The New Pictures

The Deep Blue Sea (London Film; 20th Century-Fox), if not soap opera, is certainly no better than detergent drama. In this British movie, Playwright Terence (The Winslow Boy) Rattigan seems to be cautioning the middle-aged married woman about switching from a dull husband to a young lover: the change may only mean a painful, new set of harness sores.

The picture begins as Vivien Leigh, with a slug of gas and a Seconal chaser, is trying to end her life. When the neighbors break in and save her, she lapses into a flashback about life with hubby (Emlyn Williams), a prominent figure on Her Majesty's Bench. One day he introduces Vivien to a RAFfish type (Kenneth More), and her heart is soon shot down in flames. She runs away with More, only to discover that he is actually just a big wonderful boy, and that what he instinctively wants her to be is a mother.

The trouble with the work of Terence Rattigan, one of Britain's leading playwrights since 1936, is that he frequently says what he thinks is clever instead of saying what he means. The method works fairly well in blazer farce and weekend melodrama, but when it comes to hearing the human heartbeat of a situation, Rattigan might as well be hunting uranium with an ear trumpet. Moreover, in The Deep Blue Sea, the leading lady does little to help. The part is scored, though crudely, for the full cello notes of womanly anguish; Vivien plays it in the thin pizzicato of girlish petulance.

Kenneth More, however, makes up for everything with a brilliant performance. His problem was to portray a man who is everything he seems to be, who knows no lapse between the thought and the act, who wears his entire psyche on his sleeve. From the first fine flap of his dewlaps ("Hey, give us a shot of those gorgeous green orbs") to his endearing little growl ("Who wants to grow up in the world as it is?"), to the burp he releases exquisitely in the middle of a word, More is the perfect type of the easygoing dog that everybody wants to pet but nobody wants to clean up after.

Quentin Durward (M-G-M). "Durward," says the Scottish envoy (Moultrie Kelsall) at the court of Burgundy one silver morn in the summer of 1465, "you are a handsome, proud, gallant, honorable and slightly obsolete figure." At these words Robert Taylor recoils. It is startling enough for a 44-year-old matinee idol to hear himself described like an overage destroyer; but to be addressed in literate and amusing English smack-dab in the middle of a Hollywood thud-and-blunder opus is a shock almost as sharp as seeing Sir Walter Scott in the old Stut 'n' Tup on Beverly Boulevard.

The shocks keep coming, too. The script, by Robert Ardrey, hangs loosely to the novel but with flaunting style, like a merry kilt to Scottish calves. Moreover, Quentin Durward is as easy on the eyes as on the ears. Much of the film was shot around the finest chateaux--Chenonceaux, Chambord, Maintenon, Fontainebleau--and the graces of French stone and green have lent a coquetry and lightness to these scenes that the art and costume people have tastefully maintained.

As Taylor recovers his countenance, Kelsall continues his speech: "The lances of chivalry are being put away. Gunpowder sits where the judges were. History is preparing a new sort of world, Durward: cruel and political, thoughtful, violent. Louis XI of France is its symbol. If you're to match him, my Scottish cavalier, you may have to restrain your more glorious impulses." Since glory is box office, Taylor is in trouble. Things come to a head one night when "The Spider King" (Robert Morley), as history knows him, sits spinning his political web. "We are about to embark on a foul venture," he murmurs to a cackling familiar. "Foul and necessary, fit only for gypsies--and kings." The venture involves the betrayal of a lady fair (Kay Kendall) to a villain dark (Duncan Lament), and incidentally the death of Durward, her armed escort. However, when the sinister birds pounce on their prey, the hero gives his all for love and sends them napping back to the knaviary. In the end it is Durward, the fly, who frees Louis, the spider, from his own entanglements, and the bold Scot wins the hand of his lady in return for the head of the villain.

The only thing wrong with all this is that, thanks to a case of nervous scissors, there is somewhat too little of a good thing. The scenes rush by so fast that by the time the moviegoer realizes where he is, he usually isn't. Like as not, though, he is in another brisk and stylish scene, surrounded by intelligent people who are obviously enjoying themselves. Kay Kendall, for instance, makes a damozel as dainty as court broidery, though she has precious little to do (as Grace Kelly complained when she refused the part) but "clutch her jewel box and flee." Robert Morley very nearly carries off the whole show. As he heaves before the camera, swishing his eyes about as lesser players might wave their arms, and wagging his paunch as though it were a prosperous province, he looks at one instant every ounce a king, and at the next as lean a villain as ever lived inside a fat man.

Morley and Kendall, being English, seem to take the grammar for granted; but Actor Taylor, a man who has earned an impressive hauberk stoop without ever changing his Pomona accent, keeps glancing uneasily over his shoulder as he mumbles all the great big three-syllable words.

Seven Cities of Gold (20th Century-Fox). The 18th century residents of the country around Hollywood, if this picture is as well authenticated as it claims to be, were pretty much like the present inhabitants. They lolled about in the sun and slept in breezy, tule-thatched cabanas (called hogans). They swam in the afternoon and painted themselves luridly before going out in the evening. When they disliked someone, they cut out his heart and sent the rest of him back to his family. This picture describes, in handsome color and costume, an early attempt to civilize the region, as made by Father Junipero Serra, the first missionary to the Southern Californians.

The title refers to the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola, reputedly paved with gold, and the film begins as a Spanish expedition, led by Captain Gasper Portola (Anthony Quinn) and Lieut. Jose Mendoza (Richard Egan), forks horse and clatters away to find them. Friar Serra (Michael Rennie) goes along as chaplain of the band, hoping to found missions among the California Indians.

Drought, starvation, scurvy, typhus and sandstorms lash the little caravan, while behind the yuccas yuk some of the most unseemly aborigines ever calcimined. Before long the padre wins them over with beads and scissors and sweet charity, but Lieut. Mendoza quickly reconverts the tribe to barbarism. He seduces a pretty Indian girl (Rita Moreno).

Michael Rennie carries conviction as the Franciscan, not least because he has, as dressed and tonsured, a close resemblance to the Bellini portrait of St. Francis. Best of all is Anthony Quinn, who wears the conquering swagger of Castile like one to that overbearing manner born.

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