Ambitious British Film

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18255, 25 November 1933, Page 10

Ambitious British Film

THE noted British film director, * Alexander Korda, encouraged by the success of “The Private Life.of Henry VIII.,” intends to concentrate on supers. This spirited policy has carried him from Tudor England to the Russia of Catherine the Great. The new pic* ture will cost between £50,000 and £(50.000. Douglas Fairbanks, jun., is playing Peter,"and the title-role has been entrusted to Elizabeth Bcrgner, who lifts been declared by Mr. Cochran to be the greatest actress in the world. Miss I’ergner is not, in the ordinary sense, beautiful, but she has a quick intelligence, a subtle charm, a beauty that is primarily of the spirit. It is on the screen that she really comes into her own. Like'all the greatest artists, she is transfigured by her work. Douglas Fairbanks, as the moody, half-mad Tsar, seeius an admirable choice. In the first place, his is the biggest box-oflice name yet exploited in British pictures. Mr. Fairbanks is a well-graced young actor of considerable power with, a steady maturing of his technique and personality. The east will be one of the strongest ever seen in a British film 1 lora Hobson as the Empress Elizabeth; Irene Vanbrugh as Catherine’s mother; Joan Gardiner as one of Peter’s mistresses; and Diana Napier has a sensational scene in.which she has to take a terrilie flowing—from the enraged young Empress.