MAKING A PICTURE.

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 102, 27 October 1938, Page 21

MAKING A PICTURE.

Even the best actors can become like 0 many lumps of sugar—all alike —if 1 director doesn't keep his eye on them. I don't care who your stars are," delared Director Richard Thorpe, "their irincipal chore is to learn and rememler lines. And if they concentrate as hey should on that job they naturally ose track of some of the fine points of he story and all begin to fall into the ame mould." In his latest picture, The First Hundred Years," Thorpe tad at least four players who almost lever needed to be cued. Robert Montomery, Virginia Bruce, Warren Wiliam, and Binnie Barnes invariably :ne\v their lines and their business etter-perfect. "With a quartet like hat I might have been tempted to sit >ack and let them do it their own vay," asserted the director "But if I lad I would soon have found out that he teirmo had gone completely hayvire. When every scene may involve ialf a dozen different camera set-ups, vhen you cut from one group to nother, somebody has got to know trhen to stop the camera tricks. Somelody has got to keep track of the tory That's where the director comes n' The actors can't be expected to do lis job." "Don't, let it drag" .is "horpe's motto. Keeping a motion picure in motion is his chief considersion Which explains why he is usually atisfied with very few "takes' of each cene. "After the fifth or sixth take our actors begin to become like those t's also true thaf very few scripts are oing to stand «p under T>oorlyalanced direction. I can't tell, you Sly -what percentage of a Picture fa dlreSoft .even though ? director iust be a mathematician t° vartlv in what proportion to mix ms SSaSoLseta, and equipment to ■et results. The PJincipal thmgjs to lake all the ingredients balance.