TALKIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 164, 24 May 1940, Page 2

TALKIES

| "GOOD-BYE, MR CHIPS" WAS I WRITTEN IN FOUR DAYS j| The author of "Good-bye, Mr |j Chips"' is a young Englishman who || lives with his wife at Wanstead, an p old part of London, "in a house that | dates from 1870 or so, in a district •jj that is .charming, quiet, and unfashhj ionable." There it was that Hilton j$ wrote the brief novels wliic.li were :;ij to serve as the sources of the not-|-;j "Lest Horizon" and ' Good-bye, ivl Mr Chips," Ihe picture starring Roll Donat and featuring Greer Gar'J ;;on ' w ' l ' c ' l i- s currently playing on || the screen. j|| James Hilton was born in 1900 in j| Lancashire. He went to Christ Colh lege. Cambridge, and left at the age i| of 20 with li.A. Honours in. History iji and English. He lias been writing p since his boyhood. His first article was accepted by the Manchester hi Guardian when he was only seven- & teen. His first novel, "Catherine Her I self," was written also at seventeen | and published two years later, 1920, i) while lie was sI ill an undergraduate. | Through friendship with the editor I of the famous Irish Independent of S| Dublin, he Mas then commissioned m to write a column for that paper

twice a week. A novel, "And Now Good-bye" (1931) brought in his first good re-< turns but what he calls his "real stroke of luck" came Avhen he was commissioned by the editor of the British Weekly to write a long short story for a special Christmas supplement to be completed in a fortnight. Inspiration would not come. Then while he was bicycle-riding one foggy • morning the idea came. "Good-bye, Mr Chips" was finished in four days, within a year was a best-seller on two continents, and Hilton was established, at the age of thirty-three, at the top of his profession.

THESE ACTORS REFUSED TO BE PAID FOR THEIR WORK Accuracy of English public school scenes as shown in "Good-bye, Mr Chips" was insured through the cooperation of H. G. Michael Clarke, headmaster of Repton School, famed English institution of learning, where many school shots of the picture were made. Not only did many of Headmaster Clarke's pupils, friends and village associates enter wholeheartedly into the spirit of the picture and don the picturesque costumes of 1870 to line the school playing" field for the cricket and football matches, but they also were unwilling to accept the pay vouchers they had earned as extra talent, a thing admittedly unheard of in Hollvwood.

colour of eyes Change THROUGH MAKE UP! 9 For the first time in the history of the screen an actor's eyes have actually changed colour through the use of make-up. In "Miracles For Sale," murder mystery laid among a group of professional magicians, Henry Hull appears with his own jet black eyes and in another makeup with light blue eyes. The transformation is accomplished through I I a make-up device invented by Jack Dawn. Hollywood make-up wizard. The new picture, abounding in magic and spiritualistic manifestations, was created by real magicians. If. is based on the best-selling novel, "Death from a Top Hat." Its author, Clayton Rawson, is one of the best known amateur magicians in America and leader in the work of .'national magic societies. Robert Young and Florence Rice head the cast,

PLAYER IS NOT SEEN BUT AC,TS WITH HIS VOICE John Davidson, English actor, played one of the oddest roles ever written into a picture when he enacted the demon Surgat in "Miraclc For Sale." The role is that of a mysterious voice. The actor is never I seen, but his voice, supposed to bo of super-natural origin, intensifies fantastic seance and clairvoyant episodes in the murder mystery laid amid a group of professional magicians. His "spirit voice" is also heard in scenes with Walter Kingsford, playing a scientist investigating spirit phenomena.