Movies in Britain

After seven months of all-out war, Britons last week were still ready to pay their shillings to see some more--on the screen. With the lengthening days of spring, the British cinema industry made plans to occupy all available studio space (now sufficient to handle nine productions at once). On the docket were films on the R.A.F., the perils of the convoys, the Fleet Air Arm, the African campaign, and, of course, the life of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Plans. The R.A.F. film will be a biography of the late R. J. Mitchell, creator of the snappy little Spitfire fighter planes. Titled from one of Winston Churchill's throbbing phrases, it will be called The First of the Few, will be produced with the aid of Mitchell's widow, Vickers-Armstrongs and the Air Ministry. Also interested is Hollywood Producer Walter Wanger, who has a representative in London arranging for a movie about the American Eagle Squadron. Laurence Olivier, back in England after a long spell in the U.S., is now at work on 49th Parallel, a thriller about the battle against the submarines. Ships with Wings is the title for a Fleet Air Arm production of Michael Balcon, the stormy producer who last year called Hollywood's British colony deserters for remaining in the U.S.

Author Negley Farson (The Way of a Transgressor) has broken into the movies at 50 with Blitz Hotel. Director Maurice Elvey got the idea while staying at the Savoy, in 20 minutes talked Farson into writing the scenario. The scene will be the inside of a big London hotel between the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.; personal appearances by such familiar Londoners as Lord Castlerosse, the Countess of Oxford and Asquith, Carroll Gibbons and Manning Sherwin will add a touch of realism. Says Farson: "The story is fiction, but the bombardment outside is undeniable fact. You'll see the courage, boredom and complications arising when scores of variegated people are flung together, willy-nilly, in a confined space under danger."

Problems. The wartime British movie industry has its troubles. Conscription has hauled off many of the best actors and technicians, and the Ministry of Labor's new schedule of reserved occupations is giving producers more to worry about. Fear is that after June, reservations will be removed altogether except for those working directly on Ministry and service films. Already there are shortages in skilled trades; make-up men, sound men, camera men, carpenters and plasterers are scarcer than hen's teeth. Even wigs are a problem, since the hair lace that forms their base was imported from the beleaguered Balkans.

To clear up these troubles, the film chiefs are wrangling with the Board of Trade over a plan to insure British film production under war conditions. Through a film commission, the Board is arranging to guarantee supplies of materials, man power and studios, perhaps even establish a film bank to lend money for British productions. Gloomed Producer Balcon: "As a producer, I state most emphatically that unless a special Government department with strong powers is set up immediately to deal with these problems, British production is sunk."

Pleasures. Meanwhile, London's West End movie houses keep open until 9 p.m., now that there is enough daylight for crowds to disperse without being run over in the blackout. Current favorites are such U.S. hits as The Philadelphia Story, Arise My Love, Spring Parade, Seven Sinners, and a new British film, The Prime Minister, with John Gielgud and Diana Wynyard, which biographizes Benjamin Disraeli. London critics have treated the movie rather harshly, have criticized the casting of stately Diana Wynyard as plain, babbling "Mrs. Dizzy."

Ready for release is Yellow Caesar, an abusive comedy short which traces the Duce's career in crude flashes: Mussolini, the youthful agitator; Mussolini marching on Rome (in a train); Mussolini, the bullfrog orator; Mussolini pitching hay while the hot sun beats on his hairy chest and bald head. Comedian Douglas Byng does a brief, hilarious bit as one of the tittering Englishwomen who used to go into ecstasies over the punctuality of Italian trains under Fascism. The climax is a shot of Italian prisoners in Libya with Winston Churchill's voice (taken from a recent speech) booming over the sound track: "And where, after 18 years of dictatorial power, has the Duce led you?" Careful not to insult the Italian people, Yellow Caesar kids their leader with cheerful vulgarity--a happy change for Britons after a long spell of diplomatic language.

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