HOLLYWOOD CAPTURED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 September 1939, Page 10

HOLLYWOOD CAPTURED

' BY BRITISH STARS. The British have captured Hollywood without firing a shot—and, oddly enough, American audiences seem to love it, writes a Hollywood correspondent. In the past few months pictures with English backgrounds and stories have swept the American market, and British players have soared to the top of American popularity. . K Every real acting plum recently has dropped into the laps of British actors, and studios in Hollywood are

battling with one another fiercely for the services of these players and rushing into production typically British stories. I Just a few short months ago Americans protested against the casting of Vivien Leigh as Scarlet O’Hara, and many newspapers attacked David Selznick’s selection. But today the howls have changed to cheers, and the same people now are lauding to the skies the performances of British players. The pro-British movement first started with Bernard Shaw’s "Pygmalion,” in which Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller gave such fine performances. Americans literally ate this picture up, and got a greater kick out of it than the British did. Then Robert Donat’s great effort in “The Citadel” helped tremendously and now his latest epic, “Good-bye, Mr Chips,” has taken the United States by storm. M.G.M. was fearful at first that this essentially British story of public school life would be too British for America. “Wuthering Heights” has> sent Laurence Olivier soaring to stardom in Hollywood, and Selznick has just bought him out of the leading stage role opposite the famous Katherine Cornell to star in “Rebecca.” He is the same actor who came to Hollywood a few years ago and found every studio door closed to him because, producers said, he was too much like Ronald Colman. Now Olivier names his

own price. ' The swing toward 1/ritish players and British stories in Hollywood is little short of amazing. Nearly every studio seems to be lining up some British film Warners are making “The Lady and the Knight,” with Bette DaVis and Errol Flynn. Bette is American, but no one will question this fine actress’s ability to portray faithfully Queen Bess. Fox is making “The Rains Come,” Louis Bromfield’s story of the British in India. Irishman George Brent is co-starring with Myrna Loy in this. Frank Lloyd is producing an epic of Britain’s mercantile marine, “Ruler of the Seas,” with an almost 100 per cent British cast, including old Will Fyffe, Scottish comedian, and Margaret Lockwood, English actress who was with Fyffe in “Owd Bob.” M.G.M. has produced its best moneymakers in England and now it is sending Mickey Rooney to the Old Country to start in “A Yank at Eton,” and another cast is being sent over to make Shaw’s controversial story of the medical profession, “The Doctor’s Dilemma.” Of course, Hollywood sends its own directors to make these pictures in England. Whatever Hollywood’s faults may be, it has the finest technical brains and directors in the world. What is the reason for this sudden and almost complete capitulation to the British? There are several very good reasons, and the best is the most im-portant—box-office receipts. Hollywood has lost most of the huge European market because of the unrest and restrictions in dictator countries, and has suddenly realised that the British market is far more valuable than the European one ever was. So Hollywood is wooing the British in earnest, slanting pictures in their direction and using British players as much as possible because of accent.