AN UGLY RACE

Northern Advocate, 10 November 1927, Page 2

AN UGLY RACE

AUSTRALIA’S SORRY STATE.

NONE FIT FOR FILMS,

SYDNEY, November 9.

Giving evidence before the Film Commission, -Mr Robert Dexter, tilm editor and writer, said that beauty was the merchandise of the motion picture, and Australia was practically barren of beauty. Nature had made a wonderful job of this continent, but as human beings we wero an ugly race. He declared that there were quite a number of people in fctydney who could make a comfortable living in Hollywood if they would only look natural.

Referring to types seen in Sydney streets, lie said Jic had seen only one man whom the rest of the world would accept af) worth looldng at on the screen in a leading role, and he was a newspaper reporter.

For screen purposes, the features of the Australian people were all wrong - , and careless dress was another handicap. The best- dressed man in Sydney today could not hold his own with a ilve-dollar extra man at Hollywood,

During the past year there had been possibly eight girls in Australia who might have developed as acceptable screen players, but Ihelr teeth wore naturally poor and they lacked much iu Hint perfect physical development required for the sereeu. Tn the matter of fashion, Sydney women were 12 months behind New York stylos.

Australia was passing - through a phase of industrial development. Until that was complete she had neither time nor money to spare fur cultivation of arts, for the motion picture was an art, not an industry.

He denied lhal the United States had taken advantage of the war to oust Ungland from the Australian film mar-

ket, and added Unit if America dropped out of the Australian business today there would be sullicient pictures in England to supply Australia’s requirements fur one and a half weeks only,— A. and N.Z.