BRITISH FILM COLONY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 November 1940, Page 9

BRITISH FILM COLONY

WRITER’S CAUSTIC COMMENT. The position of that happy band of pilgrims the members of the British film colony in Hollywood, is rapidly being made clear —they do not want to lose us but they think they ought to stay, writes Malcolm Phillips, in the "Picturegoer.” Errol Flynn, if we arc to believe his mother, is becoming an American citizen in order to avoid having to pay British income tax. He must be congratulating himself on his judgment after the interim budget. Now we have a heart-cry from Hitchcock, who thinks it unreasonable of us to expect him to relinquish a fat Hollywood contract to come home to make pictures, possibly at a reduced salary. Says Mr Hitchcock: “In view of suggestions that Herbert Wilcox. Victor Saville, Robert Stevenson and I should ■ return, I sent my wife home to investigate. She saw the Gaumont-British people, who said they could not offer | even our former salaries while British production was in its present uncertain state, and gave us no encouragement tc surrender our contracts ’over here. By staying here and making good pictures we are building up Britain's film reputation which later may ensure that British films will secure the American releases which are so essential.” Perhaps “Hitch” doesn’t know that

there are some hundreds of thousands of men in this country (many of them over Hitchcock’s age, which is forty) who, so far from getting their former salaries, are cheerfully doing their bit at two bob a day. As an experienced member of the film industry, however, he should know that there have been British directors, actors and technicians working in America for years and that no one has ever “built up the reputation of British films' by making Hollywood ones." 'Since Hitchcock appears to be speaking on behalf of Messrs Saville. Wilcox and Stevenson, as well as himself, one can only conclude that the only person who comes out of the business with any credit is Mrs Hitchcock, who did at least brave the hazards of the Atlantic crossing—and the possibility, in these days when exit permits even for work of national importance are supposed to be hard to come by, of being unable to return to her husband and the fleshpots of California. But she did get back.

NEW PARTNERS FRED ASTAIRE'S FILMS. Breaking up starring couples still goes on. Ginger Rogers has now been teamed with Ronald Colman. Fred Astaire, her late partner, trotted out with Eleanor Powell in “The Broadway Melody of 1940," and now the news comes that in "Second Chorus” his girl lead will be Paulette Goddard. “Second Chorus” is being fashioned