The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

March-April, 1953 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 31 match and go. The problem is how to break it to his father. Auntie (Adrianne Allen) urges him to put the poet off. " What, for a cricket match? He'll think me silly." After a most moving scene between father and son, the boy sets out to see Morley, only to find him much more interested in cricket. When he discovers the boy is the son of the famous cricketer, whom he has in fact admired since his schooldays, Morley is astounded that he is not at the Oval. " If I could have got a ticket for the Oval myself," says Morley, " you wouldn't have seen me for dust." The boy can get him in. So they set out together for the Oval and there is an exciting and most amusing dash through the streets in a ramshackle old sports car that the poet drives to the danger of life and limb of all, both those inside and out of the car. They arrive just in time to see Jack Warner go in. But I think I have told you enough to whet your appetite, the rest must be unfolded by the film itself. I shall add, however, just this: there is the development of a romantic interest between Jack Warner and a barmaid, played beautifully and most touchingly by Brenda Bruce. Now a word or two about the cricket. There is, of course, a Test Match as a background to the story; and, for this purpose, we had to select an English Test team, making it conform as nearly as possible to the team that will meet the Australians later this year, a team which has not yet been officially selected. The players we picked were Len Hutton and Cyril Washbrook as the opening batsmen, with Denis Compton, Jim Laker, Alec Bedser and Godfrey Evans to follow and we engaged them to play themselves on the screen. Into this team we had to fit two actors — Jack Warner as Sam Palmer and Richard Bebb as Frank Weller, who have important parts in the film. The real cricketers too are required to contribute to the progress of the story. So the task that confronted us was a two-fold one — to make actors out of cricketers and cricketers out of actors. For the latter purpose we sent Jack Warner to Alf Gover's cricket school in Surrey, where he worked hard at the nets and found it much more difficult to learn how to miss a ball than to hit it. Of the cricketers, Len Hutton had by far the biggest speaking part, in all about twelve pages in the script. Consciously it is always difficult to (Continued on page 52) Cyril Washbrook Len Hutton Jack Warner Godfrey Evans Anthony Asquith Kathleen Hosgood Tony Hearne Bill Allen Bill MacLeod Claude Hitchcock Charlie Knott R. J. Minney Arthur Barnes