Screen and Stage

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27346, 23 March 1950, Page 2

Screen and Stage

Bv lAXON

STARS ARE FADING The pernicious star system appears to be on the wane. This evident trend must come as a great relief to discriminating film patrons who have long regarded with distrust the studio custom of using overpublicised stars to sell a grade B story. The box-office value of such a system is obvious, but it has been an unfortunate influence on the development of an intelligent screen in the American industry. Stereotyped stories have been churned out to fit the unvarying capacities of the major stars and inventiveness has been at a discount.

Now, theatre managers all over the world are reporting that the magic seems, to a large extent, to have deserted the names of stars. Big names on theatre marquees no longer mean an automatically busy box office. There are, of course, a few exceptions—notably Danny Kaye—but by and large a film sells now on its subject matter and on word-of-mouth advertising. The golden age of films is still a long way off—fine films are still largely ignored by the public, generally because of a prejudice against exposing inner sensibilities to powerful emotions. But the trend is in the right direction.

The improved quality and increased public interest in the semi-documentary and documentary film has had most to do with the sudden drop in star values, men in the picture business believe. Pictures like ’’ Lost Boundaries ” and " To Live in Peace,” to name two current examples, have a realistic, true-to-life quality in being handled in the documentary manner and played by comparative unknowns, which audiences are finding more vital than obviously synthetic screen drama.

The filmgoer is beginning, at long last, to appreciate that “ the story’s the thing,” coupled with the manner in which it is directed and interpreted. The fact that the leading role is played by a popular screen player who recently added a third swimming pool to his Beverley Hills home, and ihat the glamorous lady opposite him is contemplating going to Reno because of her third husband, is no longer quite so significant to the fans as it used to be.

Through the influence of the newsreels' vivid and exhaustive presentation of real life drama, one manager said, patrons had come to realise that there was " more in heaven and earth ” than was dreamed up by the studio script writers. Increased public interest in the newsreels and the improved technique of newsreel coverage had prompted feature producers to adopt a similar method in their presentation of fictitious plots. Thus had the near-docu-mentary film been evolved in a realistic manner which had captured the imagination of patrons.

Armand Perren’s International Ice Follies, comprising 31 skating champions from Norway, Hungary, Austria, France, and Holland, left England in the Stratheden this month to appear In Australian cities and possibly New Zealand.

One out of every two people in Britain paid to see a film each week last year, figures in Facts About British Films reveal. Last year s?w the first rise in average weekly attendances since the

Sid Grauman, the man who-“immor-talised " the footprints of film stars in the forecourt of Hollywood's Chinese Theatre, died this month. Grauman, one of the film city’s greatest showmen, never produced a film, and acted only once—as himself in a picture last year. He built two of the most ornate and most publicised Hollywood theatres—the Egyptian and the Chipese. The Chinese Theatre’s forecourt now shows not only 100 sets of film stars' footprints and handprints in the concrete, but also oddities such as Joe E. Brown’s mouthprint, Ai Jolson's knees, and Betty Grable’s legs.

Half of Sydney’s theatregoers seem to be annoyed that Williamsons now begin most of their important shows in Melbourne. The other half seems to be flattered that the firm likes its shows to be thus thoroughly “ rehearsed ” before Sydney sees them.

Thousands of people in America are flocking to buy shares In a unique film on the life of Christ. Most of the £450.000 stock in the film will belong to ordinary people in all walks of life, said the dynamic Frenchman, Count Georges de la Grandiere. The film was his idea. “ It is a simple and honest film for honest and simple people,” he said. “ I do not want anyone to get rich from it” Count de la Grandiere went to immense trouble before selecting a 32-year-old philosophy professor at the Sorbonne University, France, to portray Christ. A Hollywood actress who offered to play Christ’s Mother without payment was turned down.

A 12-year-old London lad is claimed as Britain’s film discovery for 1950. He is Jeremy Spencer, who has just finished playing the part of a boy musical prodigy in the Two Cities’ production “Prelude to Fame." Son of a school teacher, Jeremy was bom in London in 1937. He has already distinguished himself in ’’ Kind Hearts and Coronets,” “ The Dancing Years,” “ The Spider and the Fly,” and ” Portrait of Clare.” Filmgoer s may remember him as an Italian boy in ‘‘Anna Karenina.”

Deanna Durbin, who has not made a film for two years, plans to leave Hollywood “ permanently." ” I am not finished with pictures,” she said, ” but I am finished with studios that will not give me the right kind of script. I want to play in a film which does not show me as a little singing 13-year-old." said Miss Durbin. who is now 27. The star denied a story that Hollywood studios would not employ her because she had put on too much weight.

The New York Times described the Ingrid Bergman film, “ Stromboli," as “ incredibly feeble, inarticulate and uninspiring and painfully banal.” Its reception from theatre audiences has been mixed. Theatres in New York were only halffilled. but in Chicago and Washington they were crowded. Variety, the American entertainment trade journal, dismissed “ Stromboli ” as a failure. The HeraldTribune said: “Neither good Bergman, good Rossellini, nor good anything.” Rossellini, who directed the film, told the Rome correspondent of the HeraldTribune that he wanted to ” repudiate the paternity ” of the United States version of “ Stromboli."

Indians are getting in the way of a production company filming a Western in New Mexico. The Navajos, who live in a nearby reservation, like to watch the activity from their mountain tops, and they have managed to spoil several scenes which did not call for suspicious redskins in the background. The company has had to hire a guard which watches for Navajos and hunts them off. • * *

Two more “ lives ’’ are on the stocks— S composer and an evangelist. The composer is Franz Lehar (“ Merry Widow.” " Land of Smiles,” etc), whose romantic story is to be told in a joint AustroAmerican production. Martin Luther is the evangelist, and film interests of five nations will co-operate in his screen biography—Britain, France, Switzerland, Sweden, and Austria.

1939 25,000.000 1940 25,000,000 1941 28,000,000 1942 31,000,000 1943 31,000,000 1944 30,500,000 1945 30,000,000 1946 29,000,000 1947 28,000,000 1948 28,000,000 1949 * •; •• •• 28,300,000