Race To Produce Oscar Wilde Film

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29192, 30 April 1960, Page 4

Race To Produce Oscar Wilde Film

[From a Special Correspondent in Londonl

Peter Finch and Robert Morley are racing to be the screen’s first Oscar Wilde. Queensberry Rules have been scrapped in a hectic neck-and-neck scramble. It now looks as if the two rival films will have their openings on the same night.

This is fast work, for both films began shooting only in March and are still on the floor—Finch’s at Elstree and Morley’s at Walton-on-Thamea, but 20th Century-Fox has announced simultaneous premiere# in London snd New York !on May 25, for “Oscar Wilde,” (with Sir. Ralph Richardson, Phyl--11 is Calvert, John Neville and Dennis Price supporting Morley. Warwick Films’ production, “The Trials of Oscar Wilde,” with James Mason, Yvonne Mitchell, and John Fraser opposite Finch have also fixed its opening for May 25. 20th Century-Fox deny that a race is on, but it is obvious that Warwick Films had been openly preparing its film for six months before shooting. Fox. out of the blue, joined in a week later. Ever since, both companies have been working round the clock to reduce the after-shooting period from several months, which is normal, to a matter of days. Finch, whose portrayal of Wilde is shaping as the finest thing of his career, angrily told me: “Of course it’s a race, but we didn’t start it. Look at the facts. For 50 years no producer had the courage to film the Wilde story. Then Warwick announced that it intended to do so. That was way back last year. No other version was mentioned —until the Monday after we started shooting. Then this other film came tearing in hell-bent to beat us.”

Finch’s producer, Harold Huth, said: “The whole thing is preposterous. Somebody is going to lose a lot of money. The public won't want to see two Wildes.” In this case they may, for the two characterisations will be

vastly dissimilar. Morley’s will be sober, stricken, beefy, middleaged and inclined to coarseness. Finch's will be thoughtful, charming, slimmer, more youthful. “I am more concerned with the spirit of the man,” Finch says, “than with his weight.” Morley has no worries in that respect. “Wilde was exactly the same size as me,” he says. Are they playing Wilde as hero or villain? Finch says: “One must try to make; him a human being with his faults and virtues.” And Morley: "I only play heroes,” he says. The Fox Film which concentrates on the trials is a modest effort, in black and white. By contrast, the Warwick Film is a sumptuously appointed £400,000 aristocrat in Technicolor and wide screen Technirama which not only highlights the Old Bailey dramas but spreads itself to capture the elegance of the Cafe Royal and the atmosphere of the days of hansom cabs. The race is on for the premieres. It looks like being a dead heat but Warwick feels it has the recipe for more enduring success. Finch summed it up this way: "Whoever heard of Oscar Wilde in black and white? As well try to reproduce a rainbow in pencil. Such a flamboyant, exotic character was made for colour and a vast canvas—with us he’s going to get both!”—(Associated Newspapers Feature Service.)