In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 27

In the Public Eye

It will be necessary for the Government to take a decision in the near future on the question of the appointment of a Governor-General of India in~ succession to the Earl of Willingdon, whose term of office will expire in the early part of next year. It was reported in England recently that the man to whom the Government's thoughts are most likely to turn is the Marquess of Linlithgow. Lord Willingdon has, by general consent, fulfilled his duties during an exacting period with conspicuous success, and is, to a considerable extent, personally responsible for the great improvement of the internal situation in India. It is stated, however,'tha,t it is not his desire that his period of office should be prolonged. The name of the Earl of Athlone has been mentioned as a possible successor to Lord Willingdon. While the selection of a member of the Royal Family for this great post, would be popular throughout India, it is, believed that for various considerations the choice is likely to be made in another quarter. It will be the task of the next Viceroy to supervise, in its initial stages, the working of the new Indian Constitution. The Government, it is expected, will,' therefore, recommend for appointment to the post one who is familiar with the Indian problem and with the details of the scheme embodied in the Government of India Bill. Lord Linlithgow was chairman of the Joint Select Committee upon whose report the. India Bill was framed. He was born in 1887 and is the second Marquess. He served in the Great War, was mentioned in dispatches, and in 1922 was a Civil Lord of the Admiralty, and in 1924 deputy chairman of the Unionist organisation. In 1923 he was chairman of the Departmental Committee on Distribution and Prices of Agricultural Produce, and in 1926-28 presided over a committee which investigated Indian agriculture. Miss Maidce Wright. A little old lady—frail and whitehaired—sat in a sunny flat in London recently opening telegrams and cables ;of congratulation. On a table lay newspapers hailing her as a "wonder actress of the world." Banks of white lilac, roses, and lilies of the valley emphasised the tribute. So Miss Maidee Wright, at the age of 67, quietly enjoyed one of the greatest triumphs of her fifty seven years' stage career—her performance as the Victorian dtiwager in "The Aunt of England" at the Savoy. "I have been away a long time," Miss Wright said, "so it is very touching to find that I am not forgotten." Miss Wright should be called the Actress Who Cannot Retire. For the past twenty years she has been trying to leave the stage to achieve her life's ambition—a cottage in the country. A year ago she came back from America to find that cottage. --"But before I found the cottage," explained Miss Wright, "I was bored with doing nothing. Then came the call of the stage again. I tried to ignore it, but ■the lure of the footlights is always too strong for me, and back I went." Miss Wright had only three weeks to learn her long part, she stated. "And a fortnight of that was taken up by/rehearsals, so it meant working all day and burning the midnight oil. The part is as long as 'Hamlet' and as full ,of long speeches; but they are easier for me because I agree with many of the opinions voiced by the old Duchess. "She' foresaw many of our presentday troubles and she was absolutely right in her condemnation of the 'stinking chimneys' of industry in the countryside." Miss Wright frowned. "It's all wrong. I have no right to be gallivanting about the stage at my age. I should be driving sedately through the1 countryside looking for that cottage." But it seems that her dream cottage is as far away as ever. Mr. J. H. C. E. Howeson. It was announced recently that Mr. John H. C. E. Howeson had resigned his position on the boards of the Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa and New Consolidated Gold Fields, Limited. Mr. Howeson is chairman of the Anglo-Oriental Mining Corporation, which has extensive tin-mining interests, and is also chairman of the Associated Tin Mines of Nigeria, Ltd., Kamuntlng Tin Dredging, Ltd., London Nigerian Tin Mines, Ltd., the London Tin Corporation, Ltd., Southern Kihta Consolidated, Ltd., and Southern Siamese Tin Dredging, Ltd. He is a member of the executive committee and council of the Tin Producers' Association, and a member of the council of the Malayan Chamber of Mines. He has been the moving spirit in the tin restriction scheme. Mr. Howeson was mentioned by the Official Receiver (Mr. E. T. A. Phillips) in his report following the pepper crisis, at the recent meeting of the creditors of James and Shakespeare, Limited, one of the firms involved. "The contracts for the purchase of 3000 tons of pepper," Mr. Phillips stated, "were rendered to William Henry and Company, of which Howerion was the controlling shareholder. V'At the end of September, 1934, or early in January, 1935, the position was so critical that Howeson initiated negotiations with the Government of tile Netherlands East Indies in Batavia with the object of arranging a scheme for controlling the export of pepper from the East, and approached the British Colonial Office with the same end in view. But he was informed there could be no question of triat office or any. colony, taking action."

Lord Beaverbrook, who is urging that Britain should grow more of her own food, is proprietor of the "Daily Express" and "Evening Standard." One of the most energetic businessmen in the world, he ranks with Lord Northcliffe, Lord Burnham, Mr. W. R. Hearst, and other big newspaper proprietors. He was born in 1879 and is the third son of the late Rev. William Aitken, a Presbyterian minister resident for many years at Newcastle, New Brunswick. All his early life was spent in Canada, and when the Great War broke out he went overseas with the Canadian Forces as an eye-witness, representing the Canadian Government in 1916 on the Western Front. He was also appointed officer in charge of Canadian War Records, which has enabled him to compile an extensive history of Canada's part in the war. Realising that there was but little scope in Canada he went to England, eventually entering the House of Commons in 1910 as Unionist member for Ashton-under-Lyne, which seat he held until 1917. In the following year he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister of Information. He has written extensively on many subjects, particularly about the war, the Press, and Empire Free Trade. In 1906 he married the third daughter of the late General Charles Drury, a distinguished Canadian soldier, and they had two sons and one daughter. His wife died in 1927. Mr. ». W. Griffith. America has recently celebrated the twenticlh anniversary of D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation." It is altogether fitting (how difficult it is on these occasions to avoid the idiom of Gettysburg) that we in England should do so, too. Hollywood may have given us better films than "The Birth of a Nation," judged by the standards of today, but none that had comparable influence on the evolution ofthescreen...;.. , Griffith! found.the -movies a cheapjack entertainment in cellars. For ten years the trade had been content •■ to turn out brie and two-reelers, and exhibit them in dirty little "flea-pits" (converted stables, pool rooms, and the like) called nlckel-odeons, because .the standard charge for admission was a nickel (2Jd)., , .< , , As the current system of distribution set a uniform charge for all productions, producers believed that long pictures could not , pay; exhibitors were equally convinced that nobody would pay more than a nickel for admission. Griffith, one of the most courageous craftsmen who ever lived, thought otherwise. The Rev. Thomas Dixon had written a best-seller of the Civil War called "The Clansman," and urged that it would make a wonderful film,. Griffith, his imagination fired, at once planned a super picture, at a cost of £15,000 to £20,000. In 1914 this was sufficient to make anything from six to ten ordinary features, and most of Griffith's associates promptly declined to have anything to do with an enterprise so rash and prodigal. At last he and Dixon succeeded in raising the money privately, and "The Clansman" was made, in twelve reels, at a cost of £100,000. , ;' "The Clansman" was a picture of the troubled South, painted on a colossal canvas. The story was packed with action, multitudes of men and horses filled the screen, audiences sat spellbound before a: .vision of: conflicting ideals, hate, and heroism and the smoke of battle-^all the birth-pangs -of a nation, conjured up by the first screen magician. "The Birth of a Nation" is as old-fashioned now as Wilson Barrett's original stage production of "The Sign of the Cross." But in a score of ways it made screen history. Unknown playersr—Mae Marsh, 'Robert Harron, Ralph Lewis, Henry B. Walthall, and Wallace Reid—became stars almost overnight; and, more important, Griffith invented or perfected all manner of techhical devices which gave the screen a new elasticity and a new emotional quality: night photography, softfocus photography, moving camera shots, split-screen shots (showing two scenes simultaneously), shots frbm new and effective angles and the use of the iris—e.g., the closing of a scene to a pin-point and reopening on a new scene. Hitherto it had been generally assumed that producing a film was much like producing a play. The players "want through the motions" as they would on the stage, and the camera simply recorded the scene from the point of view of the stalls or pit. Griffith changed all this. He saw that the camera could be something more than a soulless recorder; could be made to play a vital, exciting part, deepening atmosphere and intensifying emotion. "The Clansman" was well received, but caused no sensation. Then Dixon astutely renamed it "The Birth of a Nation," and helped by the publicity given to the fights it caused between negro haters and sympathisers, it became the topic of the day. Shown at theatre prices, it drew into the cinema a well-to-do class that had despised the nlckel-odeons. The adult film was born. In 1931 "The Birth of a Nation" was still playing somewhere, and the gross takings at the box-office had amounted to 18,000,000 dollars (£3,600,000), still a record. Mr. Griffith's excursions into sound have been unhappy; he may never produce again. But pictures like "The Birth of a Nation," "Intolerance," and "Way Down East" lifted the screen amongst the arts and gave happiness to millions. With all his faults, he remains the greatest figure the movie v/orld has known.