World Film and Television Progress (1938)

BOOK REVIEWS F We Make the Movies Edited bv Nancy Naumburg (Faber & Fa her. lO.y. 6c/.). AST on the heels of Behind the Screen comes the more solid performance of We Make the Movies. The idea is the same. Sixteen experts on film production analyse their respective jobs, and the whole process from script to screen is teased out bit by bit. The quality of this particular symposium may be judged by the names of the writers. It is an imposing list, containing names like Muni, Bette Davis, Walt Disney, Jesse Lasky and Sidney Howard, the writer. Judged strictly as an account of production processes, and as a compendium of information, no book could be better. All are first-rate workmen, and reflect their quality, and no one more than Robert E. Lee, who writes on the work of an Assistant Director. Few, perhaps, will want to know what an Assistant Director does in the world, but I get the impression that when all the shouting of producer, director, star, and "'director of photography" is over, Robert E. Lee and his like do most of the work. There is the nice earnestness about Paul Muni's contribution which one would expect SEEN ON EVERY SCREEN " Recording by Imperial Sound Studios '' This famous credit is to be found on practically every documentary film made in Great Britain and it is a si«rn that the producer has been discriminating in his choice of recording. Imperial Sound Studios 84WARDOI RST. GER. L963 of him. "Pictures must devote themselves to more than story or personality. They must present themes which will reach the audience. By recreating the lives and characters which have been potent social forces in their own time, perhaps the actor can reach people and influence them so that they will go forth with a new strength and a new vision for combating the evils of our own society." Bette Davis has a shorter, but less articulated receipt for the role of the actress. "Hard work does it, health, and the determination to let nothing stop you." By far the best essay in the book, however, is Sidney Howard's account of "How the story gets a treatment". If the book is, on the whole, a trifle too earnest and too informative, Mr. Howard blows the nonsense out of it with his first sentence. "The process by which the screen adaptor goes to work is, in itself, designed to cancel out inspiration." The rest is what one might expect from the fine dramatist who wrote "They Knew What They Wanted". Whatever Hollywood may do to its writers, it matures their humour. Visualising Curriculum By Charles F. Hoban, Snr. and Jnr. (The Garden Publishing Co. U.S.A.). Other visual aids to learning are apt to be forgotten by those who preoccupy themselves with films. The film might be a very superior instrument of observation but there are other school implements of great value. The novelty of the film tends to eclipse the value of other techniques. We are very grateful to the Hobans for putting the whole business in perspective. Visualising Curriculum discusses the school journey, the museum visit, the use of lantern slides, film strips, maps and illustrated books. The others find film the instrument par excellence for organised observation of the real world. Visits and journeys can develop techniques of observation and the newspaper can be a filter to organise experience. The school visit suffers because the real experience tends to be fortuitous, it is an unorganised experience. The newspaper technique sutlers because the process of editing and selecting which prepares the world for our inspection, may not give just the residue which the teacher needs. Documentary film, the authors find, gives a more balanced observation and dramatises the process which may remain dull and too particularised on a school visit. Film can show background and perspective to a process. It can gather examples scattered in space and lime, and present them in a unity. Visualising Curriculum is itself an excellent example of an illustrated text-book. An imaginative make-up and profuse use of illustrated matter makes, what otherwise might have been just another text book, a readable and attractive example of modern school literature. IB. Bombay Riots By C. Denis Pegge (Honeyhill Press. 55.). This book is written in the form of a shooting script, but it does not claim to be the mere skeleton which the cameraman and cutter will later cover. It is, in itself, complete and satisfying. The author, seeking to convey the kaleidoscopic implications behind such an incident as the Ghandi riots in Bombay, the attitudes and problems of all sections of the community, the traditions and background of white men and Indians, has had forced on him this ingenious technique. The "shots" are not merely indicated ; their content and atmosphere is described with something of poetry. Once the tension, the suspense before a coming clash, has been established, the story moves on — shot by shot, exceedingly visual and never obtrusively literary— in such a manner that it is difficult to put it down before the end is reached. Film people will find it of technical interest. Others, less befogged with technicalities, will enjoy it for its qualities of sympathy and excitement, and for the very real picture of India and its problems which it so vividly paints. My Wife's The Least of It By William Gerhardi (Faber & Faber. 105. 6d.). MR. WILLIAM GERHARDI hits OUt at the Film Industry. His writing is unconventional and amusing. The film world gives him adequate scope and resources in a setting where the author's satirical humour can be seen at its best. The theme is a study of eccentricity and insanity (very much preferable to mediocrity) and this does much to make his characters seem even more human and alive than they might otherwise have been — for the novel is long and at times thin. Mr. Baldridge, an author, past the prime of life, is still reaping a meagre existence from his one and only success "Dixie". Life, however, is flat and the future uncertain. At last, at the end of his tether, he is persuaded to turn "Dixie" into a scenario and sell to a film company. He spares no efforts to convince the "big men" that "Dixie" is on the right track. Life becomes hectic and complicated. "Dixie" is not sold and our hero's exuberant optimism is taken from his eyes. Next he pops down another hole of escapism in his marriage to an insane millionairess, and becomes a whole-hearted supporter of the Charity Racket, in which the author's ironical humour finds abundant targets. BOMBAY RIOTS by C. DENIS PEGGE with a Foreword by the HON. ANTHONY ASQUITH RE-ISSUED 1938 at S/ ™ net HONEYHILL PRESS : Dry Drayton : Cambs 96