In a gaunt chateau in France, the back-wash of the French theatre take refuge as the years creep up on them, creasing their faces and withering their voices. There they sit, listening to the echoes of long-dead applause, hoping "their public" will call them back to the boards. Not very attractive material, but the French don't seem to worry about the superficial aesthetics of their pictures. They just brush up some sure-fire actors, plaster them with depressing make-up, and let the cameras grind. In the really good French films, they create an aesthetic standard all their own. This standard, grim and gory, vaguely reminiscent of some wind-swept parts of Wagner, is like a bucketful of cold water when it hits an American audience bottle-fed on the soothing cream of Hollywood.

"End of a Day," the dreary epic of old-age and the theatre, is one of the grim and gory type,--and also really good. Michel Simon, sans his "Port of Shadows" barbe, turns in a superb performance. He screams and slobbers through the plot with remarkable gusto. The contrast of these two of his latest parts is really astonishing. As a sop to the earthy aesthetics of the masses, there is also a quite delectable blonde named Maleleine Ozeray who plays a quite unorthodox feminine lead to an antiquated lecher of the stage played by Louis Jouvet. The cast, as a whole, really carries the show. Their sensitivity to the ideas of author and director, combined with their own creativity, makes "End of a Day" deserve the recognition it has received.