BRITISH AUTHORS AND THE TALKIES

Evening Star, Issue 20612, 11 October 1930, Page 21

BRITISH AUTHORS AND THE TALKIES

: Mr Bernard Shaw has entered into a contract with the British International Pictures Ltd. by which that company will produce at Elstree a talkio film based on his play ‘How He Lied to Her Husband,’ and it is hoped that this will be followed in due course by the E reduction on the screen of other plays y Mr Shaw. A number of American film-producing companies had been anxious tg recruit his services, and there is naturally a good deal of satisfaction that the contract ; has been secured by a British company. Most of the leading British playwrights and authors have now agreed that their work shall bo presented to the public through the new medium of the talking picture, Mr Galsworthy’s play ‘Escape’ has been produced as a talkie by Mr Basil Dean for, the Associated Talking Pictures Ltd., and his novel, ‘Old English,’ has been adapted in America by the Warner Company and has been shown to the film industry privately. Sir James Barrie’s short play ‘ Half an Hour ’ has been produced as a talkio under the title of ‘The Doctor’s Secret,’ but it is obvious that there is a vast field in his work for the film producer. Two of Mr Milne’s plays—- ‘ The Fourth Wall ’ and ‘ Michael and Mary ’ —are now being converted to screen uses in British studios, and Mr Lonsdale, like Mr P. G. Wodehouse, has entered into a contract to write scenarios for an American company, which has already produced ‘The Last of Mrs Cheyney’ and ‘The High Road.’ Two of Blr Lonsdale’s successful plays, however, ‘On Approval’ and ‘Canaries Sometimes Sing, have already been secured by a British company, the British and Dominions Film Corporation, and one of the most satisfactory features q£ the present position is the growing willingness of British authors to entrust their work to < British producers instead of automatically making the long journey to Hollywood, There is no doubt that at the moment the American producers are seriously concerned at the steady progress which is being made in British talkio production. Many of them have always taken 'the line that if the British producers rea!:#:d their opportunity and jumped in quickly enough they might prove to ho serious rivals to the American companies. For a tifnedt seemed as if the British concerns did not realise the great possibilities of the new form of

entertainment, but this stage has passed, and most of tho British companies are now hard at work.—‘The Times.’