American cinematographer (May 1937)

180 Amfirican Cinematographer • May, 1937 that neither Chamberlain nor Drink- water lived to witness the showing- of the picture. It was Stumar’s success in photo- graphing storm scenes at home that caused an English producer to cable him an attractive offer last summer. It was explained an English classic was set to go, with a second picture slated to follow. The cameraman learned it really was a classic—“The Mill on the Floss,” by George Eliot— and on August 21 he left Hollywood, sailing on the Queen Mary five days later. Incidentally it was a trip on which the blue ribbon was taken from the Normandie for a fast run. All-English Staff “The Mill on the Floss” was made and delivered in four weeks despite the delay encountered in the making of daylight exteriors on account of the weather, necessitating booster lights, and the following handicaps imposed on the night storm scenes due to sudden and frequent shifts in the direction of the wind. But the A.S.C. man says the storm stuff was just what the doctor ordered, with a cor- responding high rating when the sub- ject was trade shown. With the exception of the camera- man the staff was all-English. The film is now running in England. Under the direction of Melville Brown the cameraman went immedi- ately into “Star Dust,” a musical. Three Americans were in the cast— Wally Ford, Ben Lyon and Lupe Velez. Larry Ceballos guided the thirty-six girls and thirty-six boys through their steps. “Intimate Relations” The American’s third picture was “Intimate Relations,” a semi-musical, directed by Clayton Hutton. Aside from June Clyde, the cast and per- sonnel were English. About five weeks were devoted to the making. The subject had not been trade shown when Stumar sailed for home. “The Kings’ People,” as inevitably was bound to be the case, was epi- sodic in nature. Stock shots were em- ployed of historic scenes, some of these extending back into the era of Victoria. Woven in with them would be scenes of living participants. One of the most effective of these attended the appearance of G. B. S., to the au- dience there seemingly being some- thing uncanny about it. The stamp of John Drinkwater was prominently on the picture. Not only did he write the story. Also he played in it, as did the members of his family. Much of it was staged in his own home, in the midst of his great pot- tery and bottle collection, covering many generations of English arti- sanry. The author will be remembered as the writer in 1919 of the popular play “Abraham Lincoln,” successful in England as well as in the United States. In this country Frank Mc- Glynn attained fame as the portrayer of the President. Drinkwater also later wrote a biography of Carl Laemmle. The film will be distributed by War- ner Brothers Pictures Ltd. Its re- lease in the United States was pend- ing in the middle of April. Praises Coworkers “Yes, I had a marvelous time in London,” declared Stumar to the edi- tor on the occasion of a visit to the new home of the A.S.C. on his arrival in Hollywood. “It takes no time at all for any one blessed with even a minor sense of humor to discover that if he will resign himself to circum- stances as he finds them, to forget what he knows about the seeming ad- vantages of home weather, to take things for granted and as matter of fact, that he can get along and do well and ha\-e a good time simultaneously. “The crews in the different studios were 100 percent with me and seemed to like the stranger’s way of doing things. I certainly have got to hand it to them for making a man feel at home.” BLUE RIBBON FOR R. K. O. R KO-Radio is engaging in a bold experiment. In all respects it is a worthy one as well. By the time this is printed Barrie’s “Quality Street” will be well on its way. Here is a stage play written thirty-five years ago by a man then forty-two years old and around a small English community between 1805 and 1815— the period marking the close of the Napoleonic era. Quality Street is a highway where women abound and the passing of a Man is an event. Peering from be- hind the parted curtains that herald the appearance of a male person are no bad women. The cynic will sug- gest there can be none'—that there are no temptations. And that of course will be unfair. The experimental phase enters in the bringing of these ultra-conven- tional women of a hundred and thirty years ago, these women of the sim- plest lives, of the most sheltered ex- istence, into the white light of life in 1937—into a time of wealth loot- ing and bloodletting. Here is a story where though sol- diers march to the stirring roll of drums not a shot is fired, not a blow is struck—if we except the blow of a croquet mallet in the hands of a jealous soldier driving a ball out of bounds. To one who but a few weeks be- fore had by his own fireside reread “Quality Street” in “Representative Plays,” by J. M. Barrie, there was a play outside a play in following the reactions of the great audience in Pantages Hollvwood at the prev ew In the beginning there was plainly an “Aw! Aw!” attitude on the part of the house, a seeming predicament of indecision whether openly to snicker at rather than with the (juaint char- acters. Graduallv the great house fell under the Barrie spell. Gone was the jazz era, with its profanity and bloodletting. Present was the day of Napoleon; Victoria, the apostle of womankind, was not even yet born. Long before the curtain fell the house was won. And again Barrie, master of the simple and the whole- some, also had won. By the way, students of playwrit- ing and the creating of scenarios will find instruction as well as entertain- ment in the reading of “Representa- tive Plays,” by J. M. Barrie, Scrib- ners, with an introduction by William Lyon Phelps. The foregoing was written in March. In the pressure of makeup for the April issue it was cast to the wolves. The item, however, bobbed up in the “overmatter.” In the mean- time it had come to the editor’s at- tention the picture has won out with the multitude—and in spite of its homespun atmosphere, its pre-Victo- rian feminine viewpoint, its lack of the blood-curdling, melodramatic bun- combe, it is registering boxoffice re- turns of 35 to 49 percent in excess ot the average picture. In it is a lesson for those who aim to give the best. Our compliments to RKO. • If RKO’s “Quality Street,” was an excellent portrayal of the beginning of the nineteenth century, then its splendid “Shall We Dance?” re- leased in April, will bring to its au- diences a revelation of life as it is at the moment. The two subjects make an excellent contrast. We have the simple ways of rural England in 1805, a community where the women are shy and retiring, against an at- mosphere of the theater and the night club, of Paris and New York, where the women not only are neither shy nor retiring but are ready to meet men on their own ground, with an even chance of winning the honors that go to the skilled in daring, in strategy and in finesse. To those who would look upon two rare and widely diverse examples of .screen production here is a chance.