FILMS

Magic and motivation mixed
by FREDA BRUCE LOCKHART
Last week's "X" films drove me to criticise the censorship. This week, by contrast, I looked around for summer holiday fare and found two Disneys I had somehow missed on their arrival.
When Walt Disney died he left the cinema a very special legacy. I don't just mean his collection of masterpieces for the archives of the cinema — the early Mickey and Minnie Mouse, the iqcomparable "The Band Concert,' "Bambi," "Fantasia" or whichever was our favourite of feature-length Disneys.
The films that carry Disney's name today are no longer the creations of his graphic or musical genius. Nor had they been in the last few years before he died.
His ongoing legacy is the organisation he built up, the studio which goes on turning out Disney-type movies, thereby ensuring at least a modicum of movies fit to take the children to. This is indeed an invaluable service to the youngest generation and to their elders who worry about their entertainment in increasingly permissive times.
Even Disney could not guarantee a direct heir to his artistic inspiration, to the creator of Donald Duck or Clara Cluck. He could, however pass on his unique know-how and a tradition of decent juvenile entertainment for which we can all be grateful.
Herbie Rides Again ("U," Odeon, Marble Arch) surprised me very agreeably, not having seen Herbie's previous ride in "The Love Bug." This seems to me quite in the right tradition. The fairy-tale gimmick is that Herbie is a car with a mind of its own which therefore becomes an active character, a deus in machina from the out
Set.
The usual nice young couple (Ken Berry and Stephanie Powers) set out to help her grandmother (Helen Hayes) preserve the elderly house from his father who wants to bulldoze it. Like . 4tiii recent movies "Herbie Rides Again" is set in the hills of San Francisco.
Besides the magic Volkswagen, grandma also houses a slightly pixillated train engine just mobile enough to provide useful reinforcement in more than one chase. Keenan Wynn makes a delightful wick ed uncle behind benevolent whiskers. The machines seem to run on exactly the right mixture of magic and automation to be enjoyed by the whole family.
Superdad ("U," lately at Studio One, on release shortly) is still more unsophisticated yet manages to knock a nail gently but firmly on the head with its sermon. to over-doting dads.
The atmosphere is that of a junior girls' school story (American system) when beloved but not particularly bright Sue McCready (Barbara Bush) is launched from home. Doting Dad (Bob Crane) makes just about every possible and embarrassing mistake, from haunting the school to see his darling daughter is being suitably cared for to the ultimate enormity of trying to cheat her into a scholarship.
• After much mutual mortification Dad redeems himself and the picture by rescuing his ewe lamb from Klutch (Joby Baker), a particularly frightful hirsute and pretentious action painter. Mum (Kathleen Cody) is all the time wiser and keeps her distance.
There is not much here for sophisticated youngsters brought up to watch unlimited television, but the whole family are endearing. I specially liked Kurt Russell as the faithful boyfriend to whom she is happily restored.
As every.year, the Everyman Theatre, Hampstead, is offering a season of favourite masterworks as holiday fare for grown-ups (and three of the four have "U" certificates). There are still three days in which to see Roman Holiday, William Wyler's delicious endof-war comedy starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.
Next week offers a rare opportunity to see what is arguably Orson Welles's most attractive and appealing movie, The Magnificent Ambersons ("U"). There follows a week of John Ford's classic Wagonmaster ("A") then the season winds up with the hilarious Cary Grant Katherine Hepburn comedy Bringing Up Baby ("U") directed by Howard Hawks.
Any Jot' the four would be worth a journey to Hampstead for any film-lover holidaying in reach of London.
Meanwhile on the South Bank of the Thames the National Film Theatre continues its own season of "Paramount on a Parade" a retrospective full of plums. Tomorrow, Lewis Milestone's The General Died at Dawn reminds us that China seemed closer 38 years ago and of the talents of the young Gary Cooper and Akim Tamiroff and the beauty of Madeleine Carroll. On Sunday the attraction is Hotel Imperial, directed by Garbo's Swedish discoverer, Mauritz Stiller, but starring Pola Negri. On Monday the small theatre .NFT2 shows It Happened One Night, Capra's comedy of the decade starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.