Cinema... Snapshots

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20952, 3 November 1939, Page 8

Cinema ... Snapshots

Rolf Richardson Declines to Be A Great Star. Picture-goers, who have already seen Richardson in “ Things to Come," “ The Man Who Could Work Miracles,” “ The Divorce of Lady X,” “ South Riding,” “ The Citadel,” and “ Four Feathers,” will have another opportunity of admiring his work in Clouds Over Europe." British producers are tumbling over themselves with offers to Richardson, and at least half a dozen times he has been invited to Hollywood. The only thing that prevents him from becoming a great star is Mr Richardson himself. He does not want to become a star. He fears that if he did go into films for good he would degenerate. “ My job,” he says, “ is to amble through life with no particular ambition and no clearly defined policy, appearing in films and plays whenever a subject appeals to me. To be always in the public eye, to be considered a * great’ actor, to have to go on making film after film, each bigger and more splendid than the last, would kill for me all the fun of being an actor.” “ I’m Terribly Ugly * As a child Richardson had a feeling of inferiority about his appearance, and he thinks his stage ambitions may have been due to desire to surround himself, with a glamour he could never attain in ordinary life. At the age of 16 he met a young actor and told him of his ambitions. “I’m terribly ugly and I have a shocking memory,” he apologised. Do you think there is any chance?” “Of course there is,” came the reply, and Richardson received a letter of introduction to a producer. The producer gave him the job of standing under the stage and creating thunder on a huge gong whenever he was given the cue. The cue was two raps on the stage with a staff. He did not know that one of the men in the show had a wooden leg, and every time this actor walked on to the stage young Richardson thundered. He felt sure he would get the sack, but instead the whole company looked on it as a huge joke. “ That was their general attitude toward acting,” he says, “and it was right. That is what I try to retain. Become a famous star and you begin to lose that attitude and see yourself out of your proper proportion." Determination never to lose that “proper proportion” is the reason Richardson refuses to pose for studio portraits, sign autographs or allow publicity men to publish inaccurate stories about his career. “It is no use trying to plan and engineer great sequences,” he explains. “ They just happen. Tell yourself you are going to make something great, and you are almost certain to make a hash of it. That is another reason I dread stardom. An international reputation, the knowledge that the world is waiting for you to do something stupendous must,weigh on actors’ minds like lead. I often think that a chap like Muni must look back a little sadly to those day when he was still a young actor at the Yiddish Theatre, bejjre greatness had overtaken him and when acting was still fun.” Greer Carson And Robert Taylor In “Remember.” Greer Carson’s first American picture—the result of her fine work in “ Good-bye, Mr Chips ” —has now been in production for nearly three weeks. It’s called “ Remember,” and has Robert Taylor as leading man pretty good start for an American career. Greer’s role will, it appears, be in striking contrast to the part she played in “Mr Chips.” According to advance details from the studio, the story deals with a young business man who steals his best friend’s girl, and then forgets her in the press of business. It’s described as “ a sparkling modern comedy.” Norman McLeod is the director, and the supporting cast includes Lew Ayres, Billie Burke, Laura Hope Crews and George Barbier. Basil Ralhbone In Neu) Film. Although we are accustomed to Basil Rathbone as a villain, somehow it is difficult to associate his polished wickedness with the kind of retribution that takes a man to Devil's Island. Yet it is as a prisoner at one of these penal settlements in the murky tropics that he spends the greater part of his current film, “ Rio,” which he is making for Universal. He enters the story as one of those spectacular financiers whose vast interests are founded on shady practice. Then he is transported to the convict hell-hole, falls foul of the guards and experiences most of the horrors that we have come to expect in films of this kind. But even as a convict the financier remains a remarkable and dominant man. Prominent in the supporting cast is Victor McLaglen, who appears as Rathbone’s secretary. Others include Irving Bacon, as a suffering prisoner, and Irving Nichel, as a brutal guard. FLASHES Q.RETA GARBO, having finished “ Ninotchka,” is due to start on “ Madame Curie ” after six weeks’ holiday. • • * • PRODUCTION on “Once Upon a Time,” Sam Goldwyn’s film about Hans Andersen, is being delayed in order to get the Danish consul’s approval on the script. Gary { Cooper is to play the fairy-tale i writer.