one hour to five hours after high water Dover. Then the strong tide helps one along. We had arrived one hour before high water so the outgoing tide was helping to heap up the waters. There was nothing we could do except carry on. We passed through the entrance, passing two miles off Duncansby Head. The visibility was getting better all the time and we could now see the Pentland Skerries. After we had passed Stroma Island, the sea dropped right away and the wind eased off. Now was the time to find out if there had been any damage done when we took the big roll and also when we shipped one wave. The ship itself was not damaged, but one of the saloon tables was torn away from its securing bolts in the deck and broken. The composition deck round the bolts was pulled up. The sea had completely smashed two potato lockers which were on top of a deck house on the boat deck, and the potatoes cascaded over the side. Some of the cabin fittings had come apart, but nothing serious."
THE FILM SOCIETY Any film directed by David Lean is a guarantee of certain high standards—of care, sincerity, and competence—and "Great Expectations" is no exception. Perhaps the earlier scenes in which Anthony Wager played Pip as a boy are nearer the authentic Dickens, but what the later scenes lack in atmosphere, is made up by well-sustained excitement. As a "costume piece", the whole is remarkably well done. "Morning Departure" was a sombre study of a grim theme—the peace-time loss of a submarine. The story moved to its predestined end with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy, allowing itself little or no deviation from the main characters and, perhaps rightly, nothing in the way of light relief. The film had its virtues even if they were of a negative sort. There were, for instance, no exaggerated "stagey" characters, who appear so grotesque when viewed through the eye of a camera close-up. "The Lavender Hill Mob" is, of course, a high-spirited romp with an ingenious theme and some good touches of humour : e.g., the highly respectable old lady in a boarding house, who spoke like a Peter Cheyney character when interviewed by the police. This Ealing Studio production was eminently safe in the experienced hands of Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. The highlight of the term, however, was undoubtedly "Ninotchka". America doesn't make comedies that sparkle like this any more. The light-hearted touch, the carefree approach to life has been lost. It may be that the competition of television or the newly acquired cares of world leadership are causing Hollywood to press, as golfers would say, and that the size of the screen at the moment is more important than what is put on it. Certain it is that there is no director
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