UGLY AUSTRALIANS

Evening Star, Issue 19709, 9 November 1927, Page 5

UGLY AUSTRALIANS

i . ' . ;■/ i SCREEN TYPES SCARCE I ■ ■;' . ■ t FEATURES ALL WRONG SYDNEY DRESS FASHIONS OUT OF DATE. j FILM EDITOR'S VIEWS. Press Aaiociation—By Telegraph—Copyright SYDNEY, November. ‘J. (Received November 9> at T 0.5 a.m.) Giving evidence belorc the Film Commission, Mr Robert Dexter, film editor and writer, said tliat beauty was 'the mcrcliandisc oi tbo motion picture, land Australia was practically barren of Ibeauty. Nature bad made a wonderful l)ob of this continent, but as lumian Ibeings we were an ugly race. Ho declared that there were quite a number of people in Sydney who could make a comfortable living in Hollywood if they would only look natural. Referring to the types seen in the Sydney slrcts, bo bad seen only one man whom tho rest of tbo world would accept as worth looking at on the screen in a .leading role, and be was a newspaper reporter.

For screen purposes tbo features of Australian people were all wrung, and careless dress was another handicap. Tbo best-dressed man in Sydney to-day could not hold bis own with a flvc-dollar extra man at Hollywood.

During the past year there bad been possibly eight girls in Australia who might have developed as acceptable screen players. Their teeth were natuiolly poor, and they lacked much in that perfect physical development required for the screen. In tho matter of fashion, Sydney v.'onieu were twelve months behind New York styles. Australia was passing through a phases of industrial development, and until that was complete she had neither the time nor tho money to enure for the cultivation of the arts, for the motion picture was an art, and not an industry.

Mr Dexter denied that the United States had taken advantage of the war to oust England from tho Australian film market, and added that if America dropped out of tho Australian business to-day there would be sufficient pictures in England to supply Australia’s requirements for one and a-half weeks only.