Moscow Nights

Moscow Nights is not a superb film, but it is studded with so many jewels and excellences that one feels guilty criticising it. Probably the worst that one can say is that Penelope Dudley-Ward, no matter how hard she tries, always looks like she should be at Croydon, waiting to board a Hanley-Paige for India, not playing a nurse named Natasha.

The plot is sometimes a bit thin, and one cannot help but wonder why the film was set in Russia. Still, it seems one of the wave of espionage films that confronted British audiences following Hitler's accession in 1933.

The appearance of Anthony Quayle adds interest, and Harry Bauer does a very creditable job as the film's villain. Olivier is brilliant as the young officer, who, although the hero, is something of a cad - in contradistinction to Bauer's character, who though a boor, is also something of a hero. There are wonderful settings, views and scenes that clearly show Asquith's grasp of Hollywood technique. In many ways, it is more Hollywood than Hollywood.

Is Miss Kovrin a presentiment of Miss Froy in Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes?