Cinema: The New Pictures, Dec. 14, 1959

The New Picture

The 400 Blows (Zenith International). A small boy stands at the bottom of a giant tin can, the centrifuge in an amusement park. As the can begins to spin, the centrifugal force moves him to the outer walls. Faster and faster it goes. Soon the boy can move neither backward nor forward; he is the prisoner of the machine. Searching for freedom, he scrambles along the walls upside down. The machine, he discovers, has repealed the natural law that keeps his feet on the ground. It has robbed him of all relationship to the true center of things.

The child...

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