SCREEN HEROINES GET TOUGH

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5329, 15 February 1947, Page 7

SCREEN HEROINES GET TOUGH

-•> ARTIFICIAL WOMEN '1NICE GIRL" IS OUTMOlDED. A notable post-war film trend1 is the disappeatance bf the "nice girl" from films. In her plj^ is a lanky, hard-drinking, tough^alking heroine. Nothing shocks this new-style siren who, apparently, spends most of her time, when not at her hairdresser's, dancing, drinking in*cocktail hars or indulging in promiscuous kissing. She not only gets knocked about hy ' the fists of the peeuliar men she seems to love, bat she can usually swing a hefty right hook herself. She has dyed hair, false. eyelashes, faked eyebrows and artificial teeth, and wears frocks you could sencl by airmail without extra postage. The others day a producer who was discussing a certain script intended for George Raft put his finger on the description of the leading lady and said: "What's this nice girl doing? Don't you know that there are no nice girls any more? Another producer indicted romantic themes with the terse pharse: "Love is out. Love is corny." "Corny," the commonest word in the Hollywood lexicon, used to mean stale jokes but now covers practically anything decent. Whether producers are correct in their summing up of the modern American girl is open to argument. I personally know several who have never hit a man on the jaw and even several who do not drink. On the other hand, I gave a beautifully writte'n and sincere love story to a 19-year-old Hollywood girl, not connected with films but typical of audiences here, and aslced her whether in her opinion the story woul nmke a good picture. She handed it back and said, "It's comy. That scene in the park where the boy and girl just hold hands and look at the moon, made me ill." Decency is "Corny." f So perhaps Hollywood is right, and tenderness, unselfishness, honesty and decency are corny. But if so let us hope it is only a passing phase like the shimmy and Charleston dancing- and hip-pocket flash era that followed the first World War. But it is important to note that the audiences of to-day — who in the final analysis are responsible for film trends — are the children of the tur'bulent youngsters of the prohibition 'twenties. The present film code of decency covers a multitude of sins, but what cannot be shown can be inferred, and unfaithful wives still rival crime as a j leading topic for the celluloid canneries. It is a question whether the "American way of life," as described on the scre,ens of neighbourhood theatres may not be the cause of the present loss of popularity of American films abroad, especially in England. This lack of popularity, coupled with direct attacks made in the foreign Press, has been responsible for an appeal hy Hollywood producers to Washington to "exert pressure" on foreign Governments in an effort to aid the marketing of American films. The attitude of worried film moguls is epitomised by Darryl Zanuclc's telegram to the Congressional Committee investigating the slump in American films abroad, wherein he said: "International trade now follows the movies as it once followed the flag." Zanuck is head of Twentieth Century Fox and also President of the Motion Picture Prodiucejrs' A'ssociation. Fox's big'gest effort, now in production, is "Forever Amber," a salacious novel concerning a lady who had 70 lovers.

Sadistic Orgies. Dana's fine, strong hook, "Two Years Before the Mast," long a favourite with school'boys, was turned by director John Farrow of Paramount into a series of sadistic orgies, none of which are to be found in the hook. As a forecast at the end of the year, polls by critics in America and elsewhere name foreign films in preference to American films. British "Henry V" and Italian "Open City" were the almost unanimous choice of al critics. Time Magazine names three other British films — "Brief Encounter," "It Happened at the Inn," "Stairway to Heaven" — and one Freneh film, "Welldigger's Daughter," among the 10 best. New York Times, instead of the "l'O best," lists "seven disappointments," these being all American — "Razor's Edge," "Adventure," "Sister Kenny," "Song of F-outh," "Of Human Bondage," "Devotion," "Till the End of Time."