N.Z. Author Condemns U.S. Film Of Her Novel

Press, Volume C, Issue 29622, 19 September 1961, Page 22

N.Z. Author Condemns U.S. Film Of Her Novel

"The Press" Special Service

HASTINGS, Sept. 18. The New Zealand novelist, Sylvia Ashton-Warner, says she has no intention of seeing the screen version of her novel “Spinster.” “I’m also hoping most of my friends will be taken ill when the film is shown at their local cinemas,” she said. Miss Ashton-Warner said she was overwhelmed by what the film makers had done to her script. "I was offered a private screening of the film version, but I turned it down. I have no intention of seeing the film.” Sylvia Ashton-Warner is Mrs K. D. Henderson in private life and lives at Tauranga. Her novel "Spinster” deals with the experiences of a woman teacher in a Maori school. The book was acclaimed overseas and in New Zealand, but the film version has been ridiculed by critics both in Britain and the United States. “As far as I know’,” said Miss Ashton-Warner, “not one foot of the film was made here.” Last year Metro-Goidwyn-Mayer. the producing studio, sent her a shooting script of the film to be made from her book. “I was overwhelmed by what they had done to it,” she said* “but what good were protests then?”. Her worries were increased because her secopd novel, "Incense to Idols,” had also been bought for filming, but by a different company—2oth Century Fox. Letter to Producer She. said she immediately wrote to Mr Darryl F. Zanuck, 20th Century Fox producer, inviting him to visit her in New Zealand with his script-writer before filming “Incense to Idols.” "Everyone knows,” she said in her letter, “the hazards that arise from having an author anywhere near the set. but I have occasion now to suspect further hazards from not having him near. “The issue as I see it revolves on the intentions of a producer and their effect on the intentions of the writer. From some films I have seen I am led to conclude that these two sets of intentions, of the producer and the writer, need not be wholly irreconcilable. “I am interested to know now—and I repeat the word ‘now’—whether you are a producer with obligations to play to the mass audience of the United States alone or whether you are an artist free enough to translate the intention of a writer into a film, preserving the distinctive qualities of a New Zealand book, with the audiences of other countries in mind—as well as the United States —not least my own. I

"I cannot see that any film , which jettisons the sentiment i of a country, however small ; and which replaces the dis- • tractive qualities of the New i Zealand personality with the i American personality in order ■ to be popular in the States ... I do not see that it can be any other than transitory, parochial and two-dimens-ional. “Test Of Art" “When a film is howled down in its own country the producer should change his job.” she told Mr Zanuck. “And we've howled them down here so far. That is the test of art. If you are just another American massaudience man don’t come near me: if you are an artist you may. ’ Whichever you are. however. I send you my kindest thoughts.” Miss Ashton-Warner said she had no idea yet whether changes for film purposes were intended regarding "Incense To Idols.” “I started to suspect the worst would happen when I heard Shirley MacLaine was to star in ‘Spinster.’ ” she said. “I believe Greer Garson, Deborah Kerr, and Mylene Demongeot all read the script and turned it down —l’d have preferred Miss Kerr. “Judging by the script I read. I believe the film of ‘Spinster’ would have deserved every harsh word it got. I particularly liked the critic who said it was a minor film but a major disgrace.”