The Admirable Crichton

Several months ago a man with a motion picture camera went whirring about the community filling reel after reel with scenes of life at Harvard. At the same time, presumably, diligent young men were burrowing away at film archives around the nation in an attempt to discover motion pictures of the late and great of Harvard College. The result is the featurette now playing at the Exeter--To the Age That Is Waiting.

The film was made for alumni consumption by the Program for Harvard College, so considerable time is spent on old film strips of the tercentenary celebration, speeches by ex-Presidents of Harvard, and film relics of Professors Kittredge, Briggs, and Hooton. The result is an interesting hodgepodge which will probably raise a few familiar faces, some memories, and enough money, but it will not win any awards for acting, photography, continuity or unity of presentation.

The feature presentation is also a bit nostalgic. The Admirable Crichton is a very British, very enjoyable adaptation of Sir James M. Barrie's play. Crichton is a splendid butler of the turn-of-the-century sort who believes quite firmly that for a man of his birth and talents, a position as a gentleman's gentleman is ideal. Similarly, thinks Crichton, his master's ideas about equality are not only dangerous but wrong. Crichton's philosophy is sorely tested when Lord Loam and his daughter are marooned along with Crichton and a few other on a desert island.

The motion picture is a charming combination of satire, whimsy, and melodrama. As Crichton, Kenneth More is proper--yet moving. Cecil Parker is a blusteringly good Lord Loam and Sally Howes is not only beautiful, but acts, too. The adaptation suffers somewhat from an inability to smooth out the entrances and scene changes which are an accepted part of the theater, but unsettling on the screen. The movie's ending was probably more convincing 50 years ago, but is still acceptable. The evening as a whole is quite enjoyable.