LAUGHTER PAYS!

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 7 (Supplement)

LAUGHTER PAYS!

ByJohn K. Newnham

—Copyright

T AUGHTER is the way they spell it in the British film industry. With studios idle and hundreds of technicians out of work, the sound stages that have been active have been mirthful places the whole time, for the simple reason that the British films depression hasn't affected our comedians in the least. Comedy-makers must take credit for the fact that the British film industry has survived all.

Comedies make money, and big money W that. It used to be said that laughter ■was one of the things money couldn't buy. The saying was wrong. Filmgoers are only too willing to pay to be amused.

There are strong reasons for the success of British comedies. If you investigate the financial returns, you find that Lancashire and Yorkshire head the boxoffice statistics. And Lancashire and Yorkshire like to laugh.

American humour, however, isn't as popular as English fun-making. Sophisticated London audiences may not get excited over the broad comedy-making of George Formby and others, but this doesn't matter much to the film companies.

An even more important reason for the success of British comedies is that they are economical to produce. They •re rarely made on a lavish, scale.

They cost considerably less than the ordinary "super" and gross very much more. The average cost of a Britishmade comedy is between £30,000 and £35,000.

That's how much Will Hay's pictures cost, and receipts on these have been mounting gradually. The figures vary for all of them, of course, and they are not available in every case. But "Oh, Mr. Porter" has shown .what can be done. It hasn't finished its runs yet, but gross receipts are Maid to be nearing the £150,000 mark already. By gross receipts, I mean the money received by the renters from the cinemas.

Like most of the other comedians in films, Will Hay has graduated from the music hall stage. He knows audiences. He had a ready-made following in FJO land when he went on to the "screen aßa made "Those Were the Days," and his popularity has increased with every picture he has made. At first he was nowhere near so successful as he is now, with the result that he has entrenched himself far more (irmly than if he started off with say, "Oh, Mr. Porter." Now, when his early pictures are reissued, they do smash-hit business. "Dandy Dick" was shown again recently in England, and broke several records.

Will Hay has exploited one particular line —baffled inefficiency. That simple characteristic is infallible. He has been an inefficient schoolmaster, an inefficient •ailor, an: inefljcient stationmaster, and numerous other inefficient characters.

'TANET CHAPMAN, new child discovery, will play Little Nell in a new version of "The Old Curiosity Shop."

*"DABY PEGGY" MONTGOMERY, of the silent films, who is now 19, is to b« married to Gordon Ayre«, playwright.

pHABLES DE RAVEENE is the only genuine artist in thia year > •Artists and Models." He play* a yrench butcher boy.

Inefficiency, in fact, is comedy's mainstay, though other comedians exploit it in a different manner. Tliev do it in the guise of simplicity or daftness. Thus George Formby.

George Form by "s success is one of the surprises of the British film industry. Nobody knows what made Irs stx'k shoot upwards so abruptly. He was tremendously popular in the north of England, and his name alone made his first pictures certain of a big profit up there. Ihen, without any particular publicity plugging, he sky-rocketed. His picture. "Keep Your Seats. Please," placed him up in the Gracie Fields category. The national Press took him up. the British Broadcasting Corporation plugged him. Now his pictures, which rarely cost more than £3.>,000 to produce, gross an average of £90.000, with some of them topping this figure. Jt is anticipated that new ones will do even l>etter, for there are still small parts of England and in

the Dominions where he has not yet "caught on." In this respect he lias yet to p<|ur] Gracie Fields, whose popularity spreads over a wider field.

What Grade's more elaborate pictures under the auspices of Twentieth Cen-tury-Fox will gross remains to l>e seen; hut those that were made for £.'{.">.ooo to £40,000 grossed anything tip to £13.">.000, 1n spite of the Press criticism that pretty well every one was a poor vehicle for her talents.

Max Miller is in a different category to the Hav-Formby inefficiency class. Max is slick and wisecracking, and he appeals to a different type of audience for the most part. Gaiiinont-BritisVi used to have Max tinder contract, and they introduced him to filmgoers. But they didn't star him. and he was seen only in supporting parts. Then lie went over to Warners at Teddington, who put him into some inexjwnsive productions as a star. They made a fair margin of profit. One picture put him right into the big money class. He was starred in the Kdgar Wallace story. "F.ducated Evans." It might have been written for him. Educated Evans was the cheeky Max Miller all over. That film cost £2.">.000. It grossed £100.000. His pictures cost a bit more now. "Thank Evans" was £.30.000, and a forthcoming

musical, "Everything Happens to Me," will probably be a little more expensive. How much his pictures gross on an average lias yet to be worked out, a-s he hasn't been in the top-money category long enough to tell, but "Don't Get Me Wrong" is doing ite best to catch up with "Educated Evans." Max Miller's fellow-comedi*n at the Warners' Studio has also 'breezed his way through the depression without turning a hair. I am referring to Claude Hulbert. One is apt to regard Claude's pictures as being of secondary importance. They are not "supers," of course, and they don't gross the same figures as the Miller-Formbv-Hay and other pictures. Nevertheless, relatively speaking, they are just as profitable to make. Claude's films cost between £15,000 and £20,000 to produce. Those figures, to say the least, are extraordinarily reasonable. Yet those pictures gross between £60,000 and £70,000, in spite of being shown only as second features at the larger theatres. Smaller theatres find that they are worth featuring at the top of the programme. Jack ITulbert, of course, is in a biggermoney class than his brother. I don't know what the costs and profits are, but comparatively speaking, they are considerably more all round than those of Claude's pictures. On the other hand, Jack doesn't seem to be so active as Claude, and in the lflng run I don't\uppose there is much to choose between the two. Tom Walls is another of the regular money-makers of the British studios. He goes from one picture to another with barely a, break, and he is one of the few instances of an individual member of a team continuing with undiminished success after the partnership has been broken up. When Tom Walls and Ralph Lynn were appearing together, people said it would be fatal for them ever to be split.

The "Aldwych" team, as they were known, transferred to the screen, made an immediate success. Pictures of the "Rookery Nook" type earned fortunes. Filmgoers began to regard Wall and Lynn more or less as one unit.

The reason for the split was purely a business one, and there was no question of any quarrel. Walls, explaining the matter to me one day, said he thought it unwise for two people to depend on each other to such an extent that if anything happened to one, the other would be finished. Therefore, they tried the experiment of making separate films. Ralph Lynn has been busier on the stage than on the screen recently, but those films he has made on his own have been popular enough to show that he was not dependent upon the partnership. Walls, if anything, has gone on to even greater success.

Walls' pictures rarely cost the same to produce twice in succession. The profits vary as well. The nearest one can approach to an average figure is a production cost of £45,000, with a yield ranging between £75,000 and £100,000, while some pictures' have grossed £125,000.

Jack Buchanan, inspired by the financial success of his pictures under other banners, is now producer on his own account. He plunged into films, starring himself right at the beginning of the depression, and his enterprise seems to be succeeding.

Others are not such regdlar filmmakers, but are money-spinners all the same. In this category, there is Sandy Powell, who has a tremendous following of fans, who always flock to his pictures.

These days, Sydney Howard is only an occasional film star, compared with his appearances a few years ago. His films still make money in the North of England.

So British comedians make money, depression or no depression.