EXTREMELY ENGROSSING

Evening Star, Issue 21633, 31 January 1934, Page 9

EXTREMELY ENGROSSING

‘ ME EXPRESS ' All IMGENIDUS FILM ‘ Heme Express,’ the first film to ha made at the new Gaumont-BritisK studios at Shepherd’s Bush, is Britain’s most ingenious picture. It will com. mence screening at the St. James Theatre on Friday. Most of the action takes place on a train, seen on the screen speeding by day and night on its long journey between Paris and Rome. But the giant locomotive, belching steam and smoke, the dining and sleeping cars, guard’s van, and so on, never,of course, left the studios, where they were assembled under the direction of railway experts. The only “ shots ” taken outside the studios were those employed in creating the illusion of speed. Cameramen journeyed on the real Rome Express and! filmed the countryside as it scurried past the windows of the train. The pictures were afterwards “ back-pro-jected ” in the studios on to ground glass screen, placed at ah angle to the train “set.” Therefore, . when the cameras filmed the action in the train they also photographed the racing landscape as a passenger would see it from' his seat. The studio reconstruction of the P.L.M. terminus, the Gare de Lyon, could not, of course, be built to the exact dimensions of the great Parisian, station, large though the studios are. The missing portions were reproduced in a beautiful scale model, suspended at an angle to a special camera, in front of which, at another angle, was a fine quality mirror. Some of the quicksilver on the mirror was then removed to an exact outline, to permit the studio “set” to be filmed simultaneously, with the reflected model in the untouched portion of the mirror. The work was so carefully done that set and mirror model matched perfectly, and absolutely correctly, as to proportion and perspective, in the resultant picture, which reproduces all the noise, bustle, and din of a great railway station. The story, which entertainingly exploits the theft of a Van Dyck and a. murder committed on the tram, involving a number of characters, is extremely engrossing. Add to this the striking performance of the talented cast of players, the brilliant production values, and technical qualities combining to make up an entertainment which may truly be said to be the finest seea ou the screen for a very long time.