FILM SOCIETY COLUMN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 181, 2 August 1930, Page 5 (Supplement)

FILM SOCIETY COLUMN.

REVIEWING THE YEAR. The comments appearing in this weekly column will bear on the technique,' diree'torship, drama, acting and any outstanding feature of any given picture, and are in substance the combined criticisms of the society's representatives, authorised and accredited by the Film Society's executive; but the articles will be the expression of personal opinions of individual members.

(By JOHN STORM.)

. To look back over the life of the Film Society is to look back to the time immediately before the revolution of filmdom by the coming of the talkies. In some later articles the writers in this column will pass in review a number of fine pictures the society has mentioned in that time. Before entering into a discussion on the subject of those things which the speaking screen has already done so surprisingly well—and those hoped for from tiie vast promise given—we think it worth while to set forth something of those other tilings for which the present screen has been so voluminously criticised. The first picture mentioned by the society was "The Constant Nymph." It was the finest of British productions at the time and recognised as taking a place among the best from Hollywood. The last of the old dramas in silence, in many ways tlm picture was outstanding. A cast of English players, headed by Ivor Novelio, and the Frenchman, Tony de ! Lunga, from the stage version, with the i actual Tyrolese sequences, brought much of the atmosphere of the book. Against this background the young English actress Mabel Poulton interpreted the part of the Nymph with intuitive subtlety and profound dramatic reserve. Since the first talkies the Film Society has set its mark upon a few stragglers o fteh silent screen, the chief of which were "The Divine Lady," a historical romance, remarkable for its choice of setting, "The Bridge of San Luis Bey," for a close interpretation of a great book, the "Four Feathers" for its dramatic excellence and for a full-dress rehearsal of the fighting Soudanese, the "Fuzzy Wuzzy" of Kipling's song, and, lastly, "Secrets of the East." This is a Continental picture, made under a brilliant guiding mind that turned the whole cast into a living fairytale. This director made of a bewitched cobbler, a fabled

city, a Court astrologer, & train of camels, and a princess in distress, an enchanting compound, with a flavour of sumptuous Eastern pomp, made familiar by the Arabian Nights. It proved the vast success such fantasies can be.' We have hoped for more, but we have not seen another of the kind, nor anything like it. Enter the Talkies. Then came the talkies, in their thousands! And with them the complications they brought—the first and greatest, the difficulty of voices. Fox News, always expansive, unlike to the other parochial news reels, instantly gave us the King and Bernard Shaw. Everyone was delighted. The First Gentleman of the Empire and the wittiest old humbug of three continents each recorded a voice to charm the nation to which they belong. These first voices showed us the marvel of speech from the screen and what we might expect from it in the future. And after that the Deluge! The big companies, with their vast number of stars under contract, must suddenly seek new constellations, must strain their eyes, empty their studios and their pockets to "ring out the old" and "ring in the new." It has not been surprising that they had many a gap to fill. They were in the midst of revolulution and there was nothing easy in sight. They must make the best of the

people at hand, the tinselled ladies with beauty competition faces and terrible voices, once "beautiful but dumb," and the leather-legginged, rough, plain-spoken men of the old silent film, hence the back-stage revue! The first of these pictures, "The 1929 Follies," must have been inspired by desperation.. Its producers appeared to take the whole world into their confi : dcJice. They showed it the making, of a revue; Back-stage and front-stage, and auditorium from floor to ceiling were pictured, with "shots" from-the roof, the walls and the wings. Similarly with the feelings of the performers Aye were made to share their vanities, their jealousies, their ambitions, even their most trifling emotions in a back-stage argument. Doubtless we were meant to feel as the handful of the "elect" when they followed Georgette Le Blanc hearsing, from room to room, in the hey-

day of her art, absorbing her. Some of us indeed watched this mass of "mixed metaphor" with an absorption approaching that of the adorers of' Madame Maeterlinck. There Mas much in it which "the cinema alone can do." Interspersed with the angular shots was the "futurist" type of camera work, the delight of those over-cultured minds yet too young to have accumulated something of the culture the world's life can give. Crude Expressions. There is doubtless truth in the belief that the camera could be made to express many things "psychologically" that have been barely touched upon yet, but these expressions are still for the most part crude, and are little more than complicated mechanism. When by the genius of future directors they have been made simple, they may be made to serve the screen as the living personality, with its vast range of subtle changes, serves the stage. After the Follies and its many imitators came "Broadway Melody," which won praise from the futurists, large houses for the box office, and for all succeeding revues the title Broadway "malady." We know what there will be in each with our eyes shut —first, the bullying ballet-master in his shirtsleeves slanging the chorus. This will be seen as a curving row of knees and ankles, a kind of mild centipedal creature, kicking to the bidding of this burly insolent fellow. After that come the quarrelling pair in the corridors with their withering "Oh yeah" in true American, and after that the stars in their dressing rooms who don the crowns and the diadems, the spangled robes and the opulent shirtfronts while we wait. These we shall presently see walk out on the stage to dazzle an imaginary audience, while we are led to penetrate still further into the recesses towards the stage door. When we have seen tbe modern deputy of our old hero "Bill Hart" drag on his leggings in the wings, we feel we may call him "Bill." The producer knew at first that "subconsciously" this would make its appeal, for the peerage of filmdom holds sway over the popular imagination and the "Book of Snobs" must be written over again. The world now dearly loves a film star as once it "dearly loved a lord." Though these pictures are often serious —as "The Great • Gabbo" —someone has likened them to an up country party where everybody "does their turn." There is much that is entertaining scattered through them, and one never knows when one may come on a delightful morsel.

Such is the inimitable Polly Moran of "Bring Up Father" with her wild extravagant, and unexpected speeches. "If she jnarries a duke," says Polly, pointing at her alleged daughter and addressing her alleged husband, "does that make us royal bloodhounds?" One picture of .the type has escaped and risen far above the level of its fellows by reason of its stage craft. In a plenitude of colour, fairly good speaking, excellent acting, and absurd drollery—too good an imitation of naughtiness for provincial minds —"Gold Diggers of Broadway" set the screen ablaze with a sort of Guy Fawkes night out for children over thirty. But apart from success or failure heavy Americanised voices or lighter moments, the back-stage revue is a product of the revolution and will surely vanish for ever with the coming of the fully grown, men and women, and the definite themes of the future screen. A RECOMMENDATION. The Film Society commends to public notice the picture "Bookery Nook." It is a cleverly-constructed farce and the first of its kind among British pictures. It is admirably cast and brilliantly acted.