Roundabout

Figures

In London, Mr. Wald stays on the fifth floor at Claridge's, with a TV set turned off, and a large bottle of Vichy water within reach. Swarthy, stocky and slightly pop-eyed, he looks like a well-dressed understudy for Toad of Toad Hall.

Mr. Wald talks fast. 'I've got a lot of Properties in hand. Forty altogether. I won't make them all, of course. I wait until I've got the script absolutely right. Then I say go. Scripts are a real headache. Writers come to me with stories they say are original. I say really, and show them the dictionary definition of the word. Fresh and underivative, according to Webster. OK then, they say, semi-original then.

`Actors, too. The problem is finding them. God is very good to us. He creates new talent every day of the week. What is lacking is the talent to recognise the talent. Kids have to learn not to copy the stars. 1 tell them, cleavage won't get you to the top. Sex is something different. It's not obvious. Garbo never wore a sweater.

`I've had my flops and I'm not ashamed of them. There was the Bogart picture, The Harder They Fall. A really tough exposé of the fight game. It just died, and now we know why. People can't take ten reels of violence. Then there was No Down Payment. We liked it. The critics liked it. Everyone liked it except the audience.

'All the films they've made into big hits have been the really good films. Tell me one that wasn't good. The Ten Commandments? You can't count that. De Mille's on his own. He's the only man Who can get away with rewriting the Bible.'

Mr. Wald is going into the Bible business, too. He plans to make a film of Duff Cooper's novel David, with—he hopes—Sir Laurence Olivier in the title role. 'That's not settled yet, though,' says Mr. Wald. 'I've not talked to Mr. Olivier yet.'

Numbers DRESSED IN A blue zip jacket and slacks, topped by a white Cossack hat and pearl ear-rings, she looked like an actress taking a breather between rehearsals. Her high-pitched stagy voice started the Saturday afternoon Hyde Park strollers ambling towards her platform like ants towards an apple core.

want to teach you all to think for yourself. To do this you must realise that your . life is guided by numbers.' She fluted and held up a small blackboard above her head. On it were chalked the letters of the alphabet and corre- sponding numbers. 'You see, your life is composed of. the emotional, physical and mental planes. Learn about, this and you will have faith and a link with something higher.'

`—Like an aeroplane, eh? !' shouted the first of the regular weekend wits. She took a piece of chalk between her lady-like fingers and stood poised to begin business. Now—who'll give me their birth date?'

A young lady in a blinding blue suit muttered her birthday and year of birth, and there was a rapid calculation upon the blackboard. Then the speaker gasped with pleasure.

`You're on the stage—you must be!' There was a rebellious mutter from the young lady. `Well, then—you ought to be !'

She turned her attention to the other half of her grinning circle. 'Now who else will give me a date?'

A seedy young man, in barbed-wire-check sports coat and flannels, suddenly stuttered out his birth date. He went pink and stared worriedly at his suede boots when told that 'You have a mind of your own and you often cause heated arguments.'

The analysis of the playthings of numbers con- tinued. 'You, madam. You rule with your heart; your husband is the practical one."You, sir. This is your year for marriage—don't hesitate.'

The young man who caused heated arguments pushed forward again. 'Excuse me, excuse me,' he stammered. She eyed him.carefully.

'Do you make all your personal decisions based on numbers?' The Cossack hat stopped nodding. She looked a little confused.

`Well,' she murmured quietly, 'I'm just in- terested in numbers, that's all.' But the web of attention had begun to ladder like a stocking.

Her audience was suddenly aware of a diver- sion. A silent, mountainous woman in the centre had opened her own meeting.

`I'm going to talk to you about all the living things of the world,' she boomed. 'And mostly about the greatest microbes of all—that's us!'