"PRIVATE LIVES"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22006, 12 January 1935, Page 10 (Supplement)

"PRIVATE LIVES"

MORE WORTHY SUBJECTS NOTICEABLE SCREEN TREND It is good to note a different attitude in the screening of "Private Lives," remarks Herbert Harris in a recent issue of Film Weekly. Real-life characters have frequently been brought to the screen in recent times. But the value'of the characters selected has not mattered, provided their lives have been colourful and lent themselves to cinematic treatment.

Now there is a tendency to select real-life people whose names at once suggest achievements. I do not mean pet history-book achievements, which have been dimmed by time and have little connection with contemporary life, but achievements of a later date, sociological and scientific, which are closely linked with the present-day world.

Warner Brothers promise to give us the story of Louis Pasteur, tentatively entitled" "Men Against Death." Founder of the famous Pasteur Institute, Louis Pasteur undertook work of an incalculable benefit to mankind. His achievements as an eminent bacteriologist have permanent value. The story of Lord Robert Clive is m production*already. Here again we have a " private life " that matters. Clive added India to the British Empire, fighting against great odds to do it. He rose to his position from a clerkship in the East India Cpmpany. In the building up of the British Empire many men found fame in various ways. Pitt and Rhodes by statesmanship, Wolfe by battle, Cook by explorationall colourful characters. Recently, in a newspaper contest, in which filmgoers were asked to. suggest a role for George Arliss, sixteen shared the prize for suggesting David Livingstone, which is further pointer to the fact that both the public and the pro-

ducers are tending towards the screening of meritorious lives. Gaumont-British have, of course, filmed Arliss in the role of the Duke of Wellington. To-day great soldiers are less popular than they once were. But Wellington undoubtedly saved Europe. Napoleon pitted his strength against everybody in an attempt to become Dictator of Europe; he might well have succeeded, with unimaginable reactions, had not Wellington suppressed hiin. Notorious characters may draw tho public, but, at the same time, it must be remembered that there is a sort of unofficial censorship that keeps the worst figures in history off the screen. A film dbout Judge Jeffreys was planned not long ago, but was never made. It is unlikely that a life of Charles Peace or Crippen would ever reach the screen. The limits of notoriety seem to have been approached; therefore tho pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction. Instead of seeking the more notorious figures, producers are seeking the more noble. An era of greater films is before us, always providing, of course, that producers make the most of their opportunities and treat their characters justly.