conveying an illicit cargo of munitions to
the rebels in Montelegradâ¦
I can guess what happened last week. Dick pursued the villainous Mexican up the mast and there was a struggle. What the struggle was about doesnât matter much. These film heroes and villains fight in the same instinctive, mute way that a dog leaps for a rabbit. The film ended, I am sure, at the tantalising moment when the Mexican hit Dick a treacherous blow with a belaying-pin and made him loose his grip on the mast.
I was right. The film opens, to an accompaniment of cheers, whistles and shouts, as Dick, spinning like a top, drops towards the sea. A spout of white foam, a flash of dirty teeth from the Mexican and the waves close over our heroâs head. The proud ship San Pedro ploughs her way towards ill-fated Montelegrad where Professor Campbell, in his hacienda, surrounded by rebels, is being forced to hand over his invention, the invisible death-ray, to the rebel leader who is contemplating a worldwide empire. For a time I forget everything but Dick and the professor, and the Mexican. Dick is not drowned. Swimming under water he reaches the stern and climbs aboard. Stealthily he unfastens the professorâs daughter, where she is tied to the mainmast in the glare of the sun. They tiptoe past the crew, sleeping the sleep of the cinematically drunk, to the hold where they make a raft⦠Everybody knows what he is going to do. He is going to make a bold bid to save Montelegrad by blowing up the ship. He sets a fuse, giving himself and the girl, who hampers his movements by clinging to his neck, five minutes to launch their raft. The audience stirs with apprehension. Oh, why did it have to happen? The ever-wakeful Lope Chica catches them as they struggle with the raft by the stern. The crew awake, throwing off their stupor with miraculous ease, and there we all are â for each one of us is now on board that powder mine â wasting time by talking, while that fuse burns nearer and nearer to the powder. The camera darts from the burning fuse to the group on deck, and back again.
Nearer, nearer â only half an inch to go before the big bang â and then â the film finishes, a rustle of appreciation goes up from the audience who will be able to come and see what happens next week, and a growl of discontentment from myself, for I shall miss it. Never shall I know what happened to Dick and the girl, and the San Pedro .
I walked out into the busy street, wondering if it would be foolish to make a special journey to March next week⦠The scene in the main street helps me to forget.
Saturday night! Gala night in March. Into the small town have come a jostling crowd, the streets are packed with a slow-moving, joking, flirting, healthy mob; labourers from the fen farms and hamlets, their good wives⦠in they come to forget the toil of the week, the farm-carts piled high with sugar-beet, the loneliness of hamlets, where rain is the only drinkable water supply, to seek colour, warmth and laughter.
They have come by car, by omnibus, by train, on cycles, in pony-carts, and walking⦠farmersâ sons, red of face, their checked caps tipped at jaunty angles, girls with complexions that need little cosmetics, housewives bulging with parcels and good humour, and burly labourers, their hands grained with work and soil, and their hair rising rebelliously from the slavery of brilliantine.
From the lighted windows of the inns come the tinkle of pianos and the sound of songs â âLily of Lagunaâ and âI Wonât Dance,â for these people, loving the old so well, are not so narrow-minded that they scorn the new.
And they are not all so bent on pleasure that they have not an eye to a bargain. Crowds cluster round the stalls in the square by the town hall, listening to the ballyhoo of the hawkers, watching the butcher as he smacks his red and yellow carcasses with a familiarity the beasts would never
the rebels in Montelegradâ¦
I can guess what happened last week. Dick pursued the villainous Mexican up the mast and there was a struggle. What the struggle was about doesnât matter much. These film heroes and villains fight in the same instinctive, mute way that a dog leaps for a rabbit. The film ended, I am sure, at the tantalising moment when the Mexican hit Dick a treacherous blow with a belaying-pin and made him loose his grip on the mast.
I was right. The film opens, to an accompaniment of cheers, whistles and shouts, as Dick, spinning like a top, drops towards the sea. A spout of white foam, a flash of dirty teeth from the Mexican and the waves close over our heroâs head. The proud ship San Pedro ploughs her way towards ill-fated Montelegrad where Professor Campbell, in his hacienda, surrounded by rebels, is being forced to hand over his invention, the invisible death-ray, to the rebel leader who is contemplating a worldwide empire. For a time I forget everything but Dick and the professor, and the Mexican. Dick is not drowned. Swimming under water he reaches the stern and climbs aboard. Stealthily he unfastens the professorâs daughter, where she is tied to the mainmast in the glare of the sun. They tiptoe past the crew, sleeping the sleep of the cinematically drunk, to the hold where they make a raft⦠Everybody knows what he is going to do. He is going to make a bold bid to save Montelegrad by blowing up the ship. He sets a fuse, giving himself and the girl, who hampers his movements by clinging to his neck, five minutes to launch their raft. The audience stirs with apprehension. Oh, why did it have to happen? The ever-wakeful Lope Chica catches them as they struggle with the raft by the stern. The crew awake, throwing off their stupor with miraculous ease, and there we all are â for each one of us is now on board that powder mine â wasting time by talking, while that fuse burns nearer and nearer to the powder. The camera darts from the burning fuse to the group on deck, and back again.
Nearer, nearer â only half an inch to go before the big bang â and then â the film finishes, a rustle of appreciation goes up from the audience who will be able to come and see what happens next week, and a growl of discontentment from myself, for I shall miss it. Never shall I know what happened to Dick and the girl, and the San Pedro .
I walked out into the busy street, wondering if it would be foolish to make a special journey to March next week⦠The scene in the main street helps me to forget.
Saturday night! Gala night in March. Into the small town have come a jostling crowd, the streets are packed with a slow-moving, joking, flirting, healthy mob; labourers from the fen farms and hamlets, their good wives⦠in they come to forget the toil of the week, the farm-carts piled high with sugar-beet, the loneliness of hamlets, where rain is the only drinkable water supply, to seek colour, warmth and laughter.
They have come by car, by omnibus, by train, on cycles, in pony-carts, and walking⦠farmersâ sons, red of face, their checked caps tipped at jaunty angles, girls with complexions that need little cosmetics, housewives bulging with parcels and good humour, and burly labourers, their hands grained with work and soil, and their hair rising rebelliously from the slavery of brilliantine.
From the lighted windows of the inns come the tinkle of pianos and the sound of songs â âLily of Lagunaâ and âI Wonât Dance,â for these people, loving the old so well, are not so narrow-minded that they scorn the new.
And they are not all so bent on pleasure that they have not an eye to a bargain. Crowds cluster round the stalls in the square by the town hall, listening to the ballyhoo of the hawkers, watching the butcher as he smacks his red and yellow carcasses with a familiarity the beasts would never
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