Cinema: The New Pictures, Aug. 15, 1955

(2 of 3)

The picture is fast on swordplay, heavy on overplay and light on screenplay. It begins with Walter Raleigh (Richard Todd), late of the Irish wars, winning an audience with the Queen; he wants to take three ships to the New World there to work for the greater glory of the 'British Empah." But the weary pan-amorous Elizabeth, who lost Errol Flynn back in the first film, likes the cut of Raleigh's jib— and his beard too. He is blunt, charming, gay, adventurous and never forgets to throw his cloak over mud puddles. He accepts the job of captain of the palace guard, i.e., the Queens pet, in the hope that some day his ships will go out. But before long Raleigh has to fight it out with a couple of courtiers (Robert Douglas and Jay Robinson), who have been intriguing on the Queen's outskirts. He also beds down with a proud beauty named Beth Throgmorton (Joan Collins), and when Elizabeth tries to draw a tight reign on this horseplay, Raleigh boldly kicks up his heels. For this the Queen could hand Sir Walter his head, but by this time she is so encumbered with other worries that she just gives him a ship and his lady and tells them to get the hell out of town. Fadeout: Raleigh, his arm around Beth, sets sail for America to get his face on a million tobacco cans; back at the palace Queen Elizabeth, old and dejected carries on.

Good costumes, color and lighting help give the film a Rembrandt-like feeling with dark backgrounds, rich hues, bright faces. Actor Todd is suitably racy as Sir Walter, and Dan O'Herlihy as his side kick, Lord Derry, keeps pace. Britain's Joan Collins is easy on the eyes. In the regalia of her office, Actress Davis chugs about the palace like a twelve-cylinder Tudor, hand signals and all. She shaved some of her hair off for this role, but even so great a sacrifice was in vain. The Virgin Queen is strictly corn of the realm.

I Am a Camera [Remus; DC A] focuses chiefly on the one-dimensional but fantastic adventures in Berlin of a thoroughly engaging British female named Sally Bowles. No item for the children, it is probably the gamiest as well as the wackiest picture of the year—a sort of surrealist, 100-proof binge, skillfully carried through by Julie Harris.

The year is 1931. Actress Harris, as Sally, is a café singer of doubtful merit but nothing else about her merits any doubt. She is an amoral Junior Mistress with green fingernail polish, a nymph in sheet's clothing. She drinks Prairie Oysters (one raw egg, one dash Worcestershire sauce) for breakfast, stirs her gin with vast quantities of sentimentality. Down and out, Sally meets young Christopher Isherwood, a struggling author. He offers to share his apartment with her. In gratitude, she asks: "Shall we have a drink first, or shall we go right to bed?" But Isherwood is too idealistic for that sort of thing, so the two decide to live but not to sleep together. From that point on, Sally drags the reluctant Isherwood along on a series of crazy escapades, notably with a rich American who happily pays the bills in return for shacking up with Sally. Her one serious moment arrives when she decides that she is pregnant, but she again becomes her old sylph on discovering that she was falsely alarmed.