A FILM STEW

NZ Truth, Issue 1181, 19 July 1928, Page 6

A FILM STEW

Will A Plurality of Cooks Spoil It?

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Wellington Rep.) Hope deferred, it is said, maketh the heart sad, but m the case of Alexander Marky, one of the central figures m a little movingpicture drama now being enacted m New Zealand, it only tended to quicken his determination to fulfil the object for which he travelled six thousand miles across the sea to accomplish. ! A MAN of many accomplishments, Marky arrived m this country from the Universal, studios m Hollywood to. make and direct an epic motion picture of the Maori race. He brought with him camera-men and an assistant director. Out on location, at a little' place called Olvv.a,, near Whakatane, Marky and -his little band set to work. Trouble has since brewed m the Universal camp, however, and Marky no longer flourishes the megaphone as director. Nevertheless, he has set out to' make a picture independently of the Universal Btudios. _ Marky originally wrote the story around which Universal are trying to make a picture. -.Carl Laemmle, the big noise m the Universal world of movieland, • sent Marky out here to make his own picture, allowing him at specified time and a certain amount of money to accomplish the job; THE PLOT THICKENS Wet weather delayed progress and the time came when the picture should have been completed. But the plot then thickened a little when Lew Collins, the assistant director, backed up by Cliff F. Eskell, managing director for Universal films m New Zealand, said Marky wasn't competent to make the picture. : Marky, apparently, wanted more time and money to do justice to his inspiration, but on the advice of Collins and Eskell, the great Laemmle pulled tight the purse-strings. ' Collins was then placed m charge ol the work and told to go ahead, make his picture and pack traps for home at the double. ~ Despite the courtesy extended to hiiri by the Publicity Department, m the shape of free rail passes, Eskell says Marky managed to eat a hole m the best part of 60,000 dollars. It was not good enough, said Eskell. Marky paid his Maori company, wet w.eather and fine, and went to a lot of unnecessary expense m other directions. .'; For instance a little bill of £15 for freight on a canoe brought all the way from Ngaruawahia was quite unreasonable, when one could have been had close at hand. Marky, an idealist to the finger-tips, refused to be hurried' into making a •'botch" of one of his own pet inspirations. He refused to compromise and turn out a picture that, at best, he said, would only reach the small backcountry theatres m America. New Zealand would gain no publicity from that. . ■ Universal would never finish their picture, and if they did, it would never . be worth while. The Maoris were all scattered about their various famines and it would be impossible to get together, the original cast. THE OTHER SIDE The Maoris, he said, hated Collins and wouldn't work for him. Hfe looked upon them as a "pack of niggsrs." ; Collins had fallen down on his job soon after the undertaking had starteJ, nor was. he qualified to bring the picture to a successful conclusion. And the "other side" of the camp, of- course, says the same of Marky, Eskell affirms that Marky has never directed a picture m his life, whereas Collins has. Universal are now under way with Director Collins at the head of the company taking "their picture while Marky. is also on the war-path with the object m view of taking the picture as tie originally intended to do it. What will the harvest be?