HE MADE FILMS IN SPAIN...

Radio Record, 8 April 1938, Page 10

HE MADE FILMS

IN SPAIN...

By

EMILE

T was a very quiet street in Wellington, all very orderly and sane and commonplace, after the typical New Zealand manner. ‘Two housewives stood on the footpath having a chat in the sunshine, some children played at the end of the street. In leisurely fashion a Scottish terrier waddled across the road, stopped outside an iron-railed gate and poked his nose between the bars, then waddled off again. Roamed Far ND I knew that inside the house with the iron-railed gate Was a young man, whom I wanted to see for the "Record," who had roamed most of the world: Mexico. South America, London, the Continent; had acted in ""Western" films, had produced "floor shows" in London, had’ made films in Spain, had been once apprenticed to the bullring, had recently fought with Franco’s army, and had now come back to New Zealand. The sky above the street was blue, and empty of aeroplanes. I apologised to the Scottish terrier, pushed him. aside and opened the gate. It all seemed.a bit unreal that the young man should be in this quiet street unde such a peaceful sky. He is Philip Cross, son of Dr. Cross, of Wellington. He left New Zealand ten years ago on his adventures round the world. | ALw his life he has had a love of horses, and in his youth he rode his own horses in the New Zealand show ring

No doubt it was this love of horses that first led -him into ‘‘Western" films in which he starred in Hollywood and in England for about five years. Later he was employed by Carl Hyson, American producer, husband of Dorothy Dickson, the English star, and went into partnership with him in Carl Hyson Productions. They were a company formed to provide ideas, costumes, figures and ensembles, and special cameraangles for musical and dancing films. 7 HEY worked out all the camera-angles for the Gracir Fields film, "Queen of Hearts"; for the sceves in which she was shown being thrown out of a window and beim swung about by her hair. "For this," said Mr. Cross, "she was ‘doubled’ by a Mexican cowboy friend of mine who ran my stables in London. He wore her clothes and a wig. Of course, when he was being swung round apparently by the hair his features were scarcely visible." When Gracie Fields was being thrown out of the window by the international star, Balliol, it was again the diminutive Mexican cowboy who was thrown through the window. ; "And the window?’ I asked. "Was cellophane," said Mr. Cross. I asked him about Gracie Fields. Woman of People HE is very simple, he said, and very blunt. She has no hesitation in calling u spade’a sanguinary shovel, She is a woman of the people, and she will always rewuin so. She would hate to be thought anything else. "The secret of her success is her absolute reality and her absolute sineerity under all the ballyhoo of © publicity. This is what endears her to the hearts of. millions of simple English people of the provinces, who * eare nothing for the fashionable goings-on of London ® but love to see her doing the simple things they do them. 3 selves." on a HERE was more film work for Philip Cross when he went to Mexico to assist in the production of Fiseur stein’s "Thunder Over Mexico," a highly imaginative production for which hundreds of thousands of feet were shot and only 5625 feet of film were used. Then, in 1935, the young man went to Spain to make some films of his own. In the south of Spain, 60 .miles north of Gibraltar, was a place called Alcala de Los Gaz les, With a marvellous climate. Me It was an old Moorish type of town, built on the siac of the hill. One looked up from below and saw the beautiful old houses goéing right up into the heavens. E set out to make a film with the aid of two stars and the people of the village. He called it "Futility," a simple, homely story of real] life about the rich girl who had everything and yet craved for the things of the poor girl... home, family life and motherhood. "rt sounds trite," said Philip Cross, "but you must re‘member that it wag all made against the background » of old Spain and with the aid of. villagers who still lived the life that had been lived in that place for the last 300 or 400 years." . "Tt showed the waterboy bringing back his: donkeys . With the stone jars full of water from the well: up to ‘the village. and ogling the servant girl who stood: on the steps of the house, and bringing her a flower: that he had -picked by the wayside."

TN one film, Mr. Cross needed soldiers to take part in the capture of smugglers in the south of Spain, famous for its smuggling of tobacco and merchandise. "There was a young friend of mine," said. Mr. Cross, "very fond of my Spanish actress. Maria Victoria Alvarez. I said to him, ‘Pepe, I must have soldiers." "He said: ‘How many do you want?’ I saids ‘Oh, half a dozen.’ ‘Half a dozen are no good,’ he said, ‘you want 20 soldiers and a sergeant.’ "He said: ‘Don't give them any money. Just give them plenty of sausages and wine.’ Quite Happy "QO we gave them plenty of sausages and wine. They were quite happy. The only trouble was that when they went to capture the "smugglers" they went into it with such great glee, all anxious to shine as stars in the film, that we had to come to the rescue and cool them down a little. Besides dreaming of being film stars they wanted to shine before their girls, who washed their clothes spotless for the occasion." WHENEVER rain fell in the hills, said Mr. Cross, and there was a freshet in the streams, the women all went to the creeks to wash their clothes and belongings. "When you see gaudy petticoats all spread about the hills to dry," he said, "and the women laughing and telling stories as they wash their clothes in the creeks, with the children playing nearby, that is Spain when she is happy." NE of his aims in making his films was to bring out the values of "vocation" sound. The art of using "vocational" sound is to portray through the film the things that strike the mind first. This, says Mr. Cross, is what the best producers to-day constantly aim at. If you see an American gangster film in which the hero is talking to the heroine in a car, at the same time driving furiously away from a police car, too often the dialogue of the pair takes first place in the sound and the scream of the police siren is merely secondary. But if "vocational" sound is true in the film, the shriek of the siren and the scream of the tyres should dominate the mind of the audience, giving them the impression that they must be on guard to dodge the shot that will at any moment ring out from the ear

or the pursuers. It is this that makes for realism in the films. WHILE the com-: pany was in the middle of a full feature film of 6009 odd feet, war broke out in Spain. Most of the able-bodied men in the village joined the Royalist army and the five men in the company joined up with Franeo = as well. Mr. Cross was not anxious to talk about the war itself, but on several points he was most emphatic. "Franco is nol ¥ascist," he said. "He was born a Royalist and he will always be a Royalist. When the war is over, he

will not give any territorial concessions to Italy and Germany; I do not think he will give them any commercial concessions. "Italy and Germany have been paid for their help already. They have been amply paid for their men and munitions by supplies of raw material shipped to their countries from South America, and paid for by the cash of Franco’s supporters." ;

To pay their debts, Franco’s supporters, many of them the old aristocracy of Spain who got their money out of the country before the trouble began, have been supplying Italy and Ger. many with wool, hides, skins and tallow. When the fighting is over, Franco will not give away one inch of Spain. -His supporters would eut his throat if. he did. .He will probably |. restore tle: Bourbon walling house in Spain, he himself Premier ang have his own Spanish Cabinet.