The absurd demand that a cinema which purports to treat a historical theme should be judged according to the fidelity with which it cleaves to the factual skeleton of the past has long been abandoned. When there is no real assurance that deep and erudite works of scholarship give the true spirit of a given period, surely it is unreasonable to expect that celluloidal pageants should feel constrained to do so. "The Iron Duke," although it may wander away from the truth, unwinds a fascinating yarn; its costumes are authentic, thanks to Gaumont, consistently English. The Duchess of Richmond gives a ball for the Allied forces at Brussels, but when a courier gallops up with word that Napoleon has marched his myriad zealots to the city gates, England's finest leave a half empty punch bowl to march forth amid the plaudits of the multitude and the tender lamentations of the fair. Dainty handkerchiefs flutter from the balconies as the troops march past, for it has been "the last waltz, Madeline, and m' regiment leaves at dawn." Historically speaking, just a trifle before dawn.

As the Duke of Wellington, George Arliss gives an able and highly entertaining portrayal of how Mr. George Arliss would have conducted himself had he been in command of the army which defeated Bonaparte at Waterloo. Physically, of course, he does not come up to the heroic proportions with which we have mentally endowed the great general, and when he totteringly asseverates that he is "a soldier, not a politician," we somehow assume that Disraeli is indulging in a charming bit of modesty. The real Wellington would have been less adept in saluting the sophisticated ladies of the French court, less solicitious about the brewing of his tea, perhaps more brusque and profane at the council table. And then a soldier must be a man who is willing to throw thousands of his gallant countrymen into the cannon's mouth to test the efficacy of a strategic principle. Mr. Arliss's "Wellington" would hardly have been able to do this. He would have thought, in his whimsical fashion, of the widows and orphans