Len Abbott

Henri Langlois, founder and director of the Cinémathèque française, is interviewed in his museum at the Palais de Chaillot and talks about cinema. “Henri Langlois's anti-courses” are made up of a set of short films, or more exactly of chapters. Each chapter is devoted to a filmmaker or to a significant pivotal period of such or such a country and of such or such style, or to a group of men whose action was, at one time, decisive for the course of cinema.

Middle-class parents are confounded when their son brings home his new partner: an elegant, confusingly androgynous West Indian.

The Royal Ballet Company brings Squirrel Nutkin, Tom Thumb, Hunca Munca, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Jeremy Fisher, Pigling Bland, and Pigwig to the screen doing pirouettes and pas de deux in this filmed ballet production directed by Reginald Mills. The film more properly belongs, however, to choreographer Frederick Ashmore, composer John Lanchbery, and costume designer Rostislav Douboujinsky. This literal adaptation concerns the shy Beatrix Potter and how, when all of the toy animals in her room come to life, she emerges from her shell and begins to enjoy life. Sequences include a rowdy dance with Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca destroying a collection of plaster food, a midnight pas de deux between Pigling Bland and Pigwig, and a corps de ballet of dancing mice.

Dinah is a famous model and actress who is getting tired of life in the limelight and wants to take a break. While shooting a commercial spot for meat, she meets Steve, a stuntman. Dinah and Steve hit it off and decide to head to an island to get away from it all, bringing along four of Steve's friends. Before long, Dinah is reported missing and everyone is looking for her, making their getaway anything but tranquil.

A gang of aspiring bank robbers involve themselves with arsonists and purchase their very own fire truck in an attempt to create the ultimate diversion. But posing as firemen leads them to disaster.