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Mahatma Gandhi-Twentieth Century Prophet (Stanley Neal Productions; United Artists). The still eloquent ghost of Mohandas Gandhi walks through this moving, full-length documentary about India's great leader. Culled from more than 10,000 ft. of film shot over a 37-year period, from Gandhi's early years in South Africa as a successful lawyer to his assassination in New Delhi in 1948, the highlights of his career are knit together with a stirring narration by Quentin Reynolds.
The whole film is a tribute to Gandhi's principles of practical idealism: the satyagraha (soul force, or conquering through love), which was the basis of his resistance campaign against the British in his battle for India's liberation; his insistence on means being commensurate with ends; the mighty weapons the Mahatma (literally, "great-souled") forged for a weaponless people by pitting faith against force.
Best-remembered scenes: the historic 1930 Dandi march, in which he led thousands of Indians in a 200-mile trek to the sea to protest the salt tax; his repeated imprisonments; his fasts, which were effective moral protests that fired India's millions and the world; his death at the hands of a Hindu extremist, which put an ironically violent end to a life dedicated to nonviolence.
The final sequences take on epic proportions as the weapons carrier on which Gandhi's body lies is slowly pulled for five hours by men with ropes through a surging crowd in the streets of New Delhi, while planes shower his bier with rose petals. Then, after his body has been burned on a funeral pyre of bricks and sandalwood sticks, the ashes are scattered on the sacred waters where the Jumna and Ganges meet. One brief, vivid shot shows most of the material possessions that the frail little man in the white loincloth left behind him: sandals and spectacles, a book and a bowl, a tinny dollar watch.
Remains to Be Seen (M-G-M), a movie version of the 1951 Howard Lindsay-Russel Grouse play, is a blend of murder and mirth that succeeds in being neither mysterious nor particularly amusing. The action takes place in a Park Avenue apartment building which houses: a bashful theatrical manager (Van Johnson) who is also an amateur jazz drummer, a sleepwalking band singer (June Allyson). a murdered vice snooper (Stuart Holmes), a homicidal doctor (John Beal). a mysterious lady (Angela Lansbury) who materializes at intervals from a secret door.
Notable sequences: June Allyson jitterbugging. Van Johnson playing the trap drums, June and Van doing a duet of Toot Toot Tootsie, Goodbye.
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