THE PROUD ONES **

 As Dilys Powell said, there are no bad westerns; there are great westerns, there are good westerns and there are just plain westerns and "The Proud Ones" is certainly a good one. The director was Robert D. Webb, hardly an auteur but a decent jobbing director and this thoroughly old-fashioned oater, nicely shot in Cinemascope, starred Robert Ryan, (the good guy), Jeffrey Hunter, (not quite the bad guy he first appears to be), and Virginia Mayo, (somewhat wasted as the girl in love with Ryan), while the fine supporting cast includes Walter Brennan, Arthur O'Connell and Robert Middleton, (the real bad guy), and thanks to an above-average screenplay from Edmund H. North and Joseph Petracca and highly watchable work from its highly watchable cast it's consistently enjoyable. As Dilys said, there are no bad westerns.

TOTEM ****

 Tona is dying and this is the day of his birthday and his family are holding a party for him. Lila Aviles' stunning debut feature "Totem" observes the events of the day in almost forensic detail and how they impact on all the participants; Tona's father, his sisters, his extended family and friends, his carer and most of all on his young daughter, Sol, who doesn't know her father is dying yet senses it nevertheless.

There's nothing sentimental nor particularly dramatic in Aviles' film. It's as if she and her camera just dropped by to record the events of just one day in these people's lives and what happens is both funny and moving like life itself. All the performances are superb and Naima Senties is often quite extraordinary as Sol. On the strength of this one film Aviles would seem to have quite a future ahead of her.