THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1957.
D
When the Big Wheel
(WHICH IS NEW AMERICAN POR · 1933 MEDECINE: "O
goes
to work-
FOR THE FIRST TIME A BRAIN
EARNING £180,000 A YEAR IS
DARRYL CANUCK
WORKING IN BRITAIN...NOW LET ME SHOW YOU HIS METHODS
ARRYL F. ZANUCK, a Hollywood name of considerable note for more than 25 years, has just spent £1,000,000 on his first British film.
This is the first time one of the really top-echelon Hollywood brains has
come to Britain to produce a picture.
delegating
Instead of authority and staying ut home the big wheel 1148 Americans may ha come himaris, The results have bren Instructive for All
concerned
1 rek 1: London, Pacts, New York and Hollywood Mr. Zasnutek a potting the finishin Loucher 10 m
Hopping is between four Pitim not just a whim but a verssity for Savear-old Zanuck. A one-time seriptwrlier for dog
ar kin T
He thuk KE
cable-se.
ife in perving the cutting of bu
island in the Sun
in London; calling notes about the music from Parts, where his daughter is in discus the distribution in New York. and planning the next stk in Hollywood and the other tree cilies as well.
and
Worried?
says:
short,
w.v
by DAVID
JOAN COLLING WATCH THAT WIN, Oo
De Mille 2018, Bert the choles and the star-You have them nere if you know what to do WILL LITI
Z
Talent
ANUCK 11 a frush cfPORT. Me niks incurvely abou sure.
"I took Joan Collins, One ner major aceites to play. Now watch the piti ka. She has authority, I know she didn't do much in Britišli pictures. Maybe producers were scared she did i have a big enough name,
I took English girl, Put Owens nnd put her opposite Jam Mason as his wife. What has Put Owens done before us British pictures ? Carned the hat on. I know It is easier for Hollywood to sell these
but there K
DOW
He paused for Then he said: "Always be pre pared to try something new. I krak Stephen Boyd, the notor who did so well in a character The Man Who Never Was. In my tin I made hu a romantic hero,
ANUCK figure, paces up and dow
** No
part in complaints about your really Key Brush workers: comeration, produe- tion thanager, and the re
"But on the tower levels 1 didn't find quite the zen! or 'get with feeling of Hollywood men. On the studio foar sonJe of the men look at watches at the end of the day.
"I got the impression they were trying to spin the Alin out, instead of finishing It quick. Maybe they were worried about their next job, so they wanted to hang this one out,
"When we wont on location we had to take Borow of 100. That 24 more men
than I've evor had to employ before
12107e
even than
"I saw the first few days of his work and I was worried ile wast right. I went to the set and talked to the director. de not talk 10 artists directly when they are working in a BOCHIC.
"kuld to the diretor tha Boyd was an thinking he was a character player hero Lype. It had to be explained to Boyd carefully what the differ- ence wae. Then he got it, and the result was at trot 14.
"Sometimes you take a chance and it doesn't work. 1 nawa Greek A the other day. had a girl in Elle Larbets. Was she 7-und i thaught
LEWIN
had ponabeltane. I brought her over for a test urmi then I tound
and very 1142le English
S
imrdly any at all
By the tame she had learned the inmate well enough to act
in our Alma it would have been
100 Inte So I had to forget it. Theka the way in,
The top
MUCYL ZANUCK * 10 longer head of production
Cinemurope compaTLY. But he mali maken his own pictures for
hoe Auxi
JUNI no-loved to the board. IN brain is rated as worth half a million dollatz a year (£180,000),
Now you have the choice of my a the world." I asked /hlak, " whom would you pick as the free certaluties îît the box- office ?"
He paced the hotel room. Lop of die het. Ze
"Wayne,
said. Jon Wayte hus sotie. thing for everybody everywhere. in the world. No matter whit the picture la people par to see
12.
· Bot apart from him there Bru low certahilles. Guble han star pull, but he varies at the bax-office with the flin. Couper is fairly steady. Monroe- well.
she has everything riding on this fim with Laurence Olivier. Her future will be decided - by
Details
'N the chuse for box-office whest in ji that the really top man in the business has that so many of Use, others inck ?
After watching Zanuck work I should say this thanks big first, and then bears down hard on the smallest detail afterwards.
Darryl Zanuck showed nie his cable files with advice and com. ment which he sent after he aw every foot of his British shot,
EXAMPLE 1
tim
Cable to director Robert Rossen: "Mosier scene where Muson reads newspaper And family argument excellent but anxious to know if you have protected with close shots stop Am convinced we can improve sequence between Murgot" and Boyeur Dorothy_Dandridge and Hany Belafonte] on porch of
PAT OWENS
CARRYING THE HAT
boarding house stop Referring to Ewo hot angle stop This is only scene in picture that FRPIŅA 200 talky and over emphasised par Heularly from standpoint D Dorotliv.
EXAMPLE 2
tema
make-up depart mrut: "Actors do not seem to be perspiring enough in the tropics, Photography may nov. pick this up in subiclent detail. in future before every scene more perspiration should added to rich actor,"
be
Now that gooting is _0001- picted on Island in the Sun he is already working ahead on
JOHN WAYNE TOP OF THE LIST
Ban
RU
Homingway
story "The Also Rises," known here "Piesta." A big subject again. Now the detail.
"The property has been kick- ing around for your because no one has been able to lick it into slipe," says Zanuck. "I have tried many scripts. Now I think I have the right one, with a slightly upbest" ending,
* Before 1 mart any subject Alm. the Erriesi I sad it to, maybe, six writers. to nee who has the best ideas. Then I choose one, and work with him. We work on every hne and I'm always cabling Kdent wherever' I am.
Next, casting. There is only one actres to play the English society girl in The Bun Abo Itises Ava Gardner. She has Just the rigiit streak of craziness
11.
Boote
"Thon, shooting. Pamplona in Spain, I sent a caméra mi tiere ahead of une te gel background. Can't shoot shere now boomise there in anow out the ground, so I'm switching everything to Mexico. Look jus the same, and no show."
Hold-up
PHAT 16
T
Derry) Zanuck today, He in fretting ever one thing only the time
It takes to complete a film after it has come off the floor in a British studio.
*ru show you what 1 meal.“ he sld "My company made Anastasia in the same studio In London where I shot 'Island in the Sun,' When shooting wan completed on the floor. 'Anastasia' was taken to Holly- wood for the inal music and quiting__and tejmmings to ba donc, Time taken six weeks and ready for showing.
I'm doing all that post- production in Britain, and the time taken before my Alm will be ready to show will be four to Ave months. That is a big weakness here and an awful hold-up."
A feeling
E paused for a moment, Then he
Home
said: "Still, I have a feeling about this picture of mine. A gen-u-ine foel- ing it will be a big success, **On how many of your films have you had that feeling before ?" I asked him.
M
Zanuck laughed. "1 see what you mean,” he said "Yes, I've had that feeling before on both the hits. and the flops.”
ZANIES
Interview.
M
TICHAEL WALLACE is just about the most out- spoken man today in New York-city in which raticence is as rare as a room with a fire or a drink without an ice cube, Burly, bright, 88-year-old Waliace has the broad shoulders of a college full-back and the alert wit of a college professor. In just over three months he has built an audience of 1,500,000 who tune in to his Jate evening TV programme, Nightbeat.
In a tiny studio 20 ft. square ho plays the grand inquisitor four times a week in almost total darkness. And the viewers watch his guest celebrities brain-washed under the blinding, Kileg lights.
Wallace's main weapon is ม
New York
Report
by ALAN BRIEN
complete and calculated Jack
He can turn his crolong, leisurely meal 1 sat him he replied, leaning back at ease,
of tact.
down in an easy chair. examination on like a hose-plpe.menagement turned off some of When he turns it off again, the the lights, I opened my note- vencer of glamour and pubilelty book and everything was ready
us been wushed away. And
vicum sits there naked, Wallace,
for the third degree of Mike the
Slipping
nursing the awkward secret ho has concealed for so long from the public eye. Wallace himself is usually almost invisible, just the side of a tough-guy jaw, "the outline of idly kicking foot, or television that the silhouette of an aggressive Koing soft at cigarette in a waving hand is murmured caught in the camera lens.
Pitiless
another station anyway. It will The "I may be leaving soon to join be instructive to see how a new
do it. guy would
Though, I think I am the poreonally, only man in Manhattan who can really all such spot, in my judgment, it is fifty per cent direction and script and fifty per cent me, but who
"1 am told by my friends in
Nightbeat is sure?" the edges." casunily. "What's
I tried a new tack. "Your rolo wrong with you these days"? is that of the honest, unbiased He moved his head to one investigator probing the hearts side with a grin and took the of the famous. How do you blow on bis shoulder,
reconcile this apparent Integrity with your role as salcaman in the commercials?"
"I know the guys you know in television and you know I know. They are so smart they
out
themselves.
They TAVA
"1 don't reconcile it," he said, week looking as though he wore glad ન and then start dissecting 11. I had ruised that point. "It is
are about everything for a
ifts visitor always appears in monalrous and pitiless close-up. It is hard to decide whether the questions or the answers the more outrageous in medium usually devoted in And when they are finished the due to shortage of money. It is America as in Britain to the polite puff and the mutual con- specimen is always dead. They the nature of the beast and I began knocking My Fair Lady Rm caught in a trap. Jecze, I gratulatory messago,
aun no fonder of Onvour straws after a month. And it And
and than you are.” running Says Wallace in a question to running the New York restaurant owner running. Tools Shor: "Why do so many people call you a slob?”
I began to fire my broadsides: call people you "There may be something in "why do you what they say. Nightbeat is just have never met before by their namsey on the pro- Says coloured singer Ethel an interview programme. After Christian
("You can't ask first shock To the Waters
anybody caa Framme?" in an
someone personal question people Wallace: knew all about sex gasp the formula.
with pretty when I was seven."
answer
а
(32
Right
week
Rot monotonous, But soon I'm
to
but
disciars
a
mister at the end.") What would you do if a guest 11e usks ex-producer ex- changing that and I am going refused point blank to discuss t would get him to variety star George Jessel why out for only once a week. For subject?---"[
why he wouldn't discuss he
important a Bop now on television. someone as big and
And it and he would soon open up." He asks Elsa Maxwell how old and neway as I can get.
What would he do if one of ishe really is. He asks F'il asit all the questions every-
his subjects in his rage used the know, crusading judge why there are body wants
modern unspeakable equivalent 50 many crooks in his district. daren't ask."
of
Eliza's
sweat-word in He asks a well-known fashion
Thin combination of inside Pygmalion? designer why there are so many knowledge, candour,.
and
That's easy. He would have homosexuals in the garment
optimism shook me a little, but and it and not me. Let me tell business
I pressed on.
this. youi
If it does happen on He asks the Catholle
"I hear that the Irish
programme television, I just hope it happens actress Siobhan McKenna why is made by the director and the on my
Let me the Lord Mayor of Dublin is a scriptwriters,” Jew.
programme"
I said. "Would tell you this," I replied. “When
Last night I went out to it matter if they got rid of it does happen if will be in dinner with Wallace. After a you?" "Well, that's interesting," your programme."
- A familiar scene in the Nightbeat programme with Mike Wallace and bis victim under the arc-lights.
by insult
し
"i med to be a bookworm,”
NUDE
** But surely, he don't play practica)
"It's not bad, but I don't
gel
Jakne all the time 7'**
COMM
much exercise."
OLYMPIC GAMES