Helen, Roger, and J. Arthur

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 473, 16 July 1948, Page 9

Helen, Roger, and J. Arthur

"TUNED in, all unbeknownst, to 3ZB the other morning about soap opera time, and who was emoting but our own Mary Wootton, doing a screen test for J. Arthur Rank." That, I think, is how 3ZB would like me to start a write-up of their little programme. Listeners were asked to write in their impressions of the broadcast. "It isn’t much to ask," said the announcer. Somehow this grated on me a little. Audience reaction is no doubt very valuable to movie executives; they have millions locked up in the artificial bosoms of their stars; and they want

to know what the customers think before they "discover" a new talent, but the system blights originality and snuffs out. what artistic integrity there is in the movies. Mr. Rank has in the past made some fine pictures, in addition to some horrible stinkers, but this diversity is, in my opinion, preferable to flattening out the graph curve and producing a slick line of machine-tooled mediocrities. Retournons a nos Woottons. Mary was playing a character named Helen who had a doctor (Roger) in love with" her, but was herself in love with one of Roger’s patients (X). It was all rather obscure, but I gathered that X was to be carved by Roger, and Helen was becoming indignant about either X or_herself being used as a guinea-pig. There was a good deal of intense half-voice stuff in which Miss Wootton acquitted herself well, but who is to say, on the strength of a few minutes of soundtrack that a new actress has been born? The most we can say is that there are indications that she has talent, and we hope she will be given the opportunity of showing it.