TOO MUCH LIMELIGHT.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17410, 24 May 1928, Page 14

TOO MUCH LIMELIGHT.

POLITICIANS AND KINEMA. FILM THAT WAS NOT TAKEN. When -the sitting of the French Chamber of Deputies is opened each day the President walks, with the accustomed ceremony, through the principal lobby, which is called the/Salle des Pas Perdus, to the highly-perch-ed seat, from which he commands the debate. He wears neither robe nor wig, like the Speaker of a British parliamentary chamber, nor is there a Mace to carry before him. He is in plain evening dress, with a top hat, which may be useful to him in the course of the day, as it is by putting it upon his head that he can indicate, when the assembly has become too excited to be brought to order by the most vigorous ringing of his dinner bell, that the sitting is suspended. The traditional procession is not without dignity or colour, nevertheless. The President is accompanied by a detachment of the Republican Guard, between whose ranks he walks to his seat, and his entrance is announced by a roll of the drums. There is also a touch of the picturesque, not to say of the theatrical, about the disposition of the Chamber itself. Below the President is what is called the tribune, from which the orators, one after another .address the assembly—for they do not address the President. The Stage All Set. The tribune is a raised platform, reached by steps from either side, and with a desk in front. Upon desk the Deputy lays out the papers of the “dossier,” which he has carried up from his place in his “serviette,” and over it he looks at those to whom he is to make his speech. On his way up he has indicated to 'the usher, in black and silver uniform, with court sword and a chain like a wine-waiter at an English public dinner, whether he will take white wine or water as refreshment during his speech, and the glass of what he has chosen is duly brought to him. As he settles'down to work the speaker sees in front of him the seats of his audience, opening out in rising and semi-circular tiers. The nearest curve, on the floor below him, is that of the Ministerial benches —the members of th,e Government can appear and speak either in the Chamber of Deputies or in the Senate. Behind and above them are the Deputies, ranging from the Royalists on the extreme right of the tribune, to the Communists on its extreme left. The orator has plnty of room for freedom of’acton and gesture; but he is liable of action and gesture; but he is liable sometimes cause him to fold his arms for as long as 10 minutes at a time, waiting for an opportunity to be heard. N It was this scene —ceremonial, orators, interrupters, and all—which the Kinematograph company had made elaborate arrangement to record recently, when M. Poincaire began a long-expected speech upon the financial situation. The President had been approached, as he has since announced in an official communique, and had submitted tthe matter to the “Questre,” or body of permanent officials who are there to advise him on matters of procedure. They had replied that there was no objection. M. Poincaire, it is said, had also been warned what was to happen, and was ready to play his part.

Very Shy Politicians.

The film was not taken, however, as the supers, or “extra gentleman,” as they are called in the best theatres, showed a marked disinclination to appear. Many of the Deputies protested in no uncertain tones when they found enormous kinematograph cameras and lighting appliances installed on the steps of the amphitheatre. The enterprise was at once abandoned, and the sitting had to he susbended while this unusual paraphanalia was removed. The real grounds of the protest are not quite clear. Some say that suspicious Socialists and others saw themselves being asked to form the crowd in a very effective piece of Poincarist electioneering propaganda, and were not by the statement of the President that the film was being taken, not for exhibition, but to be stored in the archives of the Chamber. Others suggest that the objectors were merely jealous of those who were to be in the limelight. Others, again, allege patriotic motives, the filming company being an American firm which was thus unfairly competing with French industries. , ~ Perhaps, after all, remarks the Paris correspondent of a London paper, It had occurred to' some of the legislators that the whole thing was not quite up to the dignity of the Chamber of Deputies of the Republic.