The New Pictures

The Power and the Prize (M-G-M), like Executive Suite and Patterns, starts out as if it were really going to explain the difference between the American Way of Life and the Normal Course of Business.

Unfortunately, the story goes on a bromide jag.

"What's necessary for Amalgamated," Tycoon Burl Ives harrumphs as the story gets going, "is necessary for her!" Actor Ives is Amalgamated, her is his niece, and the man he is speaking to is Robert Taylor, vice chairman of the board. What the boss is trying to say is that Taylor, who is about to amalgamate with Little Miss Amalgamated, had better go to London first and tie up that $40 million deal with Carew, Ltd. "Believe me, Cliff," says Industrialist Ives with deep feeling, "the men who saved the world were never stopped by the Ten Commandments." Cliff replies with equally deep feeling: "I hope the day will come, sir, when I can be as truthful as that." Off he goes, looking smug, to save the world for the stockholders.

The next part of the picture is apparently intended to suggest that a businessman's profit is apt to be without honor, especially in another country; that it is, in effect, bad diplomacy and even worse business to make a dollar and lose a friend. Perhaps no one will argue the point, but every American is entitled to resent the way the point is made. Scriptwriter Robert Ardrey, who worked from the novel by Howard Swiggett, unfortunately felt obliged to revive an ancient canard that has been a dead duck for a long time. Americans, the script suggests, are rich but vulgar; Europeans are poor but cultured.

Hero Taylor, at any rate, has a mighty appetite for humble pie. Every time the Englishman (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) gives him the time of day, the American lowers his eyes and smiles shyly, as if filled with gratitude and the sense of his own unworthiness. And when he meets the European Woman (Elisabeth Mueller). the young wolf of Wall Street stands there with his tail between his legs, like an Iowa farm boy suddenly confronted with Madame de Stael. The lady is obviously intelligent, or so the scriptwriter seems to think, because she never stops talking. She must be cultured because she pounds incessantly on a piano. And she has certainly known life because--as she informs the hero in the first few minutes of their acquaintance--she was naturally against Hitler, and spent three years in a concentration camp. The implication is that the average American girl could be considerably improved by the regular application of a rubber truncheon. Some may agree, but the heroine of this picture is not much of an advertisement for the method. Essentially, she is just one more gabby, opinionated woman, and whether from Pilsen or Pawtucket, she seems a bit of a bore.

Anyway, Taylor takes her home and together they undertake to save American Big Business from a danger that has not seriously threatened it for a generation: the reign of the robber baron. For a while Taylor has to suffer an angry case of Ives, but in the end everybody agrees that "when power comes to exist for itself, it becomes a losing proposition."

The Grand Maneuver (U.M.P.O.). "Love," Rene Clair announced recently, "is a very serious matter." To prove his point, Director Clair offered this picture, which happily proves nothing -- except that Clair is as good as he ever was. In 34 years he has made more than 20 movies, and most of them (The Million, The Italian Straw Hat, The Ghost Goes West, Beauties of the Night) are lovely things--as breezy as a Paris gutter, as delicate as a young French pea. This one is no exception.

Remember the cavalry? This is a story about what it used to do when it was not chasing the enemy. It was chasing girls. The French cavalry was particularly well trained in this peacetime maneuver, and of all the young French officers none was more swift, more sure in the pursuit than Lieut. Armand de la Verne (Gerard Philipe) of the 33rd Dragoons. Cocksure he was, and one day he laid a bet he could have any woman in town within a month--put their names in a hat and take your pick.

Depend upon it--depend upon Rene Clair--that young devil had the luck of the draw. She was a pretty little milliner (Michele Morgan) from Paris. Not even a husband to worry about, and only one lover (Jean Desailly). The lieutenant gave chase--and right there his luck gave out. He met her at a ball; she was distant. He asked if he might take her home; she refused. He followed her anyway; she shut the door in his face. He crept into her boudoir; her lover came calling before anything could happen. In the church, in the park, at the theater--she escaped him every time, and every time she escaped him, the hunter was hotter for his sport. Until suddenly he knew that the chase was over; he had been caught. He was in love.

What happened then? What happened when he told her? What happened when her lover found out? When the colonel found out? When the town found out? When the lady herself found out about the bet? Something very French, something subtly exciting to watch. And the excitement is made more exquisite by the sensitive way the director resolves music and color (nobody could guess that he is working with color for the first time), actor and setting, sophisticated laughter and simple sadness in a limpid mood that lies somewhere between innocence and experience, heartache and heartache. It is the mood that is created by many Renaissance love songs, and Rene Clair sings it as sweetly as Ronsard.

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