£1,800,000 PROGRAMME FOR PRODUCTION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20984, 12 March 1938, Page 16

£1,800,000 PROGRAMME FOR PRODUCTION

KORDA PLANS 15 FILMS FOR THIS YEAR The best news the British film industry has heard for a long time was the announcement by Alexander Korda on his return from America this week of plans to make 15 films before the end of the year, at a cost of £1,800,000.

No sooner was Korda ashore than he began script conferences, examination of “rush” shots and all the routine of film-making. He claims it is his reply to the pessimists who see no future for the industry in Britain. “I have not the slightest fear for that part of the industry which produces good pictures,” Korda said. “I have only one fear about the quota - that the public will go on supposing that this country makes quota films and nothing else. We have made bad films, but we have also made good ones. The appreciation we have received in America, where ‘The Divorce of Lady X’ is now doing well, proves that. Sense of Achievement “It is difficult for British films to break into the American market. Nevertheless, great headway has been made in the last four or five years, and for London Film Productions I claim the lion’s share of the progress. “The one thing that the British film industry needs to borrow from Hollywood is its sense of achievement. In Hollywood no one talks of failure. Everyone talks of success. “We shall begin our new programmes at Denham with six pictures, each to cost a minimum of £120,000.” The first of the' new films will be a new version of A. E. W. Mason’s “The Four Feathers,” which was made as a silent film in 1922 and had great success as a talking picture in 1930. Robert Donat will probably play the hero. Negotiations in America Other productions will be a film m colour, telling a story of the Russian ballet; “Lawrence of Arabia”; an original drama by R. C. Sheriff of a flight from London to Hongkong called “The King’s Messenger”; a musical film with the story by Robert Sherwood and music by Irving Berlin, if he can find the time to come to London; and another original R. C. Sheriff story. These pictures will mean renewed activity and renewed employment at the Denham studios. Explaining the failure of the negotiations for gaining control of United Artists by himself and Samuel Goldwyn for £1,200,000, Mr KorJa said that the aim of London Film Productions was to reduce expenditure on distribution costs. The object of the purchase of the cg- troU'.ng interest in United Artists would have been to reduce their expenditure in that way. Distribution Problem That was only one of several methods available and it was c nside.ed that the expenditure of such a large sum would not be justified. “It was an investment,” Korda adaed, “which we do not feel we could enter into in the present state of the Aim industry.” He said that he was in negjtiition with major distribution companies in the United States (other than United Artists) with a view to the possible release of London Film productions in that country.