AND WHO IS HOMER?

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 132, 30 November 1935, Page 27

AND WHO IS HOMER?

Sir Thomas Beecham recently revealed the reasons why he >has not hitherto worked in co-operation with a film company.

He is shortly to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra in excerpts from two of Mozart's operas, and some musical interludes for a film, which is based on the life of Mozart, reports the "Daily Telegraph."

Asked why he had held out so long from film work, Sir Thomas said: "I have tried hard to do something for 14 years with a film company, but I have hitherto found it utterly impossible.

"1 found the mentality of all film people who approached me to be as singularly and exotically different from that of the rest of humanity, as some fabulous legend of antiquity. For instance, some time ago wandering into a picture house, I saw a most thrilling melodrama which lasted about fifteen minutes. The scene of it, of course, was in the United States.

"During that brief period I saw a battle at sea, a train wreck, a fire on the 130 th story of a San Francisco skyscraper, the abduction of at least twen-ty-five young women, and a few other hardly less exciting episodes.

."This astonishing performance was accompanied, from beginning to end by the 'Good Friday' music of Tarsi-

"I asked if they had any subject in mind and they declared they would leave it to me. I thought for a few minutes, and my mind naturally gravitated to what is, after all, the most magnificent and unequalled story for any film. I said, What about the 'Odyssey' of Homer? ' "

"One of the three picturesque-look-ing visitors said, 'Oo's 'Omer?' I replied that Homer is, probably, the most distinguished man of letters the world has yet known. Whereupon the second of my visitors commented in pensive and somewhat melancholy accents, rOh! my, won't the fees be 'eavy?'

"I think this is enough to show why I have not found it easy, hitherto, to deal with most of the paladins of the film world." \

fal.' I felt that the emotion created in me by this gigantic intellectual effort should be communicated to the world, and I did so in a letter to the newspapers. •

"A week or two later I received a visit from three mysterious strangers, who alleged they were 'something in the film, world.' They said they had read my letter, and wished to know if I would consent to choose a subject for a picture, to approve in every detail the scenario, and to select, arrange, or compose the music for it.