The Cry of the World (International Film Foundation) is an intelligent and heterogeneous compilation of newsreel shots on such matters as the War, Prohibition, U. S. Crime, Disarmament Conferences, Gandhi, Mussolini, Hoover. Hitler, the Japanese at Shanghai. Its grandiose title is meaningless and misleading. The picture is improved by its lack of a theme; the pleasure of watching it is analogous to that of reading the headlines of old newspapers. Good shots: Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. looking out of his window; Mahatma Gandhi with one finger on his nose; Mrs. Charles H. Sabin denouncing Prohibition; Manhattan police riding their horses into a crowd of Communists; an old scared Chinaman stooping to retrieve his bundle from a Shanghai gutter; Congressman La Guardia delivering an oration on a bunch of grapes.
Formation of the International Film Foundation—non-profit-making producer and distributor of educational films—was announced last fortnight in Manhattan. President of I. F. F. is President Wallace Walter Atwood of Clark University. Purpose of I. F. F. is to centralize production and distribution of educational films. It will manufacture three types: classroom films, noncurriculum films for auditorium use, a few special films, like The Cry of the World, for general distribution. Most of the personnel of I. F. F., including President Atwood, were previously connected with the visual education department of Fox which, after spending $300,000 on educational films in the last two years, has ceased to function.
The World and the Flesh (Paramount) is a melodrama of the Russian revolution, replete with sardonic guffaws by George Bancroft and disdainful cigaret puffings by Alan Mowbray. Bancroft is a Bolshevik sea-captain named Kylenko. Mowbray is a calm patrician. His name is Dmitri and he uses his monocle in such debonair fashion that you are sure he will be executed before the picture ends. There is also a dancing girl (Miriam Hopkins) who is Dmitri's mistress. With her he runs away from the Bolsheviks. When they | reach the seaport of Theodosia, Dmitri thinks that he is safe. He and some of his aristocratic companions are giving a soiree when the town is captured by Kylenko.
Now things really begin to happen. The town is recaptured by the Tsar's army. Kylenko and his underlings are put aboard ship for Sebastopol, to be executed. They capture the ship and head it back for Theodosia which has been recaptured by Reds. The aristocrats on board, aided by the dancing girl, try to magnetize the ship's compass so that they can steer for Sebastopol without letting Kylenko find out about it. For a time the boat is practically spinning in the Black Sea; but when it docks its passengers find themselves at Theodosia. Dmitri is taken off, still smoking, to face a firing squad. The dancing girl, a peasant at heart, attaches herself to Kylenko.
The World and the Flesh treats the Russian revolution in a new manner for the cinema, using it as the material for blood & thunder romance in the style of Rafael Sabatini. It is a well directed and adequately authentic picture, damaged mainly by prolixity of plot and by reverberations of George Bancroft's guffaw. His laughter is of a sort to suggest that he has just heard a joke which he does not understand.