PRODUCTIONS IN IRELAND

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 25 October 1934, Page 8

PRODUCTIONS IN IRELAND

CYCLE OF FILMS PLANNED TWO OPERATING ENSEMBLES

In the very near future, probably before the present year conies to an end, real Irish films will once again be seen in the cinemas of the world. They will bring home 'to audiences everywhere that Ireland is something more than a mere land of superb scenery and pretty girls. There-has been more than enough of the- so'-ealled Irish films in which Irishmen are depicted as good-humoured irresponsibles saying witty things and making clever retorts, or Irish girls of the “Peg o’ My Heart” kind. There is going to be bo a complete change and the world is going to see Irish life as it actually is and real Irish people as they actually are in their every phase of character and in their every mood. There will be no effort made to make them heroes, or, on the other hand, people of whom to be ashamed, nor will their virtues or their weaknesses be overstressed or strained.

The greater part of Ireland, from County Down to the famed Killarne.v is to be used as the mise-en-seene of films which, at the moment, are in process of making, by two differen: operating ensembles. The first lot is under the direction of Brian Hurst of Hurst-Clifton (Productions, and he has as camera man the famous German, Herr Eugen Schufftan. They are making a film of a novel written by a medical man who is a graduate of Dublin University, or Trinity College, and is now domiciled in London. The novel was published under the title of ‘‘The Night Nurse,” but that of the film will be “Nora O’Neale.” The first scenes were shot in Trinity College and others will have, as locale, Dublin hospitals and other public buildings in the Irish capital city. Later, as the story demands, scenes will be taken at Clogher Head, in County Louth; at Connemara, in Galway; and also in villages and towns in Counties Down and Ant rim, a A well as in the citv of Belfast.

Miss Sara Allgood, who has already made a name for herself in the theatre and was a member of the Abbey

Theatre company which visited the United States in 1911 and in 1912, will play a prominent part in the film. The lead will be in the hands of Miss Molly Lamont, of “White Ensign” fame. Others in a strong cast are Miss Joyce Chancellor, Miss Nancy Burne, Patrick Knowles, Lester Matthews, Patrick Barr and Denis O’Dea, who was recenty seen in America with the Abbey Players and is still with that company.

Concurrently, another film, directed by A. Housset, is in process at Killarney. It is the first of a series of films dealing with events, and conditions in Ireand during the “Black and Tan” period. This initial picture is already well advanced and is rapidly approaching completion, while arrangements are being made to start work, (immediately upon its conclusion, on another one of the series which has been provisionally called “Out of the Wreck.”

All this activity would appear to be the forerunner of still greater things to come. Recently a prominent Hollywood man arrived in Doblin and he is authority for the statement that there is going; to be “a cycle of Irish pictures.” every one of which will be made in Ireland. To use his own words. “These will be pictures with Irish backgrounds and there is no reason why there should not be 100 per cent. Irish films.”