Evening star., 1951-03-03

I'D with another exciting import
from England in $50 Long At The
Fair" which opened there yester-
day with Jean Simmons as It's
tormented heroine.
This is one of the classic mys-
terry legends-the human being
who simply disappears at the Paris
Exposition of 1893-and its Eng
lish producers have shown 1t the
degree of enthusiasm it deserves
Their screenplay perfectly recre-
ates the atmosphere of late 18th
century Paris and the dramatic
adventure which befell the beau
tiful and spirited girl played by
Miss Simmons.
The Sydney Box 80 Long AT
The Fair" is the literary work OF
Anthony Thorne, writer OBJ
viously justified in asking his turn
at a story so many others have
written. Thorne has made only
slight changes in the letter. none
in the spirit, of the old thriller.
His rewrite is given one of those
simple, sharp treatments that en-
hances the inevitable excitement
of the narrative.
Miss Simmons. as the heroine,
is a girl who goes to the Paris
exposition with her brother. They
take rooms in a small, exclusive
hotel and have a larkish night on
the town on the eve of the Fairs
opening. Next morning when the
girl wakes up, not only is her
brother missing but even the hotel
room he occupied has disappeared.
Her effort to penetrate this
battling extinction meets with the
response that so far as the hotel
records show, or its clerks know,
she never had a. brother. She is
told she came there alone and that
she undoubtedly is suffering a
mental lapse. The evidence against
her is so strong that girl might
well believe it, but not girl of
Miss Simmons spirit.
Her artful, seemingly hopeless,
single-handed battle to prove her
sanity and locate the missing
brother is dramatic material of
the highest order.
An exciting ominous quiet
hangs over this pursuit of the
vanishing brother in $50 Long At
The Fair" The people to whom
Miss Simmons turns in her des-
perate search are kind enough to
her, but firm in their judgment
that she is daft.
Never did a girl pursue a more
hopelessly lost cause with so little
to go on, and while the British
Consul and the Paris police SYM
pathize with her, the best they
can do is suggest that she return
to England and recover her wits.
1t is not cricket, of course, to
tell how her quest ends, but it
should be permissible to reveal
that ultimately the girl not only
runs across a shred of useful evi-
dence but promptly smitten
young man who is properly will
ing to die for her. Between them,
they ultimately penetrate the in
trigue just in time to save the
audiences sanity along with that
of Miss Simmons.
There is expertly made contrast
between the hotly mysterious es-
sence and the cool surface of $50
Long At The Fair Only the poor
heroine is in a hurry among the
story's pivotal characters. The
others in the intrigue are not
merely poised but are frequently
amused and Terence Fishers di-
rection takes full dramatic value
from these attitudes.
The action of $50 Long At The
Fair" is faulty confined, concen-
trated largely IN the strange hOtel
in which not only a man but his
room can disappear.
Here Miss Simmons gives an in
spired impersonation of a girl tor
mented almost beyond human en-
durance but brave enough to see
1T through to whatever end. Her
performance is matched by several
others in the cast, such as Cath
crime Nesbitt as the frigidly supe-
rior hotelkeeper, Dirk Bogarde as
the blithe young Englishman who
aids the girl, Felix Aylmer as the
kindly British Consul and Marcel
Poncin as the sinister hotel clerk
Modern fairs may be bigger
Y10nn colI1d he mora aycifiY,p thoy