The seven deadly sins of Hollywood (1957)

GENIUSES AT LARGE Joe, born in Puerto Rico, educated in Switzerland, Princeton and Hollywood, was playing a Royal Marine in an American production about a British wartime exploit. This actually took place in Bordeaux. The reason the film was being shot in Lisbon instead of on the Thames, which would have been nearer, was because the company making it, Warwick Films, believe in using authentic locales. The reason it was not being made in the authentic locale — Bordeaux — was because authenticity cannot always be all that authentic. It would have cost more there. Anyway, I was assured that only a Baedeker could tell the difference between the Gironde river, France, scene of the expedition, and the River Tagus, Portugal, scene of the film. Moreover, the Portuguese were providing the kind of facilities no film tycoon could afford to sneeze at: a rent-free British submarine, which I was told would have cost £5,000 to hire in England, and the use of many other naval vessels. Down in the submarine, against a decor of twisting tubes and pipes, and levers and dials, I asked Genius Joe to explain the reason for his frantic versatility. What made him play Cyrano de Bergerac (for which he won an Oscar) one day, and cavort around as a song-anddance man the next? What made him go from Othello to Cockleshell Heroes, one of those all-male films whose heaviest demand upon the actor is the ability to paddle a cockleshell (a tiny canoe) and keep a stiff upper lip. Said Ferrer: "There are actors, like James Gagney and Alan Ladd, whose personality is always the same. Now, I am not saying anything against them. They are fine. But there are also people like Laurence Olivier and Louis Jouvet, whose personality changes with the part. I belong to the second category. I am hired 137