WANTS TO BE BRITISH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19100, 22 August 1936, Page 5

WANTS TO BE BRITISH

NOTED FILM PRODUCER NATURALISAT[ON SOUGHT LONDON, July 28. Mr. Alexander Korda, the Hungarian producer of such British films as "The Private Life of Henry VIII," "The Ghost Goes West," and "The Scarlet Pimpernel," has applied to the Home Secretary for naturalisation. Born in Hungary in 1893, Mr. Korda was educated at the Royal University of Budapest, became a. journalist and, switching over to film work, made "Dance Fever" and "A Modern Du Barry" for Ufa.

He went to Hollywood, and attracted notice by his clever satirical comedy, "The Private Life of Helen of Troy." The First National Corporation and their brilliant director did not see eye to eye and Mr. Korda returned to Europe to gain, if he could, a chance to make pictures his own way. He formed London Film Productions, scored a hit with "Service for Ladies," and then, after one or two misses, he gambled everything on a commodity at that time regarded as unsaleable —a costume drama, "Henry VIII." How the. jjicture was finished under financial difficulties, and caused one of the greatest sensations the industry has known, and started a cycle of costume pictures, is now film history. Mr. Korda has been working here five years and has established one of the largest and certainly the best-equipped studios, in the world,' where several thousand actors, technicians and others arc working.