1959-02-07 — Page 13

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 18LEY

Roderick Mann

REPORTS A DISCOURSE BY

THE MASTER OF SUSPENSE

There's nothing like a BOMB

says Hitchcock

HERE'S THE LATEST of the Crosby clan to enter show business-black- hatred Cathy, daughter bf Hob, niece of Bing. She has a singing role in THE BEAT GENERATION.

IN a chair in a room in an upstairs suite in a

London hotel a small, rotund man sat talking to me about bombs,

It was early afternoon. The roar of London's traffic far below was muted by heavy drapes. There was nothing to disturb us.

The rotund man, who looked more like a successful family butcher thun a celebrated film director, was enjoying himself.

Alfred Hitchcock, I may tell you, has an affection for bombs which borders on a fixation.

THE CARDINAL RULE

He sat there, his letter-box girth encased in a neat dark-blue suit, snuffling into a handkerchief and chuckling to himself.

"Yes," he said, sighing contentedly, there's really nothing like a good bomb for scaring people."

2123

ad-

He

wagged monishing finger at me.

"However," he said severely, "one must never allow it to go off. Never. cardinal rule. That is n There is no terror in the actual bang, only in the anticipation of it. I learned

that the hard way."

He waited for me to ask him how was that so I asked him how was that?

"I once mule a film in which a small boy was carrying a bomb across London," he said. 'He didn't know he was carrying it but the audience did.

"They knew, too, that it was timed to go off at 1 o'clock, I showed the boy being delayed in various ways-by the Lord Mayor's Show and that sort of thing--and then just before the bomb was due to go off I showed him riding on a bus.. Lots of suspense."

"What happened then?"

"At three minutes past one," said Hitch- cock, with what can only be described as a leer,

Mr. Shaffer lands a

blow for the rich...

PETER SHAFFER,

winner of the

Evening

Standard

...they have as much right to unhappiness as the poor

TCOM setting. the Irench award for the most windows leading off, the daugh- play- ter in ledhpurs. This is where

promising new

writer of the

wright of 1958, is

young

benign rather. than

malignant sort.

walked WO

Oui,

might Justifiably think, recailing the innumerable dreary plays" with similar settings.

But Mr Shaffer keeps us in cur seats because he rapidly pools away the conventional ex-

Unlike the 1956 winner of the teriors of these people and gets

same award. John Osborne, he to

their somewhat defective

is not using the world as a hearts.

personal punching bag.

That the 32-year-old, bespec-

Intellectual-

--Compared with Mr Osborne's tacled and rather vielous jobs, malevolent upper- euta and eye-opening lefts Mr looking Mr Shaffer should have Shaffer's dramatic technique is chosen this particular milieu is perfectly natual: it is what he closer. to ju-jitsu.

knows abou!.

Genteel

Unlike Mr Osborne he han never known poverty, or the Gling of rejection. His people are In the real estate business and own blocks of flats around Lon- da. Mr Shalfer has not hud enough failure in his post to get gentle the acid rowing in his system, doesn't hurt you

His prize-winning play. Five Finger Exercise opens as itno cemily as a caress but very soon has the audience in a half-Nelson: you, but,

all the same, cannot escape.

These somewhat more genteel

trieks of holding, an ulience

are appropriate to the man. His

No quarrels

in not the kind of background first novel published, a delective

At the age of 21 he had als

How

Little Both the Crocodile? He followed with

that produces a arling rebel, story, genius that consist of an

pain.

robe

BY THOMAS WISEMAN

"I blew them all up-bas, boy, and passengers. What a business. They never forgave me for that One crille nearly hit me. I learn- ed my lessons."

FOR INSTANCE.....

The Hitchcock rule -it mustn't go of

[ Page 187

BARDOT AND KAYE

A CUTE IDEA, SAYS DANNY

NOW

OW we present producer Raoul Levy's big gamble to salvage "Paris by Night"-the pic- ture which was to have starred hip-swinger Brigitte Bardot and Frank Sinatra.

Levy, who saw his fiery formula fizzle last November when Sinatra backed out of the picture, snapping that the public would be sick of Miss Bardot by the time the film was made, is now, wooing Danny Kaye to take over the role.'

to

In London recently, Kaye FRANKIE VAUGIAN, after said frankly: "Certainly tee years as Uritain's top pop-

singing star, is planning Levy wants to team Bardot change his name for his Con- and me. The casting is tinental fans. Kinda interesting, don't you think? Bardot and the most Kaye. It should arouse the curiosity of the pub tolic. in the

along and a man gets of wait for a bus going opposite direction,

"The car drives away.

For Frankie, known as one of

considerato

It stara show business, thinks Vaughan # much . ເດ tough for Tha Germans to get their Teutonlo tongues around Bays he sadly: "It comes out Vauthkan."

France Vorn,

"The three of us had a 80, on the Continent, Frankio long talk in Paris. I found Vaughan is likely to become After her a very interesting wo- a while the man says: Funny'

of course. If it -und focles at a plane

crop-man, dusting away in the distance. works out it will start at

"What's

funny?'

SONG-AND DANCE man

Grant, just as the man gets unably in Europe.".

asked the end of the year, prob- Dan Dailey is making his first series of half-hour TV the bus, leaving him alone.

Aims 39 adventare epi- Ain't no crops over there," says But Kaye, who is not auch sodes based on "The Four

a clown in the business stakes, Just Men" added cautiously: "But Paris

Filty-eight-year-old Hitchcock who recently livened up a snug, looking lifticad of pastercers at his hotel by muttering to a

the man." friend: "I didn't think One shot Hitchcock chuckled to him- would cause so much blood; itself. "Not bad, huh?" was oit

the place" Ile get up and saw me to the learned other lessons too.

four, still inling.

"My attitude to film-making is really quite simple," "I just krop reminding myself what are all those, seats in einuna for?"

DUET

"Logic,"

sald, snuffing again. "is dull. None of my plots hold together legally. But if I stop to explain everything, there is no mystery. Look at some of my fis Ridiculous. For instance, in The Lady Vanistica, we had a trainful ef villains out to kidnap an ok latly who carried a secret message which she played en the piano.

Why didn't they use a absurd carrier pigcuni It just didn't bear investigation---but it made a successful film."

"By that

token,"

How

I said, "mystery writers should be

By

know that I'm THAT keen.

Night--frankly, I don't on-Thames,

at Walton- Has he for- saken song-and-dance? Says musicals At the

"You understand the ccript Dailey: "Movie ho raid.

in cycles. Was written for Bardot and come Frank Sinatra, don't know a moment there aren't any. lot about it really. But I believe Even Astaire's making a It would need considerable re- straight picture and he's writing it I play it.

over 60. I'm a song-and- "I'm no Sinatra, you know. dance man Never but of The way I see it, it would be work. If this series work

FOOTNOTE: Mr Hitchcock, who rarely goes to the cinema, confesses that he never TENDA thrillers.

His current reading? | cheaper and better to start as out I can always go and do

The Life of King George VI,

London Express Service.

useless for your pictures,” National

"They are," said Hitchcock sternly. "I hired Raymond Chandler for one of my films but it was no good. He was foo preoccupied with logic."

ONE MISTAKE

"What about John Buchan- who wrote The 39 Steps," one of your carliest successes?”

with

uའ༢htgin

I filmed Robert Donat," said Hitchcork, "I completely changed it from the original book.

"Happily John Buchan admitted later that my version Was more exciting thon hl9.

trouble- There was only one

by an oversight we left out any reference to the steps. So we had to write in a few sters later."

But Bardot and Kayni I like that, Cute, isn't it?"

a cabaret."

Have the World at

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Your Fingertips

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early play at Coward, and He chuckled. "I thought detests very little. He calls him- showing 39 spies each arriving self a "cautious optimist." He with his own step. but that 19 non-political because he became too involved." belleves that "the complexity of life is ruch that any form of political dogma does a

justice to it."

The danger

violent

'A MYSTERY'

"I'm told," I said, "that you repard most actors as peces- sories to the plot and nothing more. that true?"

#

"Well," said Hitchcock, "The Through Five Finger Exercise right star can help am at the is now caming him £170 albox-office, but he can't make

a better fun. week, there is little likelihood that Buotes will dramatically "However,

Cox director

out of alter his 1c. He has for some can get a performance ting ved very comfortably in almost anyone even someone Hke Kim Novak, although Earl's Terrace, Kensington, and the rich life has never kad, for She is ene of the great mysteries

maybe that's going a little far

him, the allure of the unstiain-of show businers. I used her In able. He has been sufficiently | Vertigo.” close to Keith Moutons

Ingresar. PETER SHAFFER... keeps un

in our seats.

on television, one of them serious, the other n epy melo-. drama written as a pot-boiler,

• "I believe," says Mr Shaffer, what it is better lo write some

it not to be unduly

he

course,"

admits, "success has its dangers. The moment you can pay other people to do the lesa grecable chores for you you are to come extent cutting yourself off from life.

"What about Grace Kelly whom you discovered?"

"Well," said Hitchcock, "she seems à cold fish, but I managed to make her lock sexy in Th Catch a Thief, I was rather proud of that. Not bad for mone- one who's been married 33 youra and never Goric out with another woman."

.

IN TERROR

"I believe very strongly in the need for writers to buy their own potatoes at the greengroCETK. I am sure that high-living is

He stuffed into his handket- death to the creative writer. Mind you, I don't believe in the chief again, and looked at che of starvation rather sadly with near-wet eyes. either.

"I try new techniques in

ninite enpaelly for inflicting two mere: Woman in a Ward- thing than nothing. And if you and Willcred Murder. on't have anything particular to Theor bool had a reasonable

say there is no disgrace ih He belongs at much to the succes, particularly in America.

writing a straightforward; entèr- Bent Generation as to The Beat-up Generation. The ably York, working In a publle the machinery for getting rurly inspiration value

For a while he lived in New tairment. That way you prevent obscrved characters in

your Finger Exercise are all people in library and then in a boodsireponit pain; and they lash out not at Though at one time he zamed

is only 35 dollars a week, he could technique." society, but at each other, people are the over-privileged edways, at a pinch, go home. and theirs is a tragedy with all that, cons.

Five

Mr. Shaffer lias proved once and all that the rich have es much right to unhappiness on the poor.

учена

1

Improve

"I write out of tension, and to caer with every plcture I do," he sold. "The creaking door come extent writing cases the This reasonable, liberal

and dark-alley slust have cover tension. But you've got to have In these circumstances it la atitude in reflected ito in his

the tensions in the drst place. appealed to me much, attitude to other contemporary understandable that Mr Shoffer

So tranquillity isn't a very good North-West I've got terror into a

"In my new Alm NOTIK

Dv

no

Caborne, which he thing." has violent quarrel with writers.

admita have started, was centrinptuous of

scene in which you can't sER.R nociety. He voted Labour twice and I have practically sydry other knglish

With his remarkable chpselly thing for miles around, voted Conservative twich," and writer.

for weling how people, devour; "Cary Grant gem st that he la nów p Liberal,

each ethér emotionally, rinderted belt of country. contrast, ShaÍTOC

in no particular | Hɗa treen hæred there by a trap Serbugt danger of becoming too tranquil, but only the audience knows

---Chenden Express Bernini), this. Presently, a car

There is a surface conven- Ilonality about in play which Before writing Five Finger angars the angries: the drawing- Exercise ho had two plays đúng

Mr Shaffer,

Dabarbe, · admired Beckett; some di Rättigers

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