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ALEXANDER KORDA
and the INTERNATIONAL FILM
In an Interview with
STEPHEN WATTS
In the midst of the most important forty-eight hours in his career since he became a film producer in Britain, Alexander Korda sat in his Mayfair office and talked to me about the international aspect of film-making.
The time and place were peculiarly appropriate. The previous evening I had stood by Korda's side in the Carlton Hotel w7hile Douglas Fairbanks, senior, and his even more talented junior, discoursed on their plan to remain in Britain and make their future pictures in collaboration with the Korda organisation. They saw no reason why their locale should affect the world-wide appeal their work had enjoyed in the past, which meant that they were crediting Korda with the ability to turn out international films with a consistency never before attempted in this country.
Moreover, the elder Fairbanks made no secret of the fact that a preview of Korda's chef d'ceuvre, The Private Life of Henry VIIL had been the deciding factor in clinching his arrangements.
While we talked, Korda had many times to lift the telephone at his side and murmur responses to the verbal bouquets showering in on him from friends who had seen the first showing of the Laughton film the previous evening. Then that night, too, was of importance, because it was going to bring to light another aspect of Korda, the director, in the first screening of his Paris-made comedy, The Girl from Maxim's.
I said the place was appropriate to our subject. The office of London Film Productions might well be sub-titled 'International House." I am credibly informed that eight languages are in current use among the personnel. From the German conversation between two members of the staff in an ante-room I passed in to be greeted in Hungarian-accented English by Korda, who sat speaking Italian into a telephone.
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