Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Wednesday 29 June 1955, page 13


I French movie ¡stars for

Jíew Guinea wilds

By HELEN GORDON,

staff reporter

KISS FOR LUCK for Fran-çoise Christophe from fellow stars Chips Rafferty (left) and Pierre Cressoy. They are now on location in Mew

Guinea.

Meeting French film stars Françoise Christophe and Pierre (iressoy, now in New Guinea with Chips Rafferty making "Walk Into Paradise" for Southern International Films, is a maddeni ig, fascinating piece of slapstick entertainment.

I WENT along to the

interview at the actors'

S dney hotel, confident ti at my high-school trench was equal to the

01 casion.

Meeting Mlle. Christophe 1 M. Cressoy was easy. Tonjour," I said. "Hello, how are you?" they replied.

We switched to English.

\ short, pixie-faced man ?irrived, put his briefcase

v n on a chair, and began ung his arms.

He spoke rapidly in French, iping his hands together and raising his eyebrows for

niphasis.

ailing for assistance, I (1 Françoise Christophe What did he say?"

He is Paul-Edmonde

Di harme, and he is directing the French version of the film

go to make in Nevy Guinea," Françoise said.

He is describing to us a

from the film. It will ry good. I am a doctor Hit h the United Nations, and I Pierre is a crocodile-hunter

Wi rome to a native village »hore the natives are very bad

»ith us.

The little boy of the black king is very sick, but I cannot help him, because the natives are very bad against white dornen, they have no trust in

me.

So we tell them Pierre

doctor, and I stand be-hind him and sav "do this, do 'Hat,' and tell him what to I do, But we do not know that

the black witch man-witch doctor, is that right? - is watching us, and so he knows that it is I who cure the child.

"He hates me, and he puts a poisonous snake in my tent

and I am bitten. But I do not die.

"It will be good, do you think? Very tense and sus-pense."

We got down to the serious business of the interview.

"I am mad on acting ever since I am at school." Fran

i oise said. "Every time I got

nod marks my mother would take me to the theatre, and, when I .un a bit older, two days each week I finish school in the afternoon and run

through the street so I will not be late for my drama lessons.

"I studied for three years at the Paris Conservatorium, and then I acted for a year with the Comédie Française. Then I want to the Comedie

de Champs Elysees and acted in plays by Anouilh, Bernard Shaw, Sir James Barrie, and many, many others.

"I became married to the producer of the theatre, a wonderful, talented man. We are divorced now, but we are still good friends.

"Always I will marry a Frenchman, or be in love with a Frenchman. For a friend, perhaps an Englishman or an

American.

PIERRE CRESSOY and Françoise Christophe at a Sydney cafe. Miss Christophe will play the part of a woman doctor

in the film "Walk Into Paradise."

"But Frenchmen I like very much. They are artistic and sympathetic. They talk of love so beautifully."

"'Perhaps you are right about that." Pierre Cressoy com-mented, shrugging modestly.

"I would not know.

"'You have eyes like a gaz-elle," he said winningly as he turned in my direction. "Are you married?"

Suddenly everything became very French again.

A roar of laughter came from M. Decharme. another torrent of incomprehensible French, and more vivid ges-

tures.

Temperament

V NEW arrival, Marcel

Pagliero, dialogue direc-

tor for the French version of

"VV..Ik Into Paradise," trans-lated.

"Decharme is telling a story

about the late Raimu. He was

a very great actor, but at times very temperamental.

"He was working on one film, and they were trying to shoot a particular scene, but

Raimu said he could not act because a certain electrician was on the set and Raimu didn't like his face.

"The electrician insisted that he stay on the set, and his union insisted, too. So Raimu said, 'I will try to act this scene, but it will be no good.'

"'So he acted that scene verv badly. A moment later some-one or other dropped a huge reflector from the leiling ¿mci it missed Raimu, by only SO much Ile was white yvith fear, but after that he acted mag-nificently."

Marcel Pagliero is a film director in his own right, and he has ideas of making a film in Australia within the next

vear.

FRENCH MODEL. Actress Françoise Christophe wears a heavily embroidered blue cotton frock, one of the tstto Paris

frocks she has taken to ¡Sew Guinea.

"I would like to make a film about Italians out here," he said. "I am an Italian my-self. I don't really know what the actual story will be, but I would like to make the film in Sydney and in North Queensland, in the sugar-cane country.

It v.ould be a story about Italian migrants, but there is nothing really definite about the film yet.

'Your Australian wine is

very good, I am most sur-prised. We were all verv wor-ried when we thought of coming out to Australia and New Guinea, we thought it would mean three months

without any good wines, but now we will be taking a ]ot 01 Australian wines to New Guinea with us.

"'Frenchmen are not happy where they cannot drink wine. For me a meal is tasteless

without it. Very bad. Awful."

J.orWi; girls

I ASKED Pierre Cressoy the

inevitable question. "What do you think of Australian girls?"

"They are lovely, the ones I have seen around the citv," he said. "They have lovely legs and figures. 1 think Aus-tralian women must be the best looking I have seen, along wnh \merican women.

"I haven't had suffi <?

time to appreciate the Aus-tralian girls, but the\ look wonderful.

"Of course, French women are the most charming Scandinavians the most com-fortable to be with. To be married to, I think an Italian woman would be the best. She would be a good housekeeper.

"But no! I will NOT mari

am ot them. Me, I am the bachelor type.

I was a doctor of medicine at the beginning, one of the youngest to graduate in Paris, and I worked in a hospital for about £4 a month. I )f course I was happy enough, 1 had no (honey, no one had less money than I. But now I am an actor, this acting is a sickness, a virus. I would like to be a great comedian.

"But if I find in a few years I am doing no good in films, I might become a psvehoinalvst. There is money in that, you know. There are man) foolish people who have nothing wrong with them and a lot of money."

Another babble of French from everyone.

Françoise explained, "We have to go and get clothes for the film," she said. "Good-bye,"

Au voir, chérie." M. Cressiiv crooned, "I am so sad to

leave von."