Finding the Right Combination

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23537, 23 December 1939, Page 10 (Supplement)

Finding the Right Combination

COHESION IN MAKING OF PICTURES One of the most frequent complaints to be heard across the tables of Hollywood commissaries is the lack of integration in the motion picture industry. Producers, authors, actors and directors, so the critics say, work too independently of each other for the good of their product, with the result that so many cooks are frequently liable to spoil the broth. To prove their point these arbiters quote the exceptions: Frank Capra, Hollywood's famous v producer-director, who, by combining in himself these two important offices is able to give his films a greater unity; Alfred Hitchcock, who not only directs his pictures but also helps with the writing, the camera work and the designing of the sets; and Leslie Howard. Leslie Howard is the industry's new producer-actor, the combination for which Hollywood may be searching. His first appearance in this dual capacity was for "Pygmalion," one of the great motion picture successes of the season, and now he is following his own precedent in "Intermezzo, A Love Story," David 0. Selznick's production for United Artists release. Howard plays not only the leading role in this picture, but also acted as associate producer and even helped Gregory Ratoff with the diction.