Motion Picture Herald (May-Jun 1943)

40 MOTION PICTURE HERALD May 15, 1943 in BRITISH STUDIOS By AUBREY FLANAGAN, in London Though wartime conditions continue to prevent the maximum total of British film productions reaching any but an increasingly meagre level, British producers as a body are far from inactive or dispirited these days. Indeed it would seem that the inevitable limitations imposed on physical production have provoked an output of increased energy in other directions. The ambitious plan for an entry into the post war markets of Europe and elsewhere, recorded extensively in the last issue of MOTION PICTURE HERALD, is a case in point, betokening as it does a definite, and not improbably overdue sense of the seriousness of the producer's role, a realization that unless he does something about extending his territory and consolidating it, nobody else is likely to do it for him. Central authority for, and source of all these movements is, of course, the British Film Producers Association, that band of stalwarts and less-sos, producers, studio owners, laboratory men and others whose existence and adventurings, since its derivation from the old F. B. I. Film Group, has been vicissitudinous and none too effective. It would seem that leadership was for some time an essential lacking, an essential which temporarily the late C. M. Woolf seemed likely to supply, and which has now crystalized into the respectful and awed homage paid the Association's present president, Mr. J. Arthur Rank. Producers Group Expands Staff Now some reorganization is being imbued into the body, with a full time secretary and an extended office staff in prospect. The process should take a considerable load from the all too ready shoulders of Mr. William G. Hall, M.P., who has, as Vice Chairman, acted as organizer, secretary, liaison and general backbone of the producers' group. Increased membership fees are proposed in order to facilitate increased organization and increased activities. £500 is the figure aimed at. The admission of the press to BFPA meetings — punctuated with polite provisos that certain matters be not reported — is another indication of realization of importance of that body's role. The ratification of a standard agreement on working conditions with the employees' unions is a progressive step and indicates the development of a serious point of view. Dissensions Exist In BFPA Unit There remain dissensions and divisions within the BFPA, as indeed there must in any trade body built from such various constituents. Suspicions of certain interests by others, fears of monopoly, and a hint of foreigner baiting have not been invisible to the close student of the production scene. They are not general or intensive, however, and unlikely to hold the BFPA back from the development and progress upon which it seems bent, and which it and its members are likely to achieve. American producer interests here are not represented on the Association. The British Ministry of Information, under whose imprimatur REPORT WARNERS BIDDING FOR ABP Warner Brothers was reported this week in London to be engaged in a bidding duel with J. Arthur Rank for the 1,000,000 shares of Associated British Pictures owned by Mrs. John Maxwell, widow of the former ABP head. Mr. Rank is said to have recently offered $3,600,000 for the Maxwell shares. Neither Mrs. Maxwell nor the British Board of Trade are believed to be sympathetic to the sale of the shares to foreign interests but observers say there is at present no justifiable means of preventing such a sale. virtually every British producer operates today, is so represented, guiding, suggesting, offering a fraternal hand, but seldom threatening or bludgeoning. Such courses have so far been unnecessary. Noel Coward Begins "This Happy Breed" Shooting commenced this week on the Two Cities Noel Coward production "This Happy Breed," which is being made in Technicolor at Denham under the direction of David Lean. Mr. Coward is producer, and the team which made "In Which We Serve" are in charge of production: Antnony HavelockAllan, David Lean and Ronald Neame. Mr. Neame is also in charge of photography. Written by Mr. Coward, "This Happy Breed" is the story of twenty years' peace, and covers such events as Armistice 1918, the Peace Procession in 1919, the Wembley Exhibition 1924, the General Strike in 1926, and other incidents. This period is seen through the eyes of a lower Middle class family living in Clapham. The family whose lives are followed consists of Frank Gibbons (Robert Newton), his wife, Ethel (Celia Johnson), his mother-in-law, Mrs. Flint (Amy Veness), his sister Sylvia (Alison Leggatt), the Gibbons daughters, played by Kay Walsh, Eileen Erskine, and the son (John Blythe), and their next door neighbours, the Mitchells (John Mills and Stanley Holloway). Warners have stepped again into the production arena this week, and opening up the Teddington Studios, have sent Brian Desmond Hurst to work on "Youth Looks Ahead." The picture marks Anne Crawford's fourth appearance for the company in a little more than twelve months. Other principals include Richard Attenborough, who has just scored in the stage hit, "Brighton Rock" ; Mary Clare and Frederick Lester in parental roles ; Francis Lister as a night-club proprietor aligned with the Black Market. Hellinger Idea Given English Flavor Broadway columnist Mark Hellinger originally had the yarn in mind for Hollywood, but decided the English racing background was better suited because of the national service theme the story also contained. Brock Williams has developed the idea into a comedy-drama centering on a staid old bank teller who finds himself transferred to a tote-window and involved in the high finance of horses. A marked flavor of fantasy, fantasy of the most extravagant variety, can be tasted at either or both of the Gaumont-British Studios, at Shepherds Bush and Islington, currently. In the former Tommy Handley, under the directorial eye of Walter Forde is working on "Time Flies," a whimsy in which he and his colleagues Evelyn Dall, George Moon and Felix Aylmer are cast back into Elizabethan England, and the Court of the Virgin Queen. Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain John Smith and Pocahontas are among the characters involved with the 1943 Handley and Co. Realism Keynote of Ealing War Film At Islington Arthur Askey, directed by Val Quest, is cavorting in an equally fantastic setting for "Bees In Paradise." He is transported to an all-women community, where Anne Shelton as Queen of the Feminine Court is served by an all-female bodyguard of hand selected lovelies in the best Gainsborough tradition. In contrast to this fictional adventuring stark realism of the most contemporary variety holds the floor at Ealing. Shooting has opened there on Michael Balcon's production "San Demetrio, London," on a set representing the "Jervis Bay." In the battle of the cruiser "Jervis Bay" against the German raider, the "Admiral Scheer," a tanker of the convoy, the "San Demetrio" had to be abandoned, but was found by 16 of her crew next day, still burning. How they boarded her, put out the flames and brought the ship with 11,000 tons of oil back to port, is told in this film. Actuality, too, is aimed at by director Gordon Wellesley in his Vera Lynn musical for Columbia release, "We Love to Sing." An exact replica of one section of Britain's most hush-hush armament factory has been reconstructed in the Riverside Studios. Special permits were granted by the layout and machinery of the factory accurately— but with sufficient modifications to fool film-concious fifth columnists. New Company Is Also At Work A new production company, Holyrood Film Productions, has added its activities to those of British producers currently at work. Actual shooting on the company's first "The Silver Darlings" will probably not be launched till June, but already Karl Grune, producer, and Clarence Elder, director, have set forth for the far Scottish coast to prospect locations for the Neil Gunn story. Most of it will be shot on exteriors. To be shot, too, almost entirely in the open air of rural Britain is the Two Cities production devised around the talents, directorial, literary and acting, of Mr. Bernard Miles' "Tawny Pipit." Miles, whose personal responsibility this film will be, has arranged to take over, lock, stock, and rainwater barrel an entire Sussex village. There, in the sequestered quiet of thatched roofs, and bird thronged woodland, he will make the film which he has conceived. V Production is concluded on Anatole De Grunwald's Two Cities film "The Demi Paradise" and it has now gone into the Denham cutting rooms with the probability that it will turn out as one of the year's outstanding pictures. V Herbert Wilcox's last big set on "Yellow Canary" has gone up at Denham and work will shortly finish on the Anna Neagle film.