Britain's Best

All important motion pictures in three years will be made in color. . . . Within three years, or perhaps two, the British film industry will be as great in productions and earning power as the American. . . . The British sunlight is just as lovely as the American sunlight. . . . The cinema must forget its eternal preoccupation with love stories.

What made these statements more notable than they sounded last week was the fact that they came from the tall, fuzzy-haired Hungarian who in two years has made Great Britain's cinema industry a serious rival to Hollywood. When he arrived in Manhattan on his way to California to discuss his plans for the coming season, ship news reporters on the lie de France dutifully scribbled every word Alexander Korda said because they knew that, as head of London Film Productions, Ltd. he is today Britain's best in the way of a producer.

Alexander Korda's trip to Hollywood last week was not his first. Son of a well-to-do land agent on the estate of a Hungarian bishop, he became a schoolteacher at 14, a reporter at 18, got into cinema by translating subtitles. Starting with an inferior epic based on the Freudian theory of dreams, he began to produce pictures of his own, became the No. 1 cineman of Hungary after the War. This trifling distinction served as a mild irritant. He went to Vienna, made a hit called The Prince and the Pauper, married an actress named Maria Farkas, moved on to Berlin to work for UFA, arrived in Hollywood as a director for First National in 1925. After a series of mildly successful pictures, of which the most notable was The Private Life of Helen of Troy, he joined Fox. By 1930 he had lost his job, most of his money and his wife, who divorced him. Director Korda whisked back to Berlin, then Paris; found a job at Paramount's Joinville studio. Two years later, he summoned his old friend Author Lajos Biro to help him promote a few thousand francs. With a smart young film salesman named Stephen Pallos and Brother Vincent Korda they formed the enterprise that presently developed into London Film Productions, Ltd.

In London, where the new company set about making pictures for Paramount and Gaumont-British release, Alexander Korda had a hard time until someone sent him a fat, pasty-faced young actor named Charles Laughton. To the derision of the whole British film industry, Producer Korda promptly cast Laughton as Henry VIII. He then persuaded United Artists to release the finished picture and last of all got together enough private capital to make it. The Private Life of Henry VIII made Laughton a superstar, launched the careers of Robert Donat, Binnie Barnes, Wendy Barrie and Merle Oberon, caused Korda to be the most spectacular cinema success of 1933 and established the British film industry as an enterprise capable of better things than sleepy musicomedies, third-rate murder stories and "quota quickies." When Henry VIII was in production, King George visited the lot. Director Korda proudly explained that there were six British beauties in the cast. "Are there that many?" asked the King.

Since Henry VIII, Alexander Korda has produced Catherine the Great (Elisabeth Bergner), The Private Life of Don Juan (Douglas Fairbanks), The Scarlet Pimpernel (Leslie Howard) and Sanders of the River (Paul Robeson). Out of the profits, London Films is now building at Denham a 100-acre studio which, when completed in January, will rank favorably with any lot in Hollywood, accommodate 40 productions a year of which Korda will make only six. One of these will be the next effort of famed Director Rene Clair (The Ghost Goes West). Another will be 100 Years from Now, by H. G. Wells, who, Producer Korda says, will concentrate his literary output on cinema in future. Others on this year's schedule: The Man Who Could Work Miracles (by H. G. Wells), Cyrano de Bergerac and The Lion of Mayfair (starring Charles Laughton). The non-Korda Denham output will come from outside organizations, among them Joseph Schenck's new Elisabeth Bergner Production Co., Ltd., whose first film will be St. Joan.

Producer Korda lives near Regent's Park in London, gets up late, rarely eats anything during the day, does most of his work after midnight when his library is a hive of activity. In Hollywood Producer Korda will work out a new arrangement with his U. S. distributors, United Artists. As to the rest of his plans, Producer Korda last week made one statement which, if not particularly revealing, was obviously true: "Anything may happen."

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