GEORGE ARLISS.

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19663, 24 August 1935, Page 17 (Supplement)

GEORGE ARLISS.

AN ACTOR’S LIMITATIONS. CANNOT OBLITERATE SELF, ■LOT OF RUBBISH WRITTEN. To find fault with George Arllss because in his amusing jumps into different periods and varying characters he finds it impossible to vault beyond the radius or orbit of his own diversified personality seems to me unreasonable, says a writer in the London Sunday Times. His assumption of the character of Cardinal Richelieu has all the virtues of and fewer faults than his previous impersonations. Every great actor has only a limited number of facets to his histrionic self. The artist who is able so to sink his ego as to become unrecognisable and completely immersed in a totally different personality has never succeeded and never will. For the simple reason that such a process makes too great a call upon mimicry, a lesser art than self-exploitation. Rid yourself ■of boredom and imagine “ Richelieu ” as the first painting from the Arliss studio. You will then exclaim “ A perfect, piece of casting! An ideal man for the character.”

His Own Personality. Arliss is always Arliss, just as Henry Irving was always Henry Irving and Laughton is. always Laughton and Hardwicke is always Hardwicke, and ■any fine actor can never, be he ever so ■clever, escape from the trammels of his creative limits and must for ever see his own personality peeping through the chinks of his characterisation. But are we to think less of Arliss because of this ever-present necessity of fitting himself to a personage? I have seen the elder Irving play Richelieu, and with great success. \ Was he any the less himself? Decidedy not.

A lot of rubbish has been written about so-cal'ed “real” acting. It has been said that, ar.tlno as an art calls for an obliteration of self. Tho actor who tries this game will obliterate himself off tho boards. It never has succeeded and never will.

Here in Arliss we have a personality so adaptable, so sensitive, so pliable, that it can be made instantly' in harmony, in vital communion with any period, any state of being, any emotion. His portrayal of this crafty autocrat, so energetic and authoritative, so shrewd, mnrdantly humorous, so absolute, is compelling and insinuating. He makes a living Richelieu. | Suffers from Modern Idiom. I The picture offers us a series of wonderful photographs. It has been ■choicely and fittingly apparelled. It has been directed with skill. But unhappily if. does not, continuously suggest the period. Occasionally the , ear is jarred by clipped utterances. It : suffers from modern idiom and in- ’ flexion. As a feast for the eye it is ; sumptuous. Tf represents a progres- | sion of art. in the film studio. ! The other characters are perhaps, this time excusably, .shadowy or evanescent irruptions and intrusions upon the Arliss pomp and circumstance. •Maureen O'Sullivan brings the airs of an Irish colleen to a French court. Edward Arnold is not too repellent ns the monarchical victim, and Francis l ister not 100 effeminate as Prince Gaston.