“THE PIED PIPER”

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 117, 12 February 1944, Page 5

“THE PIED PIPER”

(Third Week).—Monty Woolley has not only come out of the wheel chair which he occupied through the greater part of “The Man Who Came to Dinner," an earlier and brilliant film of his which has not yet beeu seen in Wellington, but in “The Pied Piper” (Plaza), does enough , crosscountry roadwork to put him in fighting shape. The story has to do with an elderly Englishman on vacation in Switzerland, who starts home during the Invasion of France with a couple of children In tow, aid picks up more on the way. He gets into trouble with the Germans, who think the children are just a front, and that the old fellow is a spy, which doubly Irritates him because he doesn’t like children, and didn’t-want to get tangled up with them in the first place. This crusty sentiment is, of course, natural to Mr. Woolley, who has a very good time with it, and gives the audiences one -too. Otto Preminger, another specialist at ill-temper, plays a Nazi officer, and plays it well. In the moments when he almost displays a human feeling toward the old Englishman (because he, too, is having child trouble at home), he is superb. Nevil Shute’s book has been well and kindly treated by Hollywood. as many people, no doubt readers of the abridged version in the “Beader s Digest,” will be able to vouch.