Screen and Stage

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26693, 12 February 1948, Page 2

Screen and Stage

By JAXON *ssssssss«

For several New Zealanders, the film “ Caesar and Cleopatra ” came as something of a disappointment. Several of the exteriors were shot on location in Egypt towards the end of the war and a call for extras possessed of more intelligence than the Egyptian Army personnel, who were being used for mob scenes, was answered by a sprinkling of New Zealanders. Unfortunately, most of the scenes made there have been condensed in order to bring the film down to a reasonable running time, so that the amateur actors have presumably perished on the cutting room floor. Jaxon was among these part-time pike-wielders, and was also present when nautical scenes were shot in Alexandria with the assistance of trick camera work and a scale model of the Pharos. * * * It is probable that film actor James Stewart will take the leading role in " Harvey ” Broadway's phenomenally successful, play about a mellow inebriate and his friend, a man-sized, invisible rabbit—when it is produced in London. Stewart is willing to accept payment in sterling, which is a pleasant change from the stories of fantastic dollar fees charged by other American performers who have been on the boards in Britain recently. The Andrews Sisters are reported to be listed for a , 15,000-dollar weekly payment when they arrive in London, and there appears to be a growing feeling in Britain that, while morale-building may be all right in its way, a few tons of pork would perhaps be preferable to, say, a couple of weeks of Mickey Rooney’s vaudeville antics. * • * The “ Swedish Sphinx.” Greta Garbo, is to make a film in France—her first screen appearance in some time, although offers were made to her in Britain. A report published in this column last week stated that drastic staff cuts were expected in most of the major American studios. It is now reported that M-G-M has made a 40 per cent, cut in its wage list, Columbia has laid off a quarter of its staff, Samuel Goldwyn has dismissed his firm’s New York story department, Warner Brothers have pruned the publicity department, and RKO has nothing in production at present.

There is a Surjday school strike going on in Oxfordshire because the local Baptist minister stopped the performance of a cowboy film at a Sunday school “ treat,” writes our London correspondent. The film was “ Frontier Badmen,” which had been approved for universal exhibition. When the lights went up after 20 minutes, the minister told the children: “ I don’t think this is the sort of thing your mothers would like you to go to bed on. Let us thank God we do not live in a troubled land like this, where there is drinking, vice, card-play-ing, bad men, and so on. Now if you’ll be quiet, we will say a prayer.” The show was put on by an ex-R.A.F. man who was so annoyed that he is hiring a hall to allow the children to see the end. The minister has forbidden the children to go, so about 60 per cent, of them have declared a “ strike ” until he withdraws his ban. A Norwegian film producer, Mr Rasmus Breistein, is to arrive in New Zealand this week to make a travelogue colour film of the Dominion. The film will be used in Norwegian public schools and for adult education. * • • Covent Garden’s first post-war Wagner season opened last month with “ The Mastersingers,” with an all-British cast except for Hans Hotter, of the Vienna State Opera, who plays Hans Sachs. Heddle Nash, as David, carried off most of the vocal honours, and Karl Rankl secured a fine performance from the Royal Opera Orchestra. In practically all countries to-day 16mm. film is giving pleasure in isolated towns and villages. Throughout the war this comparatively new medium of presenting motion picture entertainment was used with amazing results. Both sides used it as the quickest and surest method of technical training to troops, and on the Allied side it was used to bring the latest films to troops throughout the world. The first of the major companies to make its programmes available in 16mm. size in large quantities is M-G-M. Already well established throughout the world, M-G-M has now commenced 16mm. distribution in New Zealand, supplying to exhibitors in situations such as Halfmon Bay, Stewart Island, where previously the cost and upkeep of standard 35mm. equipment made the commercial screening of motion pictures uneconomic. In Australia, M-G-M conducts a school of instruction for intending 16mm. ex•hibitors, including many returned servicemen, and is hopeful of conducting a similar school in New Zealand.

Following the lead of Alfred Hitchcock, who makes a brief appearance in every him he directs, Sidney Giliat has a secret trade mark. He speaks a line in every film he produces. When Rex Harrison ordered a soecial cocktail from a coloured barman in " The Rake’s Progress,” it was Sidney Giliat who said, “Ah sure dont know how you think dem up, Mr Kenway.” In his next film, " Green for Danger,” Giliat changed to a deferential policeman. Now he is thinking out a new idea for his film adaptation of Norman Collins’s best-seller, “London Belongs to Me.” Robert Donat has begun work on his first film for three years. He plays” the vindictive-minded K.C. in “The Winslow Boy,” a part that was played on the stage by Emlyn Williams. . , • The grand old woman of the screen is surely May Whitty, the one resident of Hollywood who is a Dame of the „Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Now 83 years old, she takes in the whole gamut of the English stage since the palmy days of Queen Victoria, and laments to some degree that, generally speaking acting to-day is not what it was. “ I’m not one to say that there isn t a place for under-acting, for throwing a line or whole scene away,” she said, ‘ but it is being carried to ridiculous ends. Actors who have capacious lungs, fine speaking voices, healthy emotion, and some sense of the theatre, should not become mimes mumbling attenuated lines written by attenuated little authors. There has to be control. We can’t run headling downhill with emotion. But, after all, the emotions are an actors wares. He hasn’t anything else to dispense.” Arthur Bliss, who wrote the screen music for H. G. Wells's “ Things to Come,” and produced a striking modern piano concerto for the New York World Fair in 1937, has completed two acts of an opera, "The Olympians,” written to a libretto supplied by J. B. Priestley. Bliss’s friends say it is “ very much grand opera,” with a large orchestra, chorus and two ballets. Venus is a silent part, for which the sole qualification is “ irresistible beauty.”