The Cine Technician (1939)

22 TH E C I N 1-1TEC IINICIA \ April-Ma) . 1937 will consider that they have been adequately punished by my reprimand. I have the honour to be Sir, Your Obedient Servant, — Captain, i/c Photographic Section, General Staff. 16th November, 1918. To be present on H.M. ship "Princess Royal" when H.M. King George V. knighted Vice-Admiral Pakenham, and only nine feet away from the actual ceremony, was a most embarrassing position for me. I felt that I was intruding on a very intimate and solemn occasion. H.M. King Goerge V. was always very considerate to us. I remember once when the Grand Fleet called, I had arranged all the crew of the "Queen Elizabeth" on the gun turrets, and His Majesty and Earl Beatty, Commanderin-Chief, suddenly appeared on the quarter deck and stopped in front of me. King George asked me whether I was getting some good pictures. I replied that as a matter of fact the camera had become jammed. He threw back his head and laughed heartily, and said to Earl Beatty, "We have broken the camera!"— but the fact remains that their departure was delayed until I had rethreaded my camera and the picture had been taken. To recall a few instances from war days. I was lucky enough to get into Zeebrugge while the "Intrepid," "Iphigenia" and "Thetis" were in the channel and the piers still burning, and Captain Hamilton-Benn of M.L. 532 took me to the end of the Mole and said, "Touch nothing ! Something will go up very shortly." In army parlance — • "Booby Trap." At the end of my journey to Cologne to record the entrance of our troops to take over the bridge-heads, I stopped at a place called Zulpich and demanded billets for myself and Jack Brooke. We were received and entertained handsomely, but in the morning Herr Schaller, the owner of the house, showed me very proudly his factory, which he was altering from a shell-case factory to boot making. Whether he misunderstood my keen interest or not may have been the reason for the following letter : — SCHUHFABRIK SCHALLER Zulpich, den 7 Dezember, 1918. Mr. Frank A. Bassill, Official Kinematographer of the British Armies. In France. Dear Sir, I don't know it" the address is right written, hut I hope so. I would ask you something : don't you know an English Shoefactoi v, which makes heavy boots and shoes for streetwen ? I should like to become General-Agent for Germany. Of course, it would be very easy to sell these shoes with my Workmen-shoes together. This may be a good buissiness just the same for You, as for me. I hope, You will find any occassion to let me know it there is any possibility. Yours faithfully (signed) John S< haller. In the United Provinces of Central India, with H.R.H. Duke of Connaught, my seal for a Tiger Hunt was an elephant, and four hours on that would satisfy anyone. The elephant preferred to go down and up the other side of a ravine instead of taking a doubtfully safe bridge. Ea< h time he reached the top of his climb, he just cleared his throat and covered me with a very sticky mess which, coupled with the extreme heat, soon conveyed to me that if I wanted to remain popular I must keep a fair distance from my friends. The stage was set in a small clearing in the jungle. Four shooting platforms made of bamboo were erected, and we settled down to wait, with the regular tap-tapping of the beaters gradually getting louder and louder. Then we were treated to one of the greatest acrobatic demonstrations I have ever seen in or out of a circus, by hordes of monkeys climbing with tail, hand and foot, swinging screaming through the trees, so many of them in fact that they created what seemed to me a strong breeze. Then stag or "sambre" gave a wonderful jumping performance, but no tiger — so I had to look forward to another little jaunt back on the elephant. Another time I was making a film of a terra-monta — an earthquake in other words, near the Marble Hills in Italy. I was in Carrara when the earthquake occurred, and by the time I arrived on the spot, all that was left of the city was a heap of concrete slabs and plaster. Old peasant women were sitting on the spots where their homes once stood — wailing and refusing to leave the wreckage of where their homes had been for so many generations. It was a pitiful sight, and great cracks appearing in the road made me anxious to get back. I would also briefly sketch such things as the SikiMcTigue fight in Dublin on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, where there was a little trouble between the Free State troops and the rebels. The venue was a theatre in O'Connell Street, and the whole vestibule was occupied by men with very big revolvers, determined to have a peaceful night. One of my colleagues, Ken Gordon, slept on the equipment all night, and we were escorted to the boat in the morning. Also, an aeroplane flight from Belfast with another colleague, Jock, with the picture of the opening of the Union Building by the King, when we dropped in a ploughed field at Weedon, and still got our picture back to London to publish the same night. The advent of sound has certainly added a lot of entertainment to our section of the business, but it has done away with the travelling part of it. I cannot help reflecting, however, that if sound had been applied to some of the early pictures, such as the Investiture of ex-King Edward as Prince of Wales in Carnarvon Castle, with all its wonderful setting, ceremony, singing and cheering, it would have remained one of the most impressive records of the cinema business. (Copyright in all countries by Frank A. Bassill and The Cine-Technician). Brunei's Play for Stage Presentation "Only Yesterday" (reviewed in our last issue), a play 1>V Adrian Brunei, adapted from the film, "Blighty," by the author and Ivor Montagu, is shortly due lor a London stage presentation in the West End. We wish every success to Mr. Brunei's first theatre venture and may his play have a long ami remunerative run.