CINEMA
Dunkirk (Ealing; M-G-M). Blimey! 'Ow could 'e do it? 'Ere's this bloke, see, this Mike Balcon—'e ain't no bloody amateur when there's a camera abaht. 'E did aowl' Alec's Lavender Hill Mob, an' with not much 'elp neither, financially so to speak, and they're sayin' 'e's brilliant, 'e's got it made. A ruddy, stained-glass genius, that's what they called 'im. 'E's no genius, 'e's a bloody miracle worker. 'E's taken the evacuation at Dunkirk—their finest hour, like the aowl' boy said, an' the greatest military operation in the 'aowl' bloomin' 'istory of military warfare—an' 'e's got official films and records, pots of money, 'e's got a cast 'e couldn't squeeze into Trafalgar Square, an' wot else's 'e got?
'E's got the worst little stinker of a picture England has sent across the Atlantic in a long time.
It's 1940—with the Majjinot Line crumblin' an' all that. 'Ere's John Mills, 'e's a British corporal an' 'e's tryin' to fight a war in France, an' all 'e's got to shoot at is a bloomin' painted backdrop. 'E heventually walks to the beach, since 'e's walked everywhere else there is, an' 'e lies down for a nap while the Stukas bomb all the other blokes.
But 'e ain't forgotten, not by a long shot. The boat-ownin' toffs of England start thinkin' of 'is well-bein', an' they set off by the thousands to 'elp bring back the lads off the beaches. Sorry day for Blighty, all right. Only one boat makes it across without bein' blown up, and when she gets there, this 'ere corporal and 'is five men 'itch a ride 'ome off 'er without hardly any of the other 100,000 poor bleeders on the beach even stirrin' off their arsenal. War can be 'ell.
Boot Polish (R. D. Purie; Hoffberg),the first Indian-made film to be released generally in the U.S., has drawn quick comparison to Shoeshine, Vittorio De Ska's 1947 Italian classic. The comparison, apparently based on the similarity of titles, is unfortunate. The two films move in opposite directions—Shoeshine despairingly toward the lower depths, Boot Polish wistfully toward the light. More importantly, their coupling might becloud the fact that Boot Polish is a nearly flawless little gem of a fable that glows with its own brilliance, without need of outside illumination.
Director Raj Kapoor's hero and heroine are two orphaned children, living with their sadistic prostitute aunt in the slums of Bombay. At her command, they spend their days in the streets and trams of the city, begging money in a squeaky singsong chant. But an old, kindly bootlegger urges them to the slum child's equivalent of the higher life: "You have been given two hands to work with. Start with small things first, and bigger things later."