"Dying" A Serious Matter With Native Actors

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 93, 13 January 1939, Page 14

"Dying" A Serious Matter With Native Actors

TOURING the battle for the zareba, in which a desperate British force defended itself against thousands of Dervishes and Fuzzie-Wuzzies, Zoltau Korda, directing “The Four Feathers,” was telling the natives who must die under the withering fire (wrote a correspondent with the company in the Sudan). When his request was translated by a sheik to an old man there was a good deal of indignant expostulation, and, in the end, Korda was informed that the old man said as he had not died at the real Battle of Omdurman he did not see why lie should die now that he was only playing at it. With the help of the district commissioner I collected 15 “old” men who had fought against us. Actually they were aged about 60, but that is old for this country, and they looked about 90. All of them fought against us. I had this duly credited by the district commissioner. One told how they bad surprised a party of horsemen and wiped them out. The horsemen may have been the 21st Lancers, who suffered severely in the Sudan campaign.' I asked the fellow how many men he, personally, killed, but he assured me, through the interpreter, that he had never killed anybody. They all said the same thing. They had never killed anybody. Nobody here will ever admit killing a member of the Army. It is only thenpride that makes them admit having fought against us, but farther than that they will not go. We are getting a good deal of fun out of this dying business. ’When the men agree to die—and they all prefer to run on—they die good and hearty. Durrance’s men, played by the East Surreys, fire fiercely from hehiud the zareba, and, with shrill yells and whoops, the Dervishes and Fuzzics surge toward them. Down go those who have been told to die, and down they go in the most realistic manner. On go the crowd, wild-eyed, waving their spears and swords (real ones) a hundred yards past the camera. Bugles sound, whistles blow, while I and several others try to stem these devils by waving our arms at them. You might as well try to stop the wind. They race up to us, yell, grin, and go on. It usually takes five minutes to stop them. And when at last they do go, many of them go backwards, as though they must not be caught napping, or perhaps they think the picture demands that means of progress. But the dead remain motionless, extremely dead. No prodding or shouting will) awaken them, and they must be carried back to the starting point before they become alive again.