Screen and Stage

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26349, 2 January 1947, Page 9

Screen and Stage

By Jaxon

If writers and- theatre people are alert to professional problems, they are following the purge of their colleagues in Soviet Russia (writes Brooks Atkinson, in the New York Times). As an indication of Soviet policy the three-month purge is more significant than Premier Stalin’s comforting assurance that friendly relations can exist between Sovietism and the Western democracies.

For the various public declarations regarding the purge repeatedly denounce Soviet writers for “subservience to the West” and for “poisoning the consciousness of our people with a world outlook that is hostile to Sovet society”; and the Presidium of the Union of Soviet Writers directs its members specifically to “expose the nature of capitalist encirclement and to struggle against the disintegrating influence and make clear the character of contemporary imperialism, concealing within itself the threat to new bloody wars.”

Once Stalin described _ writers as “ engineers of human souls " —a shrewd phrase that shows how keenly he understands the tremendous importance of the printed word. To control the writers is to control the minds of the people. Now it is clear that Soviet writers and theatre people must, willy-nilly, join actively in the general Soviet pi’opaganda campaign against Russia’s former allies. Some writers in the United States believe in communism, admire the methods of Soviet Russia and support in one way or another the objectives of Soviet policy. Since they are promoting a system that enslaves writers and destroys creative art, there is no sounder way of insuring professional suicide through muddleheadedness. It is not enough for Soviet writers quietly to acquisce in the Soviet system of economics and politics. They must deliberately and consciously promote it, although they have no control over it either as citizens or artists. According to Vladimir Prokofiev in Pravda, the Soviet theatre' can progress only by a ruthless, irreconcilable struggle against all manifestations of political aloofness. Writers must be the active agents of the Communist dictatorship. Literature and theatre are intende'd not

Larry Parks, who will be seen in " The Jolson Story," based on the life of A! Jolson, is one of the long line of film actors who have reached stardom via the dreary field of ”B" grade pictures. After a brief stage career, he was placed on the Columbia contract list aft . acting as “ stooge " for Barry Fitzgerald in tests for a part in " Here Comes Mr Jordan," which was subsequently played by Edward Everett Horton. His "B " career started with " Mystery Ship," and after that, for over 30 pictures, it was the usual bleak miscellany of the film beginner. With " The Jolson Story," the letter B has .been deleted from Mr Parks's alphabet. Coming up is another fine film—the Technicolor " Down to Earth " —in which he plays opposite Rita Hayworth.

to search after the truth of human life or to report the truth objectively, but to prepare the masses for work under the party leadership. Although there is a great deal of chatter about loving the people in Soviet propaganda, there is a very apparent condescension towards the people in the Soviet conception of the function of art. BRITISH FILMS’ YEAR OF SUCCESS British films have gained two big successes in America, apart from earning £2,000,000 there for Britain during the past year. The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures has chosen " Henry the Fifth ” as the best film of the year, both on artistic merit and as entertainment. Laurence Olivier, who stars in the film and produced it, is selected for the year’s best male performance. And in Britain, British films are firmly established as the most popular, according to the Kinematograph Weekly survey for 1946. In Britain according to the survey, “ the year has been one of unbroken triumph,” with British films first and third in the box-office roll of honour The top box-office attractions were “The Wicked Lady” (British), “Bells of St. Mary’s,” and “Piccadilly Incident” (British). The most popular star was James Mason, followed by Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Alan Ladd, Ray Milland, Bette Davis, Anna Neagle, and Stewart Granger. The most prominent newcomer was Michael Wilding, followed by Sid Field, Trevor Howard, Joan Caulfield, Chips Rafferty, and Daphne Campbell. The principal surprise was listed as the sudden decline of American technicolor musicals. Voted as the best documentary was “Theirs is the Glory,” one of those curiously nonchalant accounts of heroism in action which British studios have brought to some sort of national art after the practice of the war years. “ Theirs is the Glory ” tells the story of Arnheim. The story was re-enacted on the actual locations, by men who took part in the original adventure; mainly survivors of the First British Airborne Division and Dutch Partisans. The script was com-

piled from official records and from the personal experiences of combatants and war correspondents. NOVEL BOUGHT WITHOUT BEING SEEN Twentieth Century-Fox, acquisition of the screen rights to the forthcoming Kenneth Roberts novel, “Lyuxa .Bailey,” is further evidence that the movies’ story scouts have not hidden their pots of golds and are still eager for film material from the writing

gentry. What gives the deal a distinctive flair is that company officials made the buy without having seen Mr Roberts’s book. “We saw nothing—no manuscript or outline when we negotiated for it,” is the way they announced the deal. And to point out the studio’s faith in Mr Roberts’s talents, is the added fact that Fox’will part with 215,000 dollars for a 10-year lease on he book, a record sum for that company to pay for a novel. “Lydia Bailey” is gn historical adventure with a background of New England, Washington, Haiti and Tripoli during the year 1799-1805,. WHIMS OF THE U.S. CENSORSHIP There is a truism in the film industry'that censorship problems arise not because of what is shown on the screen, but because of how it is shown. Nevertheless, Seymour Nebenzal and Arthur Ripley, producer and director of United Artists’ “The Chase,” were startled by a deletion demanded by the Production Code Administration of the Johnston office. In “ The Chase ” Robert Cummings and Michele Morgan, as the chief characters, find themselves sharing a cabin, extra-maritally, on an overnight voyage. After an exchange of emotional dialogue, Cummings walks purposefully towards Miss Morgan, then checks himself, moves to a porthole, and draws a curtain across it, at which point the scene fades out. According to Nebenzal, the censors viewed the picture and then notified him that the scene could be approved only if the porthole were left uncovered. As a result of the order, Nebenzal’s associates suggest that the Johnston office must, at long last, have concluded that there is no sin without a sense of guilt. PAUL ROBESON TO STAR ' IN FILM Paul Robeson, Howard Fast, author, and Leo Hurwitz, documentary film director, have joined forces to form an independent motion picture production company, Freedom Road Films, Inc. The company, of which Robeson is president and Fast and Hurwitzaare vice-presidents, will bring to the screen Fast’s novel, “ Freedom Road.” with the singer-actor starred in the role of Gideon Jackson under the direction of Hurwitz. Robeson and Hurwitz, it will be recalled, served as narrator and director respectively of “ Native Land,” the fine documentary feature of a few years back. Since its publication in 1944 Fast’s novel has - sold over over 1,000,000 copies and has been translated into 18 foreign languages, including the Hindustani.. Chinese, and Burmese," he added. The novel, set in South Carolina in the reconstruction era,, is centred around Jackson, an ex-slave who beomes a member of Congress, and the plantation com-

munity farmed in harmony by negroes and whites until the withdrawal of northern troops. BRINGING COLOUR TO THE SCREEN The Cinecolor Company, which has evolved as technicolor’s only serious competitor by serving the independent producers of cheap pictures, has abandoned its old customers and announced that henceforth it will accept no commitments for low-budget films because low budgets preclude the possibility of proper lighting and costuming for colour photography. Asked for a clarification of the term “ low budget,” a Cinecolor chieftain said the approximate minimum budget for films his company will accept is 250,000 dollars.