[While] cinematic quality is one of the most important tests, if not the most important, that can be applied to a moving picture, the increasing filming of well known novels has made it necessary that such a picture be judged also by the fidelity and intelligence with which the spirit of the novel is presented. Unfortunately, too often of late, the novel picturized has been used only as a springboard for the imagination, or lack of it, of the producer, and bears little relation to the original except in title and the names of the characters.

A pleasing exception is the … production of Arrowsmith, by the recent Nobel Prize winner, Sinclair Lewis. While from the limitation of time, many parts of the novel have had to be omitted, the picture has been unified and given significance by emphasizing the theme of a scientist's devotion to his work. It...