FRANK CAPRA, THE MAN WHO MADE "MR DEEDS"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 142, 3 July 1937, Page 10

FRANK CAPRA, THE MAN WHO MADE "MR DEEDS"

The gehtleman with the cockade in his hat who opened the hotel door gave me one look land sald, "Film luncheon, madam?" I admitted it, and went in search of the reading-room, where Mr. Frank Capra and Mr. Robert Riskin were to meet the Pre3s (wrote a London film correspondeht). I have been to film receptions in boats, in trains, in gardens, on theatre stages, and even once in a charabanc going to the Derby, but never in a reading room before. It seemed an odd place to me, but then the film business is an odd business. I wasu't really surprised when I got there to fmd there was neither a book nor a paper in the jdace. An archway divided the reading room from the common mob of preluncheon 'snackers. On the archway was pinned a card with the word "Private." Beyond the arch could be seen forty or fifty film critics, half a dozen major trade celebrities, Mr. Robert Riskin, Mr. Hugh Walpole, aud Mr. Charles Laughton in animated talk. Presently, a short, dark fellow with American "shoulders and Italian eyes eame sauntering up, hands in pockets. He stood outside th'e archway and read the "private" card with interest. After some hesitation, with the nonchalance of the profoupdly shy, he ventured in, joined a group of talkers, and listenod with respect to the conversa- ' tion, Mr. Capra had arrived. Deeds Not Words. Frank Capra would always " listen rather than talk. Head tilted back a little, wliite teeth showing in his friendly smile, he says practically aothing with. extreme authority. I should' think no visiting celebrity ever got away from his own reception with lower words to his credit. Robert RisI tciu, live, brisk American,, scenario.writer, ex-newspaper man, is Capra 's ofiicial voice. When conversation becomos too dif-. (lcult Riskin "interviews" Capra for the bcnefit of "the boys." He has tho questions which he knows will draw his colleague. Riskin has a highpressuro personality that gives the sensa of using every moiuent to advantage. Capra saunters through time as if time didji't exist. Charles Laughton, who knows him well, says that Capra is "all Italian at heart. " Born in Palermo, emigrating to the States as a small lad, he stiU lteeps the operatic instincts of his own eountry. There is something childish about him, something leisurely, and infectiously joyous. "Haven't you noticed," says Laughton "how all his best scenes sing?" Laughton , promised me that if 1 could get him to talk I should like Capra. I waited two hours. Then, while the red-white-and-blue table decorations — scarlet and white carnations, blue iris, bluo muscari— were being swept from the tables, I accosted him. "Will you have half an hour to spare any timo before the Coronation, Mr. Capra?" "You'll never find me less oecupied than I am right now," he said, His Pictures, Wo loft the private suite and found a quiet cornor of tho public lounge, where there was nobody. Capra pulled out his pipe, tamped the half-smoked tobacco with his odd, foreshortened thumb, played with it, put it away, forgot it, slowly bcgau to talk. Somctimcs ' I put in -a question. Sometimes ' lio answored it. More ofteu ho didn't. Capra doesn't talk easily, but when ho talks ho talks. He talks his own way; fcllows his own train of thought. You can't turn or hurry him. What comes. comes. ' ' I wish we had moro nows .for you, ' ' ho bogan, slowly. Ho ahvnys * says

"we'.' — himself and Riskin, collabora- » tors in tho skaping of every Capra film. ' "I don't want news. Tell me about the pictures you like to cuake," "Pictures about ordinary people." "In extraordinary circumstauces?" "Yes, perhaps. But I like . siniple people. I uuderstand them best, They're the same in every eountry. They do kind things and feel warmer for it— not be.cause of any laws, but' becauso of something inside of them. • Yon can call it God if you like. At. any rato, its something stronger than they are. Films like that are suceessful ovorywhere. We found that out with Mr. Deeds.* We thought at fir^t - that it was purely American suhject| dealing with American problems— "It was last. year's -box-offi.ee winnai! jn England." "It was last year's box-office winner • in Japan." Tickets As Medicine. "Do you think the public will be as friendly . towards ' Lost Horizon ' 1 ' ' "They are in America. The kids loye it. When the film ppened in New York there was . a mysterious person who kept on buying-up blocks of 200 seats. ' The theatre got suspicious, thought he was a rac'keteer and investigated. They found he was a famous New York doc-' tor, who was giving away the .tickets as a kind of medicine to his patientg." "And you think they.'U liko it aamuch over here?" ; "I hope so. I believe so. But the intellectuals won't like it." ' "my?" : . ■ • ; "Because it's .so simple. The intellectuals are deliberately. complex, They're churniug round and rouud in their own troubles. . They make theii; own chains, their own problems, theii; own heartaehes. If a little girl lovea her father, they say it's sex. If one man does, something friendly for another, they say it's sex. Frankly, X don't care much what they say, because they're not real people, and X don't believe in them. If I made 'Lost Horizon' again to-day, I shouldn't chan'ge a thing," ".Not even the ending?" "No. Technically, ' of course, it should have ended on that toast in the elnb. Wc made it that way, and. tried it out in Hollywood, but the audience didn't like it. They wanted to be sur that Robert Gonway got back to hi IJtopIa, And I don't bl^me them." The Lama's Speeches. "Wouldu't you even cut-the lama's speeches?" - "Not a word. The audiences love them. " 4 "Why didn't they like the same sort of thing in Wells's picture, 'Things To Come'?" ?; He pulled out his pipe, filled it again, slowly, before answering. "Because it' doesn't give them any answer to their problem. It is lef t with a question mark at the end, nothing to substitute for the bombs and gas and killing. It isn 't simple enough. All the great men, from Demosthenes downwards, have been simple. The lama's speeches, nlthougli they may seem silly to the highbrows, are a fairly -sound boiling down of the whole Christiaa doetrino. " Ho lit his pipe. A waiter came up, eonfidential and apologetic. "If you pleaso sir, I musA ask you " 'Not even' in England?" "I'm sorry, sir, Pipes " "Not even in tliis corner?" "I'm very sorry, sir." Capra put away the pipe obediently and wcnt on as if there had been no interruption. "They will be doing prctty well if tlicw just tako home thoso two words, Be kind." *