Australia’s Bid

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 886, 1 February 1930, Page 31

Australia’s Bid

NEW PLANS ANNOUNCED Herbert Wilcox May Pay Visit

HERBERT WILCOX, production chief of the British and Dominions Films Corporation, Ltd., may come to Australia to supervise the making of talkies. Mr. E. T. Turnbull, managing director of British Dominions Films, Ltd., has stated that if definite arrangements were made with the corporation for the production of pictures in Australia there was “a distinct possibility” that Mr. Wilcox would visit the Commonwealth.

are proceeding through British Dominions Films, Ltd., with three English companies—the British and Dominions Films Corporation, Ltd., Gainsborough and Gaumont. Mr. Turnbull has received a cable message from the first-named organisation stating that Mr. "Wilcox proposes to write the scenarios and do the cutting himself. The corporation also states that it is prepared to send to Australia a complete recording staff and production unit, also the principal artists except the leading lady. When Mr. Turnbull was in England Mr. Wilcox suggested that there should be a quest in this country for the heroine of a big pioneer film which his company hoped to make. It is now proposed that the corporation should undertake the production of three talkies in Australia in 1930, a good drama, a sporting story, and the more important historical film. Mr. Turnbull thinks that as talkies have revolutionised the film industry the Federal Government should alter the conditions for the Commonwealth prize. Australia has produced no talkie features, he says, and it is ridiculous to pay a high price for a silent film at present. If the prize were awarded for the best film produced in Australia in 1930 some good talk-

ing pictures would be entered for the competition. RECENT CRITICISM Mr. Turnbull is not at all perturbed at the adverse criticism Which some overseas visitors have made on British films. "It is hardly necessary to refer again to the high praise bestowed abroad on the first two talkies made in Britain ‘Blackmail’ and ‘High Treason,’ ” he says. ‘‘The synchronised comedy ‘Would You Believe It?’ had a very long run at the London Tivoli. I have just received a cable message that ‘Splinters’ is a great success at. the Capitol, London. “A very good report has been made on ‘Taxi for Two,’ in which Mabel Boulton and John Stuart appear. The Ben Travers comedy ‘Rookery Nook’ has been highly praised in trade papers, and will soon be here. "We are now awaiting reports by our representative on ‘Hullo, Talkies,’ the screen revue directed by Albert de Courville, and ‘Wolves,’ a dramatic picture produced by Wilcox. In ‘Mountains of Mourne,’ a spectacular film based on Desmond Shaw’s story, Joseph Hislop, the noted tenor, and Lillian Davies have singing and talking roles. ‘The Life of Beethoven,’ in which the famous pfasaist, Mark Hambourg, has the title role, is finished. This picture is to he released in four languages— English, French, German and Russian”.