THE MAYFAIR THEATRE

Kaikoura Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 22, 17 March 1938, Page 2

THE MAYFAIR THEATRE

“THE SLAVE SHIP” AND PUBLIC WORKS PICTURE. It is customary to associate motion picture headaches with the start of films, when casting, story and budget elements are uncertain and in a state of suspense, but the worst pain of all according to film-director Tay Garnett, is the last shot of a picture. Garnett, who directed “ Slave Ship,” the Twentieth Centurv-Fox sea epic starring AVarner Baxter and Wallace Beery, which opens on Saturday at the Alayfair Theatre, holds that last scene in mortal dread, and so also do a lot of actors. “The horrible feeling that you’ve missed something lives with you for days after vou’ve finished,” he says. “Before T say ‘Cut’ for Hie last time before I release my players, possibly to other jobs waiting for them, T must think—tire all m.y scenes ‘in the bag’? AVill it be too late for me to fill in forgotten episodes or transitional cuts when the leading man and the leading woman are perhaps miles away on vacation. I tell you,” Garnett emphasised, “that’s the most horrible feeling in pictures. Once, some ten years ago, I discovered two days after the picture was officially clewed that, a whole sequence was missing. My principals were unavailable for added scenes. One was on a hunting trip, and tin' other was already working at another studio. And so we did the best we could. AVc inserted titles that closed the breach. Tn these days of sound, that would be impossible.” Through the system prevailing at Twentieh Cen-tury-Fox, by which film is assembled after it has developed and accepted, a director pproaching the end of his schedule can iecheck cont’nuity for missing scenes, and make a new schedule of work to bo done. This method was adopted on “Slave Ship,” in which the studio believes that Garnett has created one of the most pint rially beautiful dramas of the sea ever filmed.

This vivid y.ic: vrisation of the A'ankee sea captains in days before the Civil War .Varner Baxt* as a formei/“ bla<-k-Li ,-der ” who plans to give up the slave friffic. but who is doublecrossed by AVallace Beerv and ihe crew. The voyage ho planned as a honeymoon with his bride, Elizabeth Allan, becomes a slave-running exped’tion. with the couple continually in danger of death. William Faulkner wrote the story of “Slave Ship.” based on n novel bv .Teo go S. King, an 1 Sam Hellman. Lamar Trott’ and Gladys J.ehman wrote the screen play. Darryl F. Zanuck, vi-e-pr< sident in charge of production at Twentieth Century-Fox, chose Nunnally Johnson as associate producer.