Please wait. Contacting image service... loading

Article text

Film Gossip From London And Hollywood
CHALLENGE TO EUREKA BY
OLD RIVAL
* * -lt
From
Dick Kisch
London, Sot-: Long-standing rivalry between 2
British film producers came to a head last week
with the showing of Diamond City.
With this film Bank's No.
1 producer, Sydney Box, hopes
to secure points off Sir
Michael Balcon, of Ealing
Studios.
Box planned Diamond City
as a deliberate counterblast
to Eating's Eureka Stockade.
He put his best director
Dave McDonald, on it, grab-
bed one of Britain's most
popular actors, David Farrar
to give it star value.
Box went to town to show
that if Ealing could make
only a ponderous semi-docu-
mentary out of Australia's
famous incident, he could
make rip-snorting western
entertainment out of a
dubious little-known incident
of the South African diamond
fields in the We when a
bunch of prospectors formed
lan abortive "diggers' repub-
lic."
He started Diamond City
after a series of more or less
petty incidents which in
I eluded a refusal to release
I some actors to play in Eureka.!
There was also at least one)
¡example of technician-grab-
bing from Ealing.
Last week, with the first
public showing of Diamond
City, it was possible to judge
whether Box had put any-
thing over Balcon.
As popular entertainment
Diamond City is a flashy, tin
sellated period piece which
probably scores a few points
from Eureka in its melodra-
matic build-up.
But if "incidentals" like
photography, technical direc-
tion, historical accuracy, and
balanced character motiva-
tion are taken into account,
it has no more claim to being
a serious film than any B
grade western.
. Betty Hutton's two children posed no problem as they visited their mother on the Red Hot and Blue set, on a Hollywood lot. Betty amuses one-year-old Candy, while director John Farrow's camera finder holds the attention of Lindsay Diane, two. Their father is Ted Briskin. Help
. Betty Hutton's two children posed no problem as they
visited their mother on the Red Hot and Blue set, on a
Hollywood lot. Betty amuses one-year-old Candy, while
director John Farrow's camera finder holds the attention
of Lindsay Diane, two. Their father is Ted Briskin.
$