THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON JUAN

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 122, 16 February 1935, Page 21

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON JUAN

(By John Storm.) When a journalist, particularly one with a knowledge of Europe and America, .turns picture producer he has an advantage over the rest of the world. For in his profession he has come across all sorts and conditions of men as well as a variety of situations that are not to be met in any other Walk of life. This advantage must have meant a great deal in the work of the -famous Hungarian journalist, now the chief and the presiding genius of Loudon Films. His roving eve is said to have moved over the whole earth before it lit upon Britain as a centre from which to radiate the works of his imagination. These already have made a stir in the whole picture world. Indeed, the furore caused by his comedy dramas, “The Private Life of Henry VIII’ and Catherine" the Great,” last year, opened the way to success for historical pictures. Audiences now on both sides of the Atlantic. and in both hemispheres, are all agog for the picture with the period setting. Thus bis latest half-real, halflegendary character “Don Juan,” comes into a world waiting anxiously to receive him. . , , When 1 heard that Douglas Fairbanks was to play the part I thought that the producer .with the unerring judgment was about to meet with some sort of setback. I could not imagine how the steeple-climbing, roof-jumping prince of the silent film, all action and flourish, could be advised to translate some of this sheer energy into the simpler gestures necessary to a mild satire. But I underrated the powers of Alexander Korda. He is master of the art. He is a master of the delicately satirical, too. But bis work has a genius for "simple and tender things” in the midst of the gayest raillery. He makes real fun, without malice. He has a genius, too. for choosing lieutenants whether as collaborators or as artists and technician. In this Frederick Lonsdale takes a hand with Lajosßiro on the script, and his witty lines fit the style of the comedy. Douglas Fairbanks is a new man. It is true he has enough of the old Douglas of silent days to do some startling athletic feats. ’ He can still show a smart pair of heels, can roll back bis lace frills over his velvet cuffs with an air, or send out a ringing peal of laughter, but these accomplishments must fit the moment, not as they used* to be made to fit any ukt ment. And there are the “other things' known to the director and communicated by him to the principal player. It says a great deal for Douglas Fairbanks, after directing himself in his own pictures for nineteen years, that he accepts direction and modulation from a much younger man. Although the picture has a wonderful wealth of picturesque detail, settings designed by the artist Vincent Korda, and photography by the most famous French camera artist, Georges Perinel, who makes poetry of his scenes, and the whole brilliant cast plays up to it. the story would be slight. Don Juan, middle-aged and still young, comes back to Seville to find a young impersonator of himself making all hearts flutter. While he is pondering the problem, news comes that*!ie has been killed in a duel by an infuriated husband of Seville. Thus Don Juan is privileged to watch his own funeral. Many lovely faces appear under the picturesque mourning of old Spain. “But I do not recognise any of these ladies!” he mutters to his man, and interrogates one of the.'r number. “I did not know him. that is why I am in mourning.” Thus he departs- again from Seville very much in peace, to vegetate under the roof of the good innkeeper Theresa —played by Athene Seyler in her inimitable style’. She offers the handsome impecunious rascal whom she tends with her best meats and wine a hand and a heart as well. "But, madam,’ be cries in despair. “I am a man of morals. lam married already.” He rushes back to Seville just as the citizens are having s great day to his memory, and a play in his honour, in which Owen Nares gives a solemn performance as the great heartbreaker. And so the neatest, airiest comedy goes on, with the most delightful players— Lawrence Grossmith, Fay Petrie, Clifford Heatherly, even the lesser parts are in important hands—to a climax too good to tell, in which Bdnita Hume appears to fine advantage as the real wife of Don Juan Claude Allister as Ihe Duke, and Merle Oberon, as his dear, the dancer, are of course among the high lights. Some of the outdoor shots were made in Spain, in Seville, and those that nere not are just as good, for Georges Perinel luxuriate among the Spanish balconies, the balustrades, the staircases, the castles and the turrets of another artist. Every•one is happily cast, everyone is very good, and' the fun of it is best of all.