1958-06-21 — Page 13

"THE CHINA” MATE,” SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1959.

Roderick Mann Laughton's magic still charms

[SHOW BUSINESS ★ ★ ★ ★ M CHARLES

MISS LOREN SAYS: I AM A WOMAN NOW

LAUGHTON must The Party has t ДЗ a Bul for a fret play (by Jane

chronic drunk whose sense at Arden) nicely written, Interluzity lhnz driven bim And It is well played. By through his married file down Ann Lynn, horribly right on the the steep, undignified path to daughter by Joyce Redman as the mother;" by John Welsh an a lonely, hopeless ledger in the home. Andiwill bear shrugs

well under and wild grimaces ennirol--by Laughton himself,

ridiculous failure,

welgh a ton. When you see him on the stage this is the first and unfor gettable fact' you notice about an actor who has grown into a sort of legend.

It is 22 years since he played in the London theatre. Now, after Henry Vill, High of the Bounty, stories from Americn about Bible read- have him at her birthday party, ings, id nostalgia for the land of Shakespeare. He will only disgrace her. He is here again,

It is almost three-quarters of an hour after the curtain goes up on his new play The Parth that he comes on stage.

1a 10-year-old daughter,

refuses to

snobbish little prig.

Relentless

Q

She persundes her over-work- ed mother (Joyce Redman) ta put off his return from

Clinical

`GEORGE DILLON (Comedy) is the first play which came out the of the John (Look Back in

Osborne stable of virulent dranto. And

He manoeuvres his bulk carefully through the front door and into the hideous suburban Home he is in until the party Is Anger) lking-room, and blinks. The smile on his lips, aver. But Laughton arrives as modern furtive and small, is almost hidden by the the Chinese lanterns quivering Jowls. He is grey and balding, and It, And his daughter, with he shambles with the easy teddy-bear lightness relentless et tent of the miper heavyweight.

This, then, is Churles Laughton in the flesh, Mau or monster? Actor or my?

Compelling

It is too easy to dismiss this 58-year-old son et a Scarborovchi hotelier as "bent quailty York- shive ham." Everything about him has a feel of exaggeration, vertainly: but it is no so much Laughlen overplaying really a being rather larger than fe to start with.

are being the last to be seen in London,

I is far the best. Written in

cruelty, telephones collaboration with Anthony

her fglends and puts them aft Creighton, this 16 p slashing as her father, miserablo and piece of cold surgery carried out humiliated, shuffles about.

on the tower middle 'clases, and the pretentions of the would-be artist,

A

This is another play about loneliness: abenul the need for everyone to have dreams in The artist-an unsuccessful which they are kings and actor-playwright-eponges on queens: about the gulf between kind-hearted. motherly woman Baccals and children.

and her family. The question is Not a very good play, wend and it worries him too-

Its

an suburban-Intellectual whether he has fact the And he has. Indeed, a touch of magle about why to an artificial, sentimental talent to justily his way of life. him. He em compel an audience. He can make ending in which Laughter has Or whether he has only the li laugh. If he cannot at any rate in this play-- his daughter cradled. forgiving "symptoms of talent. make it cry, he can still force its sympathy. and loving, in his ample lap.

-(London Express Service).

Pary 18"

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MISS LOREN: "Being à star is aut impurtant.”

SOPHIA LOREN uncurled herself out of her car, took my hand, and led me through the Savoy foyer with all the enthusiasm of a newly trained guide dog. In the lift she said throatily: "I remember well. Last time we met I was in my pyjamas...."

T

The Bft operator looked at me with new respect on hearing this. Being a Sporting Neapolitan, Miss Loren tactfully omitted to add: "down at the studio."

In her suits she sat me down at 20 paces and looked me over, as though I were something she had just bought and wasn't quite sure about,

Then she sal down and said: "What do you think of the new short skirt

If you will stand up again," 1 said, "I will give you an "opinion."

She stood up again. Her legs lonked as if they had been pour- ed into the nylons and she had sald "when" at exactly the right time.

"Tu in favour" I said.

...TODAY"

"I sat up for nights at my home in Switzerland", turning_up all my skirts," she said. She glanced at herself in the mirror, "Yes," she said softly, "today I em woman....

"That sounds like the top half of on advertisement,” T said. "What were you yester- day?"

She looked at me accusingly. "You mean you haven't noticed? Yesterday I was girl, Good for nothing but pin- ups. Women disliked me, and they were right, Their husbands came away from my ma leering. I would hate it if my husband did thal."

Your husband's lucky,

I said. "He can do his leering at home."

She thrust her magnif- cent cat-face towards me,

"Today," she said, "the husbands do not leer. I am wontan. Everything is differ- ent,"

"Not from where I'm silting,"

A LOT

1 nofd.

cumparison We refugees from a Frinton finishlug school.

In getting from here to maturity, of course, Miss Loren has made some mediere pictures. She is the first to admit it,

"Boy on a Dolphin, The Pride and the Passton, and Legend of the Lost were all mistakys," she said. **13t what does it Inniter? I do not take This Lusiness of stardom too seriously.

Miss Loren, the peasant, brings out the poet in all men.

classic

That

famuis screen

The 39 steps is to be remade this year with Kenneth More.

Robert Donat starred in the pre-war version of the John Buchan novel and Alfred Hitch- cock directed.

il Was

com-

Says Hitchcock now: "It was a good film, but we forgot all about the steps. I did think of having 39 spies in the film, and showing them all coming to a when I was in Hollywood meeting, each carrying his own-

step, but

ioo recently Greta Garbo went up in the lift with me. She was plicated." wearing a big hat and dark Betty Box, who will make the "Ous Alm spectacles. My maid said she

version, says: new worr them because if she will be more of a comedy. Now didn't nobody would know you mention it though, I'd better who she was. I could never check up about those riepa!"

be like that..."

She lootted at me guiltly.

"I should not have said that," the added. "That was beetchy."

'I HAVE PATIENCE” ·

I told her she was for- given, and asked her about her proxy marriage to 4- year-old producer Carlo

INTRIGUING

Producer David Selznick's menos during the making of Farewell to Arms make intrigu ing reading

Particularly those concerning the casting of the aged Count Grem-for which role Selznick optimistically sought Leopold

Peril, the validity of which Is Stokowski and Bertrand Russell.

still not recognised in Italy.

When these proved unavali

"I am praying that it will be able, he wired his representative made legal soon," she said. In New York to try Noel "But I have patience. Remem- Coward. ber... I waited all my life for Added Selznick: "He would Carlo. 1 cars wait A little have to, make up longer."

genarian, which i think would

"In Latidon for only one day amuse him.”

as an ocio-

to film an additional scene for How little he knows dear

beralen picture The Key Noel.

Hophia Loren confirmed what

I have long malnialued; that

she in the mood fascinating star in films today.

GOOD QUESTION -

In truth there is a lot in what

The announcement of the new she says. For Loren, one of the

Brigitte Bardot-Frank Sinatra most captivating actresses in the Saya producer Carl Foreman, film was pinned up on the

has attained fantastle who cast her in The Key: "She bulletin board at world,

Columbia will be as meturity at the age of 22.

great as Garbo I Studios in Hollywood last week. Indeed che makes antiseptic have never been so sure of any- Under the heading "Stars" Britishy actresses Like Virginia thing."

was written: "FS and BB."

Under Tillo": "With epo two in--the coat, who ⋅ neods o

McKenna, Maureen Swenson. Said the lift-man as he took and Dorothy Tuti

four me down from her sulter, “Such years older than she-look by beauty.' And such simpation" title?"

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