The legend that British film girls are frigid, too ladylike and passionless dies hard. I sometimes think it is kept alive by thoughtless repition, unconfirmed by reference to reality. It's true, I suppose, that although we export a fair selection of British womanhood ot make fairly good in Hollywood--there are Madeleine Carroll, Audrey Hepburn, Deborah Kerr, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Sellars, Joan Collins, for example--we have not often succeeded in bringing big-time glamour stars out of our own charm schools.
Yet neither critics nor studios seem to give much encouragement to such shoots of glamour as do peer through the British undergrowth. British filmdom currently possesses two stars as glamorous as any whom Hollywood covets. Yet last year's British films made character grotesques of both, turning Margaret Leighton into a blue-stocking barrister and Kay Kendall into a boisterous woman.
Then take Claire Bloom. Or rather, why not take Claire Bloom? Read the reviews of Richard III and see if you can find any expression of more than lukewarm enthusiam for her performance as Lady Anne.
This time I suggest the chill is in the eye of the beholders rather than in Miss Bloom's beautiful performance. I don't think I was prejudiced--certainly not in Claire Bloom's favour.
It isn't only that she speaks her lines witha blend of music and emotion all too rare among our young actresses. She does something more than either look or speak beautifully. I can suggest only that my cool colleagues have so much acquired the habit of thinking Miss Bloom and other British starlets to be cold and empty that they failed to notice the change.
I'm glad I did notice it. For after her performance in Richard III, studios of any other country would pick this Bloom and wear her very proudly.

Aritcle is accompanied by a fifth page b&w color background photo of Claire from shoulders up, wearing a low cut black blouse and a nice locket.