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Another documentary showing, last fortnight, was Tunisian Victory, the U.S. and British Governments' long-awaited sequel to Desert Victory (TIME, April 12, 1943). Tunisian Victory is worth seeing if only for a few minutes aboard the two lordliest convoys in history (they carried the British and Americans to Africa). There are some eye-shattering shots of combat, too. The film was made with care and skill, but the intricate military story is told too doggedly, with too much commentary. A general high-surface of tact and politeness reduces the film's forces as a record of truth. Most unfortunate touch is the finale between the off-screen voices of a British and a U.S. soldier philosophizing vaguely about the postwar world, signing off with a glad, excruciating: "Wot a job! Bringin' back the smiles to kids' faces!"
Uncertain Glory (Warner) indulges Warner Bros.' pet delusion that Errol Flynn may play the hero, but that he is even more appealing as a heel. This time Cinemactor Flynn is an Occupied-French murderer who is about to be guillotined when some opportune British bombs help him to escape. A dowdy Parisian plain-clothes man (Paul Lukas) recaptures him in a village where saboteurs have just blown up a bridge and the Gestapo is about to shoot 100 hostages in reprisal. Result: one of those ethical problems that bedevil Warner Bros.' pictures: Should the detective turn over his prisoner to the Vichy police or let Cinemactor Flynn impersonate the saboteur and thus free the hostages from the Gestapo? The problem is mildly complicated by Murderer Flynn's dalliance with a small-town girl (Jean Sullivan). At last Flynn and Lukas decide that they are Frenchmen even more than murderer and plain-clothes man. The ethical problem is solved and the picture ended in what readers of A Tale of Two Cities will recognize as a brisk burst of Sydney Carton.
CURRENT & CHOICE
Cover Girl (Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly; TIME, April 10).
With the Marines at Tarawa (TIME, March 20).
Up In Arms (Danny Kaye, Dinah Shore; TIME, March 13).
The Purple Heart (Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, Sam Levene, John Craven; TIME, March 6).
Lady in the Dark (Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Jon Hall; TIME, Feb. 21).
Miracle of Morgan's Creek (William Demarest, Betty Hutton, Eddie Bracken, Diana Lynn; TIME, Feb. 14).
Song of Bernadette (Jennifer Jones, Gladys Cooper, Charles Bickford; TIME, Feb. 7).