LET'S SEE THEM AGAIN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 223, 1 October 1943, Page 21

LET'S SEE THEM AGAIN

GOOD many readers have acted on the suggestion made in this column some weeks ago that they should send in lists of films that they would like to see again. As they were warned at that time, it was mostly a labour of love, since there could be no guarantee that any exhibitor would take practical ‘notice of these lists and re-screen any of the old films that were mentioned. However, most of those who sent in lists, tell me that they had a lot of fun in compiling them — as well as some nostalgic regrets for "the good old days." By a narrow margin, The Informer (with Victor McLaglen), was the most popular choice for revival, followed by Citizen Kane, The Long Voyage Home, The Petrified Forest, Mayerling and Winterset (why, asks one correspondent, did C. A. Lejeune describe it as a "surprise winner" in her list?). Now frankly, that is a highbrow selection, by which I mean that those are all films likely to appeal most to people who take their picture-going more seriously than the average person does. But what chiefly interests me about it is that not one of those films was a box-office success at the time. In fact, to use a trade term, they were much nearer to being flops. And I would give as the chief reason for this the fact that, with the exception, perhaps, of The Petrified Forest (which had Leslie Howard and Bette Davis), not one of them contained "star-value"’ that would attract big audiences from among the general body of the public who depend for their guidance mainly on the theatre advertisements. In other words, the reputation that these films have gained has been mostly a posthumous one: the comparatively few people who saw them at their first release began to talk about them enthusiastically, but by the time the word had got around, their seasons were over, and the chance of seeing them was missed. * * * / HAT happens time and again, and it is surely an indictment of the star system. One of the times it didn’t happen was in the case of The Lady Van-ishes-but it almost did. At its first re‘lease in Wellington, that record-break-ing film was very nearly taken off before it had completed: even one week, just because the public, failing to see any well known stars in the cast, didn’t know what it was being offered. It would, therefore, be interesting to know how many of the readers who desire the return of these pictures actually saw them at their first screenings, and how many have heard ben them since. rs * * THER popular suggestions for revival among the lists sent me were Wuthering Heights (already seen/ six times. by one correspondent!), Rebecce (seen six times by another), The Guardsman, The Lady Vanishes, Stage. Coach, Grapes of Wrath, Crime and Punishment ("The only film," comments one writer, "in which Peter Lorre forgot he was a detective, or maybe it was before Mr. Moto was created by Hollywood’It was), Don Quixote and Emperor Jones

(both of these films, the first with Chaliapin, the second with Paul Robeson, ran for three days only when first released!), Pygmalion (a little bit more popular than Major Barbarz), The Lost. Horizon, Of Mice and Men, Gone With the Wind, Fantasia, Pride and Prejudice, Dangerous Moonlight, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Quiet Wedding, The Cheat, Un Carnet de Bal and Green Pastures. x % * ND what warm memories do these other titles provoke? Most of them are suggested by the one correspondent, whose comments are given in parenthesis: The Ghost Goes West ("for its freshness of plot and treatment"), Street Scene (with Sylvia Sidney), Sabotage (an earlier Hitchcock with- Sylvia Sidney), Ladies in Retirement ("wonderfully cast’), David Copperfield ("also with superb casting"), Grass ("seen ages ago, but memorable for its complete integrity"), Sequoia ("a masterpiece but for boy-plus-girl"), Pasteur and Juarez ("anything with Muni"), anything of Chaplin or the earlier Marx Brothers. * * % ROVING at random among the lists, I pick out several more titles for their nostalgic value, but without attempting to act as a returning-officer and assess the strength of the voting; The Scoundrel (with Noel Coward), Rembrandt (with Charles Laughton), The Good Earth, 100 Men and a Girl ("classical music on a human level in a novel and amusing story"), Snow White and the Seven Dwarts, Wings of the Morning ("for Annabella’s charm and the horses"), Captains Courageous, The Great Waltz, A Woman’s Face, These Three, Dark Victory, Berkeley Square, Romeo and Juliet, The 39 Steps, The Man Who Knew Too Much, She Done Him Wrong ("That rocks you" commented the reader who included this Mae West classic in the midst of an otherwise highbrow list), Ruggles of Red Gap, Marie Walewska (Garbo and Boyer), Dead End, Henry VIII., Good-bye Mr. Chips, You Can’t Take It With You, Lloyds of London, and Cavalcade. There were of course, many other titles mentioned that I haven’t space to include. But of those that are mentioned I would simply say that they are a very encouraging and interesting indication of the taste of at least one section of New Zealand picturegoers which theatremanagers might do well to study. Several readers included lists of the "seven pictures with which they could endure being snowbound for the winter" and several asked for my own choice of seven. But this will have to be the subject of a later article.