[
10
SCOTLAND'S NORTH- WEST CHANGES
THE
PHE road-builders are opening up tho Scotland's North-West for
I travelled the motorist. Recently yöt unmade road to Durness and cost to Tongue for preop of the
country that will within a year or two bo Camillar to the family motorist.
Even to those who have not yet
tho adventured: "Into
wilderness north-west of Leirg, the desolate- ness of Sutherlandahiro Will come as no surprize."
The Sutherland: Clearances, which dispossessed the crofter and gave his Land to the white-faced southern sheep and to the red deer, were res- ponsible for denuding the straths and loch-sides of their human popu lation.
Wild and desolate, however, the craggy Highlands and horizon-wide pent bogs must always have been.
Until now the state of the crude, waterbound roads which, except
from the pen, te the only means of access to the scenic grandeur of this Gaelic-speaking tip of Scolland, has kept the Umid motorist away.
When "The Road," as it has come to be called in Sutherlandshire, is Anished, it is reasonable to expect tint a stream of traffic will flow northward which may well niter the habits and outlook of these remote
landera and bring a measure of
to them.
A hundred years ago Laxford bull: the roads that have had to serve Sutherland men till the present day. Modern roads, only modo possible by a 108 per cent. grant from the Min- istry of transport, have been too long in coming, and no doubt the hick of them has been responsible for the unchanging mode of life of the crofters,
A Bicagre Livelihood.
pre
Few crofts
cmply, Pest the thatched smoke Issuing from roofs and signs of cultivation how that the Sutherland 'crofter is still busy wrtaling, as his forefathers did,
• grim livelihood from his Hille oasis among the peat bogs and his tum- bled rocks and bens,
A sconty as well as a prim livell hood-for Sutherland crotts are the smallest in Scotland. Every culti~ vable inch of the coll is protected from Atlantic and Arctic gates, not to speak
peat of the cacroaching bog, by drystone dykes that often takte strange shopes to accommodate overy handful of precious soil.
In the cultivation of the croft the
E
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH,
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1938.
Where STARS go
NGLISH can be spoken too well Kometimes.
Especially on the screen,
where Intimate photo- graphy and recording demands a greater degree of naturalism than is expected on the stage. This is no heresy, but common sonse.
Don't let me be misunderstood, I am fanatically in favour of pre- serving the beauty of our spoken language. Academically correct speech, however, is not expected ⚫from coalheavers, travelling tinkers or Dartmoor shepherds.
I have met miners and railway- nien whose English is much better than mine; but the fact remains that it is singularly unconvincing to hear polished elocution in films' from the Ups of simple country folk. You just don't believe it.
* *
BRITISH Alms are prone to this
defect, and a striking example
ia "Yellow Sands," * splendidly mado version of Eden Phillpotts comedy of Cornish life, set in glorious const scenery and mainly outdoors,
Finest of comes from Robert Newlon, as the sturdy, Communistic young Asher- man. He carries complete convie- tion in appearance, manner and accent, and for some time I have regarded him as a great asset to our studios.
the performancen
Mr. Newton, with his Old Vie record, can speak fine English, but on this occasion properly refraina from doing so, and is therefore a crediblo Aguro,
But those who visit Cornwall will have noticed that the “locals” do not talk in the least like Dame Marie Tempest or Wilfrid Lawson in "Yellow Sands."
*
ROTH these leading West End players giva superb acting
Damo performances.
Marie's death-scano in exquisite, and Mr. Lawson's study of the drunken, shitiless Uncle Dick is brilliant.
Nelther, however, has managed to shed that normal excollent stago dictum. In other words, they talk as highly educated people. Mr. Lawson, in fact, always docs.
Hollywood is moro careful in casting. You neror And John Barrymore in a Spencer Tracy part.
apude takes the place of the plough, 'BOOKS
and a certain rude rotation of crops
is observed. Each year one quarter
of the croft is turned over and planted with
potatoes, while
jast with
year's potato patch is sown corn, the rest of the crop yielding hay.
Harvesting the corn is a simple process, the cutting, threshing, and winnowing of what is litle more than a handful of corn being each crofter's own concern, to conduct In the elementary way he prefers.
The Other Harvest
The crofters second harvest, pro- vided by the sen, necessitates a boat, If anything, ho
ho is better seaman
A than he landsman.
2
With his hand-line or net he can abundant haddock, herring, catch and cod. It is to the sen, 100, he looks for all pleasant surprises, whether they take the form of drift- wood or of a shoal of herring run- ning before the
nose of a whale, and moment packing his loch al- most solid with fsh.
ip
The excited screainlng of seagulls over the loch warns every crofter in the neighbourhood of the welcome arrival of shoal of herring.
Fuci
presents no problem to him. During the summer he digs his peats from the peatbogs, The peats he arranges in small stacks to drain, the autumn the work of bringing them in ranks first in the crofter's nctivities. At this time of the year every available horse and cart is bringing the loads of precious fuel.
In
էր
In passing, I may say that, before my journey north. I was told that a pent fire was slow-burning, amoky, and dirty. This criticism may true of peat that contains earth or sand. The true poat, I have seen for myself, provides a bright, cheer ful fire and leaves very little nah. New Ground for Sightseers
The unrivalled angling possibili- ties of Sutherlandshire's many rivers and lochs have long been the chief attraction to Southern sportsmen. But the advent of the new road may easily place anguling second to sight-
secing
The hotels may have to cater for Bocks of motorists who have no de- signs on the big brown trout or on the silver-bellied salmon.
Eric The Darling
RISTOPHANES
invented
Lyslatrata's love strike as a cure for war, gelting on for twenty-five hundred years ago,
It has rightly remained one of the best ideas for a story ever since. And now Eric Linklater has decided to use it as a vehicle for his undoubted gifts | of pusio, satire, robust humour and
Scottish whimsy.
3 version is called The Impreg nable Women, and Jonathan Cape publishes for 78. 6.
Naturally is all about that "next Britain, allied with Germany, war." Poland and so on. is fighing France. Russia and the rett. All the aeroplanes have been conveniently destroyed, and UB, oil sanctions bring most tanks to a standstill
Therefore, most conveniently for Mr. Linklater, this war turns out just like the last and he can work in some realistic bits about fighting in Flanders that seem probably to Iett over trom some other book.
After this mud and blood excursion he returns to Edinburgh, whither the Government has removed for safety, And also because Mr. Linklater needs the castle for his final set-piece.
The concluding chapters, in which the women of Britain stage their love strike, by example Are the women of other lands to do ilkewise and so bring the war to the close, are grand-the best thing Mr. Linklater has done.
You will laugh with delight, and your laughter will make you think, becauro Me Linklater has excellent food for thought bound up with his thwackings and cuddles and tremendous Scottleha fish wives.
But it only the first half had been as good ni the secondl. If only the book had been wholly concerned with Lady Lysistrata Berymgeour's movement for minas denial of conjugal rights and extra-conjugal rites, how much better it would havo been both as fun and as philosophy.
T. D.
The wild grandeur of the North- West Highlands is something to stir Sunset Glories
bored
DAILY GAZETTE
WRONG
By P. L. Mannock
www.
antly in what it sets out to be-top- noten entertainment.
With all the vigour of Amer.can college pictures, it deals with a bump- lous Middle-West youth's initiation into an English seat of learning. Is cutanglement with A tr.ena's LGYD affairs, and his athletic prowess, which ends with his stroking a Dark Blue crew to victory at Mortlake,
It rattles along at a grand pace, has some, whiy dialogue, and a terri
Robert feally good cast,
Taylor almost justifies that hysterical London
reception: Maureen O'Sullivan 13 awest and lotelligent:. Lionel Barry. more is a nicely-quavering papa, and Edmund Gwenn, Vivien Le gh, Robert Coote and Griffiths Jones stand out. The picture has na poze. I cannot imagine anyone not enjoying it bugely.
The Hurricane is sugary Bouth Seas melodrama with Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall hending a cast better than they are. Its funification is a stupendous typhoon which blows every- thing in the island to destruction, but which does not begin until the pleture has run for an hour and a quarter. O. Aubrey Smith, as a priest, plays the organ till washed away. This spectacu• lar climax is one of the year's produe- sunnus tion highlights,
Valerie Hobson and Barry K. Barnes in This Man Is Nesos,"
THE LATEST
Adventures Of Marco Polo STAR: Gary Cooper. Period
comedy-romance.
So long as you don't accept this as anything more than a light- hearted travesty of
a great ex- plorer's Chinese tour, you will cer tainly enjoy Gary Cooper's taciturn charm, pitched battles between Tartars, and Binnie Barnes AS R fetching example of Oriental jade. In other words, Sam Goldwyn has emulated Darryl Zanuck by presenting a good American Polo team.
Mr. Cooper, as the Venetian
of deserts, trudger
Ands the Chinese have invented spaghetti and gunpowder, and gets mixed up in a jolly intrigue of spies, iwe love nd the schemings affairs, and
of BURTO Ball Rathbono as the local Goer- ing. Production is handsome; the humour is often artless. Leading lady in Nordic Sigrid Gurle, whom, for some reason. Denham la now hoping to cast in a British picture. As a Peltin princess, she writes horizontally and coos in synthetic make-up.
The real story of Marco Polo is not bad, either.
✰
*
This Man Is News 6TARS; Barry K. Barnes, Valerie
Hobson. Press COSTING, I suppose, one-twen-
tleth as much as "Marco Polo," this lively British picture is quite as entertaining. All the ex- citement of Hollywood's familiar newspaper settings are transferred to Ficct-street, and, opening with a glimpse of the "Dally Herald." the action at once becomes fast and furious.
Better stil, it stays that way, Mr. Barnes and Miss Hobson, as a crime reporter and wife, get into constant hot water over a murder; headlines mount up: there is a richly
funny news-cditor by Alistair Sim, a good police-inspec- tor Edward Lexy, and a revolver
by battle in a newspaper'ofice.
Hero in an example of how to make a steady supply of satisfying British films. It is smooth, crisp, tons and funny. Compliments are due to producer Anthony Havelock Alian and director David MacDonald, formerly with Cecil de Mille.
✩
The Rage Of Paris
STARS: Danielle Darrieux, Douglas Fairbanks, Jun. Comedy-romance.
entrancing young blonde with a sense of humour and a not-too-broken accent, She is the most refreshing new screen personality since Deanna Durbin
In this frothy Cinderella yam of a pretty girl posing as a fine lady to better herself, you have no time to query the ethics or analyse the action. Bluations are often foreseen, but are invariably funny, and the younger Doug. plays up to them and to Dantelle with grace and ease.
Micha Auer. Louis Hayward and Helen Broderick are pillars of strength In this often spley but dexterously- handled offering. Mile Darrieux can conalder berself magnificently launched.
*
*
Love Finds Andy Hardy
STARS: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney.
Domestic comedy.
EWIS STONE again appears as Judge Hardy, kindly and wise bulwark of a middle-class American home, and excels himself.
Comedy of his son's embarrassment» with car purchase, three young girls and Christmas dance aro well balanced with sontiment over an ailing grandma, The whole thing is very sincerely done. Mickey Rooney I liked for the Amt time, and I might even like Judy Garland if she didn't sing. There is a nice, family tone to this kind of picture, to which Brilch pro- ducers have as yet found na counter- part.
**
Gangs of New York"
STARE: Chatics Bickford, Ann Dvorak, Wynne Gibson. Crook melo- drama.
Na dual part, Mr. Bickford is fine. playing the detective "druble.” of an olleially-reienzed rocketeer who rounds up the entire city thuggery with riska mounung up every minute.
AB
they say. there's something screwy about the whole set-up, especi- ally with the coupla dames: but in the face of the routine surprises, you've gotta quit stalling and take it easy.
In any case. I loved the old this put over by as choice a bunch of muggs na I've run across in years.
GENERAL
RELEASES
Sally, Irene and Mary I commend as n first-rate musical offering, with Alico Faye, her husband Tony Martin, Pred Allen and Jimmy Durante at his fun- niest. Miss Paye's ailure remining un- dimmed and the snappy dialogue and situations prevent the least' Dagging. Songs are much above the average.
First Aid For Fans
JEZEBEL.-Vield work by Bette Davis as a spoiled darling of the old South, and a good story
VESSEL OF WRATH. Charles Laughton as delectable derelict in cleverly produced example of Sept. ember Maugham.
SOUTH RIDING, Edna Best, York shire schoolmistress, teaches Ralph Richardson a thing or two. SAILING ALONG.--Jessie Matthews barges in and out of fame, with the Thames well worked t
of the Week HERO ut
flrat
big Metro Goldwy:" British off
*A Yank go Oxford" is
cring
27. olx feet
tall
and dart. Robert
Taylor has
reached the
top rung of
the ladder
despite bad
casting and worre parts. Best Camille." roles have been in
"Gorgeous Hussy," **JI LA
and Affair
"The Crowd Roars : next picture is "stand Up and Fight."
Quiet-mannered; rends, rides, and the cello. plays tennis Real name Spangler Arlington Brugh.
Baya ho won't marry until he is 30
Another No-Hit Pitcher
Sacramento, Ca),
No-hit, no-run games are no novel- ty to Manuel Freitas, Sacramento softball pitcher. Freitas pltched two such games and another no-hit con- SEVERAL big pictures afford more test this season. He missed his ▷ choles than usual, and I plump for
when one run was
A Yank at Oxford as the bist. First third shutout subject to be made on a Hollywood scored on two walks and two errors scale in Britain, it succeeds triumph in one inning.
Judge Reprimands
Himself
Self-Parking Auto
-
Sydney, Austraila. F. P. Watson, automoblie engineer, Kansas Cily, Mo. has patented the nearest thing to a Federal Judge Merrill E. Olis self-parking automobile. The HOLLYWOOD, matching Danielle issued a judical reprimand to him-vention permits cars to move them- Darrieux from her native frame.self recently. He incurred his own selves sideways into a parking space has turned her into a delightful comedy displeasure over a four-year delay, that would otherwise be too small
❘ to enter. star in no time. You must see this in settling a caso on his docket.
When Portobello
Built Ships
returns were
ACCUSTOMED as we are to re- successful, and a large staff, chiefly thence to South America.
They were named "The Fox," gard Portobello as a watering Englishmen, were employed in the
of white paint, lump "Five Sisters," "Sea Rover," &c, and place, it is interesting to recall its manufacture claim in another direction, albeit of black, and other colouring materials, their departures and
Smith the days of long ngo.
used not only the mill marked with enthusiasm by the in- (later Nichol's paper mill) but also habitants, who reasonably assumed Few people would associate the an adjacent piece of ground, and on that Portobello was now definitely wonder at Ben Stuck's kaleidoscopic extensive foreshore, and compara- the latter he established a shipyard, on the map and that a rosy future colouring.
Uvely shallow water with an indus- primarily for the repairing of his awaited them try familiar
But their anticipations, so far as enough in lis day to own vessels-the medium by which
were not Leith, namely, shipbuilding and ship he imported his raw material and shipping was concerned, the imagination and to be remem-
destined to be fulfilled. In the no with nwe and delight for
For the ancient rocks, as ancient repairing. But as far back as the dispatched the finished article. years. This beauty of mountain and as any in the world, with scarcely tobello hnd no need to go beyond its tide to permit the ships to be towed of the period were superseded by Suffelent water existed at high distant future the little calling ships end of the seventeenth century Por- pass, of sirath and river, the geolo hesther clump to clothe them, are
up the burn, and several workmen an ever-increasing number of steam- boats-an element that sealed the gist explains as the result of gigan-like, an opened illuminated book of own doorstep for maritime require-
were engaged solely for the purpose doom of these little water-valilcles tic earth movements in the far-ho past, pro
In an era before the harnessing of of attending to his craft. dlatant past.
Naturally, the yard promised to be that were entirely dependent on a Lewlalan rock, gnelas and mica The ordinary man, too, will take steam the Figgate Burn appeared, to
at frequent Intervals, so fair wind. Cambrian schists,
rocks
pleasure
the have been the centro of commerco empty and
grandeur at
the district. A lede from the Smith solved the economic problem Almost immediately after followed sandstone aro intermingled here, seascapes opened up by every turnin scientists tell us, in a fashion that
of the road from Durness as it winds burn supplied the molive power for by deciding to turn to the building the railways, providing a combina- tion of circumstances that woll-nigh one of the most intricate round the sea-locha of Erlboll and acveral water-wheels without which of ships as well, This was no less robbed Parlobello of her foreshore
The flax mills and potteries could not successful than his other under- geological puzzles in the world.
takings. and have been carried on. To the eye of the ordinary an
the sea at the Like
it is enough to stare transparency, with myself, it
foot of the cliffs changing colour at Bredking New Ground with delight at a mountain face
provides
bare.
Tongue.
Distanco
In the
ments.
Creation itself Inki
and bold
outline
On the Map
industries.
Mills and factories were gradually: abandoned and rebulit nearer to the now and swifter mode of transsert,
barred with red and white without Bie turn of fulltide and blonding The business of skipbuilding was. So for us can be traced, at least leaving once-busy community knowing that the colouring in duo shade with lovely shade! And un'a evolved by one James Smith, who, six vessels were given birth there, denuded of its importance until a to the over-laying of Cambrian memory would be short if it forgot, obtaining possession of a derelict and, although they had no great period of transfilon occurred to quartzites with Torridonian sand-
in years to come, the sheer beauty fax mill, initiated a new industry prétensions to size, the schooners or bring a different and more enduring. stone! He does not
of a Northern sunset, nood much apology to draw a sharp breath of
J. J. Quin
by converting it into white lead brigs went sumfelentis sen-worthy fame, works. The venture proved to be to lackle -un Atlantic voyage und
John of Leliz
Away With That! GIVE ME CASTORIA
Children Instinctively balk at harsh, bitter adult'lax- atives. Their tongues protest. They gladly take CASTORIA, for they love its pleasant taste. And to mothers that tongue tells another story. If it's rough or coated, watch out for stomach aches,' nervousness or bad temper! Time for CASTORIA, the laxative made especially for children. It's mild' but thorough in action, relleves congestion without griping or binding. No jar to the child's sensitive system. Over 5,000,000 American mothers rely on CASTORIA, the ideal laxativo. Buy a bottle today!.)
CASTORIA
THE CHILDREN'S LAXATIVE
"THAT GOES FOR ME! CASTORIA OR....NOTHING!"
Doctors recommend CASTORIA. It's safe- contains no castor oil or habit-forming druge. For all children from babyhood to 11 years. Many dosen in sach bottle. Uzo za neaded, it haspa.
NOW
HARDEMAN HATS
NEW WATERPROOFED SNAP NARROW BRIMS OR SMART TYROLEANS
STETSON HATS
BEST FUR FELTS IN MOST POPULAR STYLES
KNOX HATS
WORLD'S FAVOURITE LIGHTWEIGHTS
THEY ARE ALL HERE
SINCERE'S
Start the day right
by using Odol-
the most agreeable and effective antiseptic dental preparation under the sun. If thoroughly cleanses the mouth and the teeth, and leaves an antiseptic cleanli- ness that lasts for hours. Il does for the mouth-but in an anfi- septic way-what a shower-bath doss for the body, Just a low splashes into a half tumblerful of water, makara thoroughly daliahtful mouth.
Obtainable from any leading stora.
China Agents:
CARLOWITZ & CO.
- Tel: No. 31225,
Page 10Page 11