AUTHOR AND FILM

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 148, 15 February 1932, Page 7

AUTHOR AND FILM

a. p. herbert's book MORE PICTURES AND LESS TALK ARE VIEWS OF WRITER. DIFFICULTIES AND REOOEDING. It was after Mr. A. P. Herbert had scored a "floorer" and won his. heat in a thrilling skittles match one evening at Hammersmith that he talked to me about his recent experiences during the filming of his popular hovel, "The Water Gijpsies," Writes G. W. B. in the Observer. The picture, which has been made by Mr. Basil Dean, with Mr. Maurice Elvey as director, will probably he showri in a few weeks. "I am not much of a film. 'fan'," Mr. Herbert said, as he mopped his hrow after a strenuous game, "but the 'watching brief that I held for 'The Water Gipsies' has given me a decided interest in the pictures. I learried a lot, and should like to have more truck with them, especially as I feel that the time has eome to try some comic opera on the screen. That is the form of drama that interests me most. I enjoyed the filming of 'The Water Gipsies,' and am pleased with what I have seen of the results. Of course, a gredt deal has been left out, but a real attempt has been made by Mr. Dean, Mr. Miles Malleson, who prepared the scenario, and Mr. Elvey to retain the essential spirit of the story. We had an excellent cast and Miss Ann Todd will be a very popular Jane. "Did they welcome the presence of the author?" In the Home. "Yes, I have always understood that in the opinion of the film world an author's place is in the home; so I was surprised and delighted that they not only permitted my presence, but invited suggestions from a complete stranger to celluloid. Of course, I had some special knowledge about canals, and skittles, and so forth. As a general rule I can see nothing odd or dangerous in having an author about, providing that he does not poke his nose into other people's departments. I feel that he should be kept handy on the premises throughout the production, as he is in a theatre. Only I would add that he should be paid for it, as i believe he is at Hollywood. An author knows, or ought to know, what his characters would say or do in the new circumstanees provided by the film. But it is certainly no use for an author to butt in for an afternoon or two. He may drop in for a few hours and detect some important mistake, and by that time the mistake is irrevocable. If he points out, say, that fish-por-ters do not wear top-hats, the answer is that the fish-porter was wearing his top-hat in' all the forty or fifty shots which have been taken that week, and he must therefore go on wearing it. And the fish-porter was especially engaged for the part and is returning to America on Monday — and there you are! More Pictures, Less Talk. "The trouble is so often the 'literrary' author," Mr. Herbert proceeded, after he had quenched his thirst. "He wants to keep in all the dialogue and retain most of the story. Personally, 'whenever I had anything to do with it, I was all for cutting dowri the talk and throwing overboard great chunks of the story in order to leave space for the pictures of the canal. "I think the 'talk' is a curse. In the old days the great claims of the film, as against the stage, was its superior mobility. It could take you into the desert, over the mountains, and up in the air. The claim was always exaggerated, but it seems to'be now to be non-existent. The films are chained to their own hackyards by this confounded talk. You can take a camera almost anywhere; but you cannot take a noise-waggon, hauling clouds of wires and things anyhere, and I was staggered by the difficulties of recording a few lines of dialogue on a moving canal boat. They were all very patiently and I think successfully got over, but continually these difficulties are popping up and making desirable effects impossible. When you have the vagaries of the English weather to contend with as well, the mobility of the film is again reduced. It is the stage now that can take you almost anywhere — look at 'Cavalcade'!" "Would you have preferred 'The Water Gipsies' as a silent picture?" "Yes; though I think it will emerge as a good 'talkie.' And anyone who produced good English talking 'exteriors' this summer deserves a row of medals. Imagine a delicate love scene being 'shot' by the side of a iock. It is Sunday, and there is a crowd of several thousand spectators , — all very obliging, and well behaved, but their babies will cry and their dogs will bark; the sun comes out once every half hour for about two minutes, when it does emerge, and the sound is ready, the babies quiet, three noisy aeroplanes fly overhead or a motor-boat comes along and the lock has to be evacuated. All has to he set again, and the sun disappears for all hour. The film people earn their moiiey, if only for their patience. Publicity Dangers. "I hope I am not giving the game away too much," Mr, Herbert continued, "for I have always thought that I should like to lecture the filni firms about their methods of publicity. As you are aware," he said with a smile, 'if there is one thing I do know something about it is other people's business. Film people seem to glory in giving away their secrets. If I go to a cinema and see an exciting scene on the edge of a snow-cliff in the Himalayas I like to think that iMs real snow on the edge of a real cliff, even if I suspeet it.is not a real Hymalaya. But the chances are that 'I have seen a series of 'publicity' photographs in the papers a few weeks earlier revealing the ingenious manner in which the effects were produced' outside some studio in the suburbs. As an example, I give the gigantic platform erected at Wandsworth to represent the Himalayan precipice in "Mountain Tops." In order to produce the "snow effects five million tpnS of castor sugar was- blown upon the structure with an aeroplane propeller.'

nudges her neighhour aild says, 'That's not snow, Its sugar. They did it at Wandsworth.' And the publicity man has been allowed to destroy the illusion which the producer has worked so hard to create. The skittles match was over, and I walked back with Mr. Herbert to his house, where he played over some of the tunes in the Offenbach operetta "La Belle Helene," upon which he has been working for Mr. Cochran. "Writing a comic opera libretto is a delightful but very arduous job; the hardest form of work I know. I envy those gay young "straight" dramatists who dash off a play in a fortnight The hook of comic opera never takes less than three months, and then the trouble has only just begun." Mr. Herbert's "Derby Day" is also