ANOTHER SOVIET FILM

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 138, 27 May 1931, Page 5

ANOTHER SOVIET FILM

TO INCITE QHINESE TO REBELLION CHILDISH DRAMA i London. Another example of the Soviet’s pernicious propaganda by films was shown by the Film Society. This film, called “The Blue Express,” is au ingenuous drama obviously manufactured for the ouly purpose of inciting the Chinese to revolution. The commentator in the Film Society’s programme uses the more tactful phrase, “the encouragement of the Chinese to self-government.” The picture was made by Sovkino, the Russian State film factory, two years ago, by Ilya Trauberg. He was only 23 when he made “The Blue Express.”

The setting of the story is an express train doing its journey across China. Much contrast is made between the comparative luxury enjoyed by “the ruling classes” and the cattle truck-lik« conditions endured by native workers and coolies. Train Fight A white man, “the president of a foreign trust,” boards the train with pomp and ceremony, including a brass band to see him off. The natives lie huddled on top of each other and among them is a young girl who is going as a slave to the cotton mills. An attack on her by a white man leads to a murder by a coolie, and finally to the natives seizing arms from the luggage van. They fight with the Chinese troops on board who try, unsuccessfully, to defend the president and “the ruling classes.” The train is captured by the rebels. It is typical of the childishness of the picture that, for most of the time during the fight, the train runs successfully at high speed without anyone on the engine to control it. Valueless Law and order attempts to switch the train into a siding, but a coolie alters the points and the victorious rebels get safely across the frontier.. “The Blue Express” is, for the student, an interesting essay in film editing. It has no commercial value in jßngland. Tire psychology is comparable with the attitude of a wilful child towards its nurse. It has no grades of characterisation. People in it are either powerful and bad or down-trodden and good.