Word: balcon
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First the Story. Ealing has prospered, says Production Director Sir Michael Balcon, because it has resolutely avoided making "pale imitations of U.S. films." After World War II, several British companies began trying to outspend Hollywood. Ealing decided that its films (average cost: $420,000), if good enough, would make enough money at home, and perhaps find a small extra market in the U.S. Thinking first of the story and director, and last of a star, Balcon found that his pictures, made with no concession to American tastes, were more popular in the U.S. than British-made imitations of the Hollywood...
...Balcon, 55, runs Ealing with few Hollywood mannerisms. "I'm not a glamour boy," he says. "I loathe cigars, I haven't got a swimming pool, I've only been married once, and I'm a mass of indecisions." His writers and directors talk over their ideas at round-table conferences, often held in a pub across the street...
Producer Michael Balcon (Tight Little Island, Kind Hearts and Coronets) has turned out a picture in the best tradition of satirical good humor. Alec Guinness, recently the victim of six murders in Kind Hearts, makes a thoroughly satisfactory criminal mastermind. Though remaining British to the core, he somehow achieves an almost Latin intensity in his role of a little man in happy revolt against society...
...movie about the American Eagle Squadron. Laurence Olivier, back in England after a long spell in the U.S., is now at work on 49th Parallel, a thriller about the battle against the submarines. Ships with Wings is the title for a Fleet Air Arm production of Michael Balcon, the stormy producer who last year called Hollywood's British colony deserters for remaining...
...wrangling with the Board of Trade over a plan to insure British film production under war conditions. Through a film commission, the Board is arranging to guarantee supplies of materials, man power and studios, perhaps even establish a film bank to lend money for British productions. Gloomed Producer Balcon: "As a producer, I state most emphatically that unless a special Government department with strong powers is set up immediately to deal with these problems, British production is sunk...