Will Waspe
None of the reports I saw earlier this week about the 'blacking' of British Lion films unless they are made at Shepperton Studios has made clear the full extent of the union resolution just endorsed by the executive of the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians. I understand it applies not only to British Lion films, but to any that may be planned by any associated company or — and this is the cruncher — by any individuals who were members of the British Lion board at the time of the nationalisation and the denationalisation.
The ACTT can't be blamed for talking tough. Unemployment is currently running at 40 per cent among their 6,000 members in the film industry; last winter the figure touched 85 per cent and things may be just as bad in the coming months.
Since actors, too, would be hit by a shutdown at Shepperton in the interests of property development, I am not surprised to learn of a petition circulating in the acting profession calling for a public government-sponsored inquiry so that the studios are not closed "on the basis of evidence not made public and therefore not challenged by competent experts."
Double hazard
The confidence of Messrs Gordon Mills, Louis Benjamin and Leslie Grade in the magnetism of Tom Jones (" the world's most exciting performer ") can be judged from the fact that they opened his threeweek London Palladium season on Yom Kippur of all days.
I wonder if they are equally confident of Jones getting through the three weeks of twice-nightly performances? He doesn't cosset his voice, and his throat will have to be leather-lined to stand up to a couple of hours a night at full belt. (He had to be helped along with lozenges even on the opening night.) And if his throat does hold up, there still seems a likelihood of his tightly explicit trousers doing him an incapacitating mischief.
Filmdom's loss
Noi.)Lhly hurries playwright Christopher Fry, so you may have been surprised to read the other day that he had been busy on research and writing about the Brontës "only since January" and was to deliver four one-hour television plays about Anne, Charlotte, Emily and Branwell at the end of this month. In fact, Fry has been involved with the Brontë project for about two years. He began work when approached to script a film on the subject, but the film people were too impatient and scheduled shooting for the spring of last year. Inevitably the deal fell through. Hence the switch to television, when Yorkshire-TV saw how appropriate the subject would be coming from their transmitter. They'll screen the plays early in 1973.
Previous page
