PASCAL’S PLANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 October 1939, Page 4

PASCAL’S PLANS

FOR MAKING NEW FILMS. MORE OF SHAW'S PLAYS. Little more than a month ago a swarthy Hungarian. with intense brown eyes, jot black hair brushed back from his forehead, and wearing bright blue denim pyjamas and snakeskin slippers, sat on a low settee in the lounge of his apartment in Lans-

downe House, in London, fervently telling an interviewer his plan for making films during the next three or maybe five years. He was Gabriel Pascal, the man who convinced George Bernard Shaw that he could make a film of one of the latter’s plays to satisfy the playwright himself. That Pascal was''justified in his belief is evidenced by the worldwide success of “Pygmalion.” Pascal had for months been living with the script of “Major Barbara.” Not until everything is perfected in his own mind does Pascal start on production. "For weeks I read the play to get the music and rhythm of the words,” he told the interviewer. “A good play is just like music, and unless it can be interpreted correctly by the actors and the camera for the screen, then it will not be a good film.” “A Doctor’s Dilemma” was to have been the second. Shaw play to be brought to the screen by Pascal; but this play has now given place to "Major Barbara," because Pascal considers that it has a vital message for the world at this particular time. The play has been developed and extended, and all the additional dialogue has been written by Shaw himself. “Every word in the dialogue is the Old Man's,” Pascal emphasised. “The script writers merely arrange the sequence to suit the direction. If I want new scenes Shaw writes them in for me; 1 understand him and he understands me.” ' |

Pascal has something which is akin to worship for Shaw. “The Old Man ” as he affectionately calls him, has ’a greater message for humanity than any other living person. “Shaw is the forerunner of the new Christ,” says Pascal “because he has the weapon of ridicule and he is a man with a laugh.” The role of Major Barbara will be taken by Wendy Hiller, who achieved such success as Eliza Dolittle in “Pvnmalion.”

But the part of Barbara has been so developed that she becomes a spiritual symbol,” said Pascal. “And I anreally trying out Wendy Hiller to see if she has that spirituality which I require lor the role of 'Saint Joan,' which will be my next production. After that there will be ‘Candida,’ with Greer Garson( whose brief.appearance in 'Good-bye Mr Chips' is one of the highlights of the film. “I consider that Wendy Hiller and Greer Garson are in the tradition of the greatest actresses. Wendy Hiller is as great as Duse and Helen Hayes. No, not Bernhardt; Bernhardt was a swindle. "After Candida’ there will be ‘The Millionairess,’ then 'Macbeth' and 'Hamlet.' I have also in mind a film about Amelia Earhart, and for this I have written a ieit motif which Stokowski has declared is the greatest musical hotif ever composed for a film. It will be a high psychological drama beginning when Amelia was a little child. "I have been brooding upon ‘Macbeth’ for some time, and when I am ready to make it I will go to Scotland and listen to the winds in the trees and ; consider those witches.” “ ‘Major Barbara’ was due to go into rehearsal on September 15; all the miniature sets had been completed and approved, and when the sets were erected on the sound-stage Pascal had intended to give two or three parties so that the sets would have a lived-in air.

“When the parties are over, the furniture will be left just as the guests have left it, and the actors and actresses, who have already been studying their parts, will go before the camera. They will have become accustomed to the set, and the furniture will have been placed in position by people at the party, not by property men. Among

my players is a- newcomer. Johnny Mills, who has been playing in 'Mice and Men’ in London. I think he has the flame; it is for me to coax it and develop it.”