FILM SOCIETY
WINTER SHOWS

Will include pioneer
Haggar film

THE winter programme of the Aberdare Boys’ Intermediate School Past Students’ Film Society includes films illustrating many aspects of the cinema, as well as the achievements of many different countries in this field.

“Vivere in Pace” (which will be shown in the school main hall this evening—Thursday), a brilliant Italian comedy-drama has its setting in a remote mountain village in war-time Italy, tells of the repercussions caused by the arrival of two escaped American soldiers.

The programme features Charles Chaplin in two films, the first of which is a collection of excerpts from his earliest films, showing his development to the familiar Charlie we all know so well. The other, “Shoulder Arms,” is a shrewd satire on war and Army life, and is considered by most authorities to be his masterpiece.

Also from the U.S.A. comes “The River” one of the finest documentary films ever made in that country. The U.S.S.R. is represented by two sequences from “The General Line,” the theme of which is the mechanisation of agriculture and the winning over of the Russians to the new techniques involved. Artistically, it is one of the finest films made in any country during the silent era.

From Germany there comes a version of the life of Rembrandt, and “Brahms’s Hungarian Dance,” which is an early attempt to interpret music in terms of moving visual patterns, thus anticipating Disney’s “Fantasia” by several years.

British sound films include “The 39 Steps,” the magnificently photographed version of John Buchan’s adventure novel, and the well-known documentary “Cyprus is an Island.”

Finally, “The Life of Charles Peace,” made in 1905 (with which is linked the name of Walter Haggar), is the earliest surviving example of the one-reel story film. Its primitive simplicity contrasts markedly with the “slickness” and tempo of modern productions and indicates the tremendous progress made of the technical side at least, in cinematographic art during the past half century.

The season’s programme is as follows: September 14 (this evening), “Vivere in Pace,” and Chaplin’s early films; October 12, “Rembrandt,” and “Life of Charles Peace;” November 9, “Shoulder Arms,” “Brahms’s Hungarian Dance,” “General Line” (excerpts), and “Cyprus is an Island;” December 14, “The 39 Steps,” and “The River.” Membership tickets (7/6 each), can be obtained from Mr. T.J. Evans, B.Sc., 4 Broniestyn Terrace, Trecynon.