Like all other people, the British must cat. But their tight little island does not produce enough foot to supply them all, so they have to import the deficit. To import they must also export. They export, among other things, movies. A good Alec Guinness or Laurence Olivier production is probably good for quite a few main dishes. But there is also the dessert--or "sweet"--to be considered, and perhaps even an after-dinner smoke, blended from Virginia tobacco. To make a life of austerity bearable such pictures as I Believe in You are made and exported.

This is not to say that I Believe in You is a bad picture or one not worth the regular price of admission. The work must merely be placed in a proper perspective, as a grade B British social documentary.

The story is about probation officers--or, more properly, about a prematurely retired civil servant, who becomes a probation officer in default of anything better to do, and who gradually comes to realize what's what in the world. The acting, most of it done by Cecil Parker and Celia Johnson, is as good as the rather uninspiring script allows, but the whole thing bogs down into a sentimental quagmire too often, and many of the characters and situations are trite. As propaganda, the picture does manage to bang over some not too subtle arguments about the treatment of offenders.

Accompanying the main feature is Bear Country, Walt Disncy's Technicolor account of an animal that spends its life doing nothing but eating and sleeping. It's a great sectacle, albeit a little conducive of envy.