FRONT PAGE STORY

Southland Times, Issue 23922, 14 September 1939, Page 14

FRONT PAGE STORY

Newspaper Provides

Film Plot

“CLOUDS OVER EUROPE”

Irving Asher, who has made a successful start as an independent producer, says that the popularity of news theatres should give a clue to producers wanting to turn out box-office attractions, says a London correspondent of The Herald, Melbourne. “It seems to me,” he said, “that the producer who cannot make a picture as dramatic as today’s newspaper has very little chance of holding an

audience.” Every copy of a newspaper is a film story, in Asher’s opinion, and every good film should be taken right off the front page. There is such a wealth of material in everyday happenings that no producer need be short of it. “ ‘Clouds Over Europe,’ my first release, came off the front page,” he j said, “although the film itself was in the last stages of shooting when the story appeared in a London Sunday newspaper. “A British flying-officer, Captain Edgar Percival, was reported missing over the Channel. The fact that he was not missing did not detract from the dramatic interest of the story at the time, and the coincidence between the

I newspaper account and the script of ! ‘Clouds Over Europe’ was really remarkable.” Acclaimed by every New York critic as one of the best comedy thrillers to come out of the British film studios, “Clouds Over Europe” has been received very enthusiastically in London, where it is now showing under the title of “Q Planes.” Asher’s second and third films are also spy stories. The second, “Spy in Black,” starring Conrad Veidt, will be shown soon. The third, “Ten Days in Paris,” starring Rex Harrison, is in the cutting-room. Asher, as enthusiastically American as ever, though he now makes his permanent home in this country, is producing his pictures at Denham, for distribution by Columbia.