“BARREN OF BEAUTY”

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16492, 9 November 1927, Page 7

“BARREN OF BEAUTY”

AUSTRALIANS CRITICISED NO GOOD FOR FILMS (Elec. Tel. Copyright-United Press Assn.) (Received November 9, 11 a.in.) SYDNEY, Nov. 9. 'Giving evidence before the Film Commission, Robert Dexter, film editor and writer, said beauty was the merchandise of (he motion picture and Australia was practically barren of beauty. Nature bad made a- wonderful job of this continent, but. as human beings we were an ugly race. He declared that there were quite a number of people in Sydney who could make a comfortable living m Hollywood if they would only look natural. Referring to types seen in Sydney streets lie had seen only one man whom Hie rest of the world would accept as worth looking at on ttie screen in a leading role, and lie was a newspaper reporter. For screen purposes tiio features of Australian people were all wrong, and careless dress was another handicap. The best-dressed man in .Sydney to-day could not hold his own with a live dollar extra man at Hollywood. During the past year there had been possibly eight girls in Australia who might have developed as acceptable screen players. Their teeth were naturally poor and they lacked much in that perfect physical development required for the screen. In the matter of fashion Sydney women were 12 months behind Now York styles. Australia was passing through a phaso of industrial development. Until that, was complete she had neither time nor money to spare for the cultivation of arts, for the motion picture was an art, not an .industrv. x

He denied that Ihe United States had taken advantage of the war to oust England from the Australian film market, and added if America, dropped out of the Australian business to-day there would lie sufficient pictures in England to supply Australia’s requirements for one and a. half weeks only.