Screen and STAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27572, 14 December 1950, Page 2

Screen and STAGE

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THE EARLY DAYS

Memories of the days when films were shown in tents and in sheds, and programmes consisted of 30 or more short films, were revived by pioneers of * the entertainment industry at the annual old identities' dinner held by the Auckland Cinema Club recently. . Posters round the walls advertising the early " biographs helped bring back th&.atmosphere of-ther industry’s early days. “ Few- people realise how. the .business, has grown,” said the chairman, Mr W. Duff. “When I started in Sydney in 1903 there were no distributors, and the average film was 500 feet long. I remember once having 36 films on one programme.” v A guest of honour, Mr H. C. Mclntyre, managing director of Universal Pictures of Australia and president of the Australian Pioneers’ Association, recalled the times when films were shown in tents, and companies took them on tour in carts. " The big feature film on one programme lasted five minutes,” he said. "It showed the King and Queen at the Spithead revue. “ One of the most important milestones was the coming of Fox Films to Australia, and their insistence on our increasing 3d and 6d prices to 6d and 9d. Many prophesied that this would mean the end of the industry. But some of the brighter boys agreed and showed Fox’s ‘ Carmen,’ •with Theda Bara. This was such a hit that takings jumped from £8 to £28.” Paramount had then introduced what they called “ Royalty Masterpieces,” Mr Mclntyre continued. These had raised prices to Is, again in the face of gloomy predictions that the industry would be

finished. But instead it had taken cinema shows out of ' tin sheds and tents into proper theatres. " That was about 30 years ago,” added Mr Mclntyre. “It is worth nothing that the minimum admission price stayed at Is in Australia until two months ago, when it was raised to Is 6d. In, New Zealand It is still Is, in spite of the tremendous technical advances in the films themselves, and the rising prices of almost everything else.” * * * *

Bob Hope has listed eight of the funniest film scenes of all time, without mentioning any scenes from his own films. His choice:— 1. Charlie Chaplin dining off an old boot in “ The Gold Rush." 2. Stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers’ comedy, “A Night at the Opera,” in which 30 people crowded into a ship’s tiny cabin, ■ 3. W. C. Fields’ snooker scene in “Six of a Kind ’’ 4. Barry Fitzgerald learning from fellow-priest Bing Crosby in “ Going My Way ” that he is eating stolen turkey. 5. Harold Lloyd climbing a skyscraper to the big clock in “ Safety Last.” 6. Laurel and Hardy delivering a piano to the hilltop house in “ The Music Box.” , 7. Red Skelton’s guzzling scene in "Ziegfeld Follies.” ' ' 8. Buster Keaton launching a ship in " The Navigator,” and watching it sink to the bottom. * * * * A fee of £85,000 has been offered to Danny Kaye for 12 performances during the Festival of Britain next year. Recently' he earned £31,000 for 14 performances at the Toronto Exposition. * * * * Plans are afoot to build a £50,000 theatre —variety shows only—at Sir Harry Lauder’s birthplace, Portobello, as a memorial to the famous Scot. *'* * * The death occurred in New York this month of ” Michael Strange,” actress, poet, playwright and former wife of the film star, the late John Barrymore. She was the- mother of Diana Barrymore. The penname “ Michael Strange ” concealed the identity of a wealthy society beauty, Blanche Oelrichs, whose writing on women’s suffrage and socialism embarrassed her family. Married three times, her marriage to Barrymore in 1920 was bitterly opposed by her family, strangers and friends. For several years, however, the couple were so closely attuned that they wore the same felt hats, ties and shirts. After their divorce in 1928, however, she admitted that the “ super ego of both wrecked the marriage. She had one of the finest deep, resonant radio voices of any womah in America, and often went on lecture tours, reading her poetry. * * * *

'l' ■* Playwright Tennessee Williams hopes his new play, “The Hose Tattoo,” will equal the successes of “A Streetcar Named Desire ” and " The Glass Menagerie.” The trouble is that only one actress can play the leading part and she has not yet agreed to the job. She is Anna Magnani. the fiery Italian film star whose temper flared so passionately when Rossellini began courting Bergman. Magnani is needed for the part of a strong-willed Sicilian widow who loses her beloved husband soon after the family has migrated to the American Gulf Coast (Gulf of Mexico). * * * * The copyright of Oscar Wilde’s “Th§ Importance of Being Earnest ” and Lady Windermere’fe Fan ” expired last 'month, which means a substantial loss of income to his son, Vyvyan Holland, and his Australian daughter-in-law, formerly Miss Thelma Besant. Mr Holland inherited the rights' in both plays, not from his father, but from Sir George Alexander, the theatrical manager. * * ,* * In spite of David Niven’s superb makeup which transforms him from a handsome, debonair figure tq a very unsavoury crone, the latest film version of Baroness Orczy’s “ Scarlet Pimpernel ” is not a success. Neither Niven nor the £500,000 Technicolor production by the PowellPressburger team pleased the London critics Perhaps with memories of the previous - and excellent starring the late Leslie Howard, in their minds, they gave the new version, one of the worst receptions in the history of the London press. Here are typical samples: News Chronicle: “Outlay of £500,000 and two vears' work makes no sense whatever and detracts from the dwindling prestige of British films." Daily Express- “ It must be one of the most expensively dull pictures we have made in this country for years.” sjs * * *

Ida Lupino’s independent company will make a full-length film about the United Nations. It will be called " Man of the World.” * * * *

” If Australian film exhibitors insist on slashing the trash out of American films, Hollywood will soon learn its lesson, and get rid of it first." Mrs George Paton, president of the Victorian Council for Children’s Films, said this last week. Already, in Britain, cinema chiefs had declared that, unless Hollywood cut out its underworld themes and its sadism, their films would be slashed, Mrs Paton added. With the help of mothers’ organisations, Mrs Paton has arranged for experimental showings cf ” good, clean ” children s films. She believes that, if children are brought up on sound, artistic, and educational films, they will demand good films when they grow up. * * * *

Fox Studio has the shortest full-size railway in the world —it stretehes_ only four blocks. -For “ Under My Skin, with John Garfield and Micheline Prelle, now in the making, three additional passenger cars, of French design, had to be added to the rolling stock. They were made in the studio’s locomotive works. The railroad was built three years ago to save time and money. It was begun with an engine and four passenger cars. It now has two locomotives, 12 passenger cars,-nine freight cars, one tender, a switching yard, and is equipped with various kinds of railway stations.