Cinema: Documentaries

Last week Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art began showing 15 of Britain's documentary war films to small though ardent daily audiences. Intended to convey specific wartime advice entertainingly to the home population, they deal with such subjects as the dangers of gossip, the activities of the Home Guard, how the R.A.F. keeps its score of downed Nazi planes, etc. They are on view in Manhattan strictly as examples of cinema art.

Why the British Government considers them unfit for national U.S. distribution is another British propaganda mystery. Acted for the most part by...