BOOKS AND FILMS.
Sir,-One is accustomed when viewing the dramatisation on the screen of outstanding works of fiction to find the
author’s story hacked about in various directions, presumably as an offering to the box-office deity. Surely, however, this procedure has been carried to extreme in the latest example-Pied Piper -which began a season in Auckland on Friday last. Here we find the name part being played by an actor who is the very antithesis of the character in the book. Instead of the reserved English tourist, the great Monty Woolley appears as a sort of caricature Bernard Shaw, with dashes of Shavian satire interpolated to complete the picture. The Pied Piper is perhaps the best novel of Wartime England to date, and according to the theatrical advertisement, millions are supposed to have read it. Why then should these millions be subjected to a travesty of the book on the screen? Even from a & s. d. point of view, this does not seem to make sense. Does the tich reward attaching to book films, render the authors indifferent to what happens to their books in the process?
J. M.
KEALY
(St. Heliers).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19431022.2.9.5
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 3
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192BOOKS AND FILMS. New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 3
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