2
SHOWING
ど TO-DAY
Special Timos: At 2.30, 5.00,
Queen's
7.15 & 9.30 p.m.
SWINGERKAAR VERIGLITE OF THE TEN BEST PICTURES OF THERING
Paramount
Presenie VEAN
ARTHUR
MARLENE
DIETRICH
JOHN
LUND
A Foreign AFFAIR
- MILLARD ASITCHELL ~
**** CHARLES BRACKETT
EILLY WILDER
SUNDAY MORNING SHOW
AT 11.30 A.M. ONLY
BOB HOPE
VIRGINIA MAY
"PRINCESS AND THE PIRATE"
BOOKINGS
In Technicolour-An RKO Radio Picture AT REDUCED PRICES
NOW OPEN!
QUEEN'S
BOOKINGS
NOW OPEN!
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1948.
A SEAT IN THE STALL'S
BRITISH STUDIOS ARE MAKING MORE FILMS
CTOBER 1 was a decisivé date for Britain's film in- dustry; for from that day onwards the law decrees that 45 out of every 100 first-feature films shown in the cinemas of the country must be British.
This
drastie constitutes a
de parture from the past-a venture which is bound to affect not only all Industry, sections of Britain's film but also the International film situn- tion. So far, the general Impres sian is that the production in Britain is showing a steady Improvement,
At present, the cinemas in the British Isles con book 104 first feature Drilisl: quota films. The figure excludes any minor pictures,
second 50-called
features or featurettes. In addition, there are 62 British re-issues available-best films of past years-selected by the
By H. H. WOLLENBERG
Board of Trade's Flims Council and answer, making a coreful check on given a 12 months' extended quota the work planned between now and fe. That makes a total of 250 Arst December 31, is that British studios
hnve completed feature films available immediately. will
02 first Australian--and
Tula
ls is the present rather reassur- features-plus one in situation na regards the supply 12 second features. This compares for the five firm theatres in Britain, with 58 major films music in 1947. As for other countries, Their Six of the 1948 Sims are in Techni- prospects of supply with new British colour.
As to further prospects, the ques- pictures, now so popular in many
flon will arise, how many pictures lands, are no less encouraging.
There are 42 first features in the should the British studios be able to
make? have, not corn-
The total above total, which
production pleted, or are about to start, their facilities are now 24 studios with 72 first runs in London.
sound stages. These figures
com-
FUTURE PROSPECTS NEW flims will be reaching is
tributors from the studios at the rate of five new first features per month, with a possiblity of six new first features per month being avail able from June 1940,
Friends
screencraft want to know how many British features will be made this year. The
of British
My Experiments In Film Technique
THE moving pie-
ture is only 58 years old and it is still in the process of evolving its technique. When D. W. Griffith thought of shooting close-ups he was told
GALA PREMIERE on TUESDAY at 9.30 P.M. that audiences would
AJ. ARTHUR BANK ENTERPRISE
Liver
Laurence Olivier
presents
HAMLET William Shakespeare
Starring Laurence Olivier
Jean Simmons
Basil Sydney
COMMENCES WEDNESDAY-3 SHOWS DAILY
AT 2.30. 5.30 & 9.00 P.M.
ALHAMBRANATHEATRE
SHOWING TO-DAY AT 2.30, 5.15, 7.15 & 9.15 P.M.
HE
CRASH DIVES ON
A GERMAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER
! SHE
ON
BEST TEN
BOJES A
JAPANESE
MUNITION DUMP
A GUY NAMED JOE
ACY
DUNNE
TO-DAY
ONLY
·
Gollim Maver
WILLIAMS JOHNSON
Cathay
!
AT 2.30, 5.20,
7.30 & 9.30 P.M.
FIRST TIME SHOWING IN HONGKONG
Mighty Monster Running Amok! Inhuman Beast Raging with Fury!
•
All-Now Thrills....In the Strangest Battlo Ever Filmed!
FRANKENSTEIN miesto
THE WOLF MAN
1larring
with
HONA MASSEY PATRIC KNOWLES BELA LUGOSI LIONEL ATWIA MARIA OUSPENSKAYA
and
LON CHANEY
* TO-MORROW * Eddio Cantor in "IF YOU KNEW SUSIE"
Sunday Extra Performance •
not Recept photo- graphs of faces with-
out their bodies. They
did. Later, audiences
were introduced to
BY
David Lean
prise only these studios where t would be possible to make major some pictures: they do not include
second smaller studios where many features and sequences have been past few produced during the
The months.
facilities present
sufflelent provide should at lenst studla space for producing 120 major
ins a year.
During 1948, uncertainty about the new Film Act, plus lack of working capital, has prevented Independent producers from making their full contribution towards this
target.
In spite of this, employment figures show that more people are employed in the studios: last March the operating total was 7,618 people. This month there are 7,601 people working in the studios.
As for the future, the facta In- The new a piece of Information diente a steady progress. but she falls back dead which to built up an economically Films Act provides a foundation on before she can get it out, sound production industry, In addi I cut straight back to the
tion, the Board of Trade announced scene in the present and
11s decision to form a Film Finance the man Monks says to Corporation. During its next session the matron, "It's a lie. Parliament will be naked for a five She sold more
matran
The million pound Treasury loan to pro answers, "Shc
SBC vide capital.
dildn't utter another
Meanwhile, however, a provisional
word-but it
It was then set-up, called the Film Finance that it
Compuny, has started operating and its first Joan has been made,
"What?" What?"
snyk
POINT OF INTEREST
TNING back to current produc-
tion, a point of some interest is
SHOWING
TO-DAY
KING'S
SHOWINGS
TO-DAY
SPECIAL TIMES: 2.30, 5.00, 7.15 & 9.30 P.M.
ONLY A WOMAN COULD TAME THIS
MAN WHO CONQUERED MOUNTAINS!
Soft creature of luxury, she braves his brawling world... in RKO's great spectacleiodventure of confilet and thrills in the world's biggest setting!
ERKO
JOHN LARAINE
WAYNE
•
DAY..
TYCOON
COLOR BY TECHNICOLOR,
weith
SIR CEDRIC HARDWICKE - JUDITH ANDERSON JAMES GLEASON - ANTHONY QUINH
Produced by STEPHEN AMES Directed-by RICHARD WALLACE Screen Play by BORDEN CHASE ANG JONH TWIT
TO-MORROW MORNING AT 11.30 A.M. ONLY
•
Rits HAYWORTH Larry PARKS in "DOWN TO EARTH”
how the total 1948 output of 82 major Colour by Technicolour A Columbia Picture * At Reducod Prices
Aims is shared between the different studlos or production groups,
pks Actother straight cut into the past. The pauper is lying dead bed, the matron rises and starts to the fade in und fade unclasp the dead
woman's hand out. and their use became from her oin. A ploce of paper flutters down onto the. beri. generally accepted symbols of a Another straight cut into the present time lapse. If present-day au- and Monks says, "A piven of paper. ganisation will have diences were not acquainted with the fade in and fade out, they would almost certainly, on seeing it for the first time, think that something had gone wrong with the projector.
Similarly, the lash hack has now begume acceptable to audiences. You show a close-up of a man thinking, and by means of a dissolve and the use of the man's voice saying. "I saw her first ten years ago....... you show pictures on the screet which the audience accept as hup- penings in the past.
I think
What is the next move?
ís the showing of people's thoughts in pletures, for so far the einema has been greatly handicap-
with ped by its inability io cope this, and I think that it is only matter of time before audiences will accept this as new technical con vention-but they will have to be
-cased-into-it-very-slowly.
An Expansion
7
A girl is saying goodbye to a man
The man steps into
speed-
boat which Cours off across a luke. They wave to each other. Watching them from above is the girl's hus- band. He has appeared unexpected- ly. He knows that his wife and time the other man, were at one tovers. Jealousy surges up in him- he turns towards camera-big clos^~
close- up flashes on the screen-a
up of the wife and the man in the speedboat in a passionate kiss-the Jusband turns away and tries blot nut the thought.
Will an audience understand this? Will they understanil that the close-
What was it?" The matron tells
him.
This experiment proved that one cash backwards and forwards at will between the past and the pre- sent. If one can also eut from the present to people's thoughts, maybe the cinema will have advanced an- other luchi along its road to
maturity.
Tip For
Top Ten
AMERICA'S theatre show- mcn, through the Motion Picture Herald, have chosen Ten Stars of To-
morrow.
Do you agree with their -list?
Jane Powell, Cyd Charisse, Ann Blyth, Celeste Holm, Robert Ryan, Angela Lansbury, Jean Peters, Mona Freeman, Eleanor Parker and
Doris Day.
Moviestar Parade Maga- zine predicts that Mont- gomery Clift will be Tomorrow's Top Star,
According to the maga zine, Clift combines the appeal of Humphrey Bogart, Cary Cooper, and Tyrone Power.
The
studios of the J. Arthur Rank Or
completed 30 features by the end of the year, in- Studios' Australian
clurling Ealingslaekade," plus a
subject,
group of five second features. Lost year the Hank group was responsible for a total of 29 pictures,
Some of the 1948 production have already caught international atten- flon, filins such as "Hamlet," "Oliver Twist." "The Red Shoes." Coming productions tikve "Christopher Columbus," "Scott of the Antarc- tle" and others are no less engerly nwalted.
It looks as though eight pictures will be completed by the London Film Studios at Isleworth and Shep- perton this year. This la where the group of independent producers around Sir Alexander Korda works. Two brillant films, he Fallen Idol" and "The Winslow Boy" had a highly promising stort. This year and next, this group wili produce! three times us many Amns as last
year,
OTHER PRODUCERS CONSTELLATION Films, Anthony A—Havelock-Allan's—independent company, has a programme of three pictures lined up. At least four films are being prepared by Herbert Wil- cox Productions. Pilgrim Pictures and John Stafford Productions have started Joention work for thetr respective
ms, while some
other
RIENTAL
AIR CONDITIONED
TAKE ANY EASTERN TRAM CAR OR HAPPY VALLEY BUS
SHOWING TO-DAY: 2.30-5.15-7.20 & 9.20 P.M. THE THRILLINGLY TENDER DRAMA OF THE DEATHLESS A BOND THAT BOND BETWEEN A BOY AND A DOGI... STARTED A BITTER MOUNTAIN FEUD!
SPORE!
DIENDA
NOKES JOYCE SHAYNE
*
and SHAGGY
AR SHAGGY
in Cinecolor!
SPECIAL SUNDAY MORNING SHOW AT 12.30
companies have Alms in various "THE GUADALCANAL DIARY" A Fox Film
stages of preparation.
All the evidence indicates that the new quota regulation now in force can benefit Britain's lin industry and everyone overseas who appre- ciates its contribution to the world's film programme. There
is every renson why production should in- crense: there is Government legil and financial support: studio space Is available and last but not least-- there are plenty of men with skill and idens.
up of the lovers embracing is the MARLENE'S SECOND 'BLUE ANGEL'
Jentous imagination of the husband,
I
or will they think that a piece of film has got in at the wrong place? hope they understand it. This is a
"The Pas scene in my last alm slonate Friends," and is an expan- sion of my first experiment in this direction which was made in "Oliver Twist. In that Him I only did it once in the scene where Bill Siken sila in his room with the body of the woman he has Just murdered. After showing his conscience playing upon him I cut from a big close-up of Sikes to n shot of him striking down the man who had incited him
I to the murder. In other words, hoped that audiences would under- stand that he was wishing he had killed Faglu and not Nancy.
Straight Cuts
IN "The Passionate Friends" I did
am very 'it several times and anxious to see the results with an audience.
In "Oliver Twist" I made another experiment, and I am going to ex- pand its technique in my next pic- ture, "Madelaine Smith." for this I know works with an audience. It is an expansion of the flashback prin- ciple.
.
1
The scene In "Oliver Twist" was one between the workhouse matron and n
man named Monks. The matron is describing what took place ten years before when she attended a dying pauper. The accepted method of doing such a scene would be the dissolve back into the past with the matron's volce continuing over the pictures, but instead of dis- solving I made a straight cut-the
nudience is watching a scene which pauper is gathering up all “THE GREAT WALTZ took place in the pant. The dying
hor
strength In order to tell the matron
MARLENE DIETRICH first attracted the attention of Amigoers oul- side Germany by her performance as a cafe enterialner in "The Blue Angel," in which she played opposite Emil Jauntings. In her again night club latest picture, "A Foreign Affale," she #inger this line in postwar, ocoupled Berlin, John Lund plays the part of an American afleer who falls for lier elarms, and Jean Arthur, as a Congresswoman on four, is the third part of the triangle. At the Queen's Theatre today.
SHOWING
TO-DAY
AT 2.30, 5.20,
MAJESTICA
7.20 & 9.20 P.M.
BETTY GRABLE
DICK HAYMES in
THE Shocking
MISS PILGRIM
in TECHNICOLOR,
Written for the Screen and Directed by GEORGE SEATON
NEXT CHANGE BY SPECIAL REQUEST
"THE SOUL OF CHINA
PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS
They
Answered
the Call
Have You?
Send your donation to
the HONGKONG
WAR
MEMORIAL
FUND
Hon. Treasurora Lowo, Bingham & Matthews Mercantile Bank Bldg.
Copics of photographs taken by the South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Telograph
Staff Photographors are on view
in the
Morning Post Building.
ORDERS BOOKED.