“Hands Off Homer” Says Sir Ian Hamilton

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 335, 21 April 1928, Page 24

“Hands Off Homer” Says Sir lan Hamilton

Hrjl NE of the three greatest stories in the world has ■ not yet reached the P the films, and General Sir lan Hamilton prays *it never will, through Hollywood. It is Homer’s Odyssey that he would save from ignorant hands (says the American “Literary Digest”). Ignorant he thinks us; probably having never heard that “Helen” as modernised by Professor Erskine has already emerged on the silver sheet. The hero of the Dardanelles is eager to see the great epic on the screen, but he stands in fearful dread of an American version. “By one of those ponderous experiments with which the Almighty sometimes diverts the course of history, the most potent instrument for influencing public opinion has fallen into the hands of a country better educated in modernities than Europeans, but innocent of the classical tradition.” Of course the movies are a money-making enterprise, and one wonders how much Oxford and Cambridge will be consulted by the British cinema interests. Our be nighted state is thus visualised by Sir lan, writing in the Manchester “Guardian”:—

“Homer is quite a common Christian name in the U.S.A. Homer Lea was an historian —there are thousands of Homers walking about God’s own country, but Homer the poet is to them unknown. Hollywood is doing exactly what we should do if we stood in its shoes. It tries to gauge the taste of its

public so that it may give them what they want, and it does so most successfully. But it cannot quite, in grand film, cater for the taste of the European. If we want to see ‘Helen’ on the films, we must inspire the mind of the British public with a wish to see her, and then pray that our own film companies may supply the goods. “The Odyssey is a lovely story. That, the Iliad, and the story of Joseph are the three greatest stories in the world. But it holds out too many temptations to the sex-appeal people. Hollywood would make a holy mess of ‘Ulysses.’ ‘Circe’ would come out strong in the prologue, turning her drunken sailor lovers into pigs. We all feel shy when we think of how Calypso would behave, and of Ulysses in bathing drawers being flung by the sea at the feet of Nausicaa playing ball with her maidens on the shore. Ulysses would never get back to Penelope!” One wonders at the temerity of the General (says the American writer), for he goes on to supply practically a scenario w-hich some facile writer may string together before the British have learned to compete technically with Hollywood: “1. The captions will have a pull over other captions, as they will be lines of fine poetry. There is a prospective Liberal candidate for Manchester who would do this job well. “2. Besides the fierce fighting round the ships and the firing of some of them, besides the duel between Hector and Achilles, have the night raid byKing Diomed and Ulysses when they steal the horses of King Rhesos, have the fantastic battle between Achilles and the River Scamander. “3. Also the scene between King Priam and Achilles when the father comes to beg for the body of his son, and end on the funeral of Hector.” Sir lan Incites to turning the camera crank by -writing out the beautiful picture of the partings between Hector and Andromache. Then he bethinks himself: “But, for the Lord's sake, no ‘close-ups’!”