spine, here is where you should turn in.
Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons came over from Hollywood to make this version of W. W. Jacobs' short story " The Interruption." Like so many English humorists, W.W. had a strong streak of the macabre and in between tossing off those comedies of the seaman ashore he could think sinister enough things about human nature.
Such as the case of Stephen Lowry (Stewart Granger) who married a woman for her money and then killed her off by doses of arsenic.
Below stairs is the bullied and to all casual observers the negative little housemaid Lily (Jean Simmons). But Lily knows about the arsenic and when the moment is right she produces this knowledge to Stephen accompanied by a neat and almost diffidently delivered !threat of blackmail. With all the strategy of an experienced fieldmarshal. the girl draws a circle round the murderer so that even the most carefully planned disposition of her by him will result in his arrest.
In fact. here is one of the cleverest girls seen on the cinema for sonic time and Jean Simmons, in her wide-eyed ingenuous way, makes her an interesting study. Miss Simmons brings also to the part something of the new school of American actors—Julie Andrews, James Dean among them --the art of conveying thought by expression—a mature and subtler version of what the old silent film actors use to do. I have heard Jean Simmons described as the most " directable ". of stars—so maybe some of the credit for her grasp of this part is due to Arthur Lubin. In any case, she must be a most apt pupil.
Stewart Granger in his glossy, lean way. wears the period of topheavy Victorian-Edwardian England with ease but the part calls for little acting as such. The old sneer is there and the deftness of delivery and he certainly dies convincingly.
What the piece as a whole lacks is the saving grace of humour, and this we always look for in a murder story unless it is to become heavy going. Weighing it down through no fault of their own, be it added in haste, are Ronald Squire. Bill Travers, William Hartnell (who nearly manages to get us a laugh), and Finlay Currie—disguised as a police inspector.
THE MAN FROM LARAMIE Certificate U.
Leicester-square Theatre. Director: Anthony Mann.
THE pueblo Indian country ot New Mexico, the salt flats. them far off hills, a monopolist ranch owner—all this and James Stewart's big cone shaped hat silhouetted against it—given what the publicity people call " the full
treatment in CinemaScope and Technicolor."
With a vengeance theme—James Stewart has come to find out who sold rifles to the " Apatchics " and enabled them to kill a whole detachment of U.S. cavalry including his brother—this is a better than usual Western with the Orchestra taking a back seat. economic and effective dialogue, strong character drawing and only one sadistic shot which should not he allowed in with the U certificate.
Otherwise good fare for all with nice performances by a good cast including Cathy O'Donnell, Donald Cl isp and Ai ihur Kennedy.