The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 17

IBBFBf PAGES 17-24 WOMEN'S SOCIAL FILMS MUSIC RADIO-TV TEEN TALK musements SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 1961 JEAN SIMMONS Her Success Story Started With A Role In Hamlet By Harold Whitehead SOMETHING over 10 years ago Sir Laurence Olivier produced a memorable Hamlet for the movies. It was a wonderful production with such first-rank theatrical names in the cast as Felix Aylmer, Eileen Herlle, Basil Sidney, Norman Wooland and Stanley Holloway. Also featured, as they say in theatre circles, was a doe-eyed youngster no one had ever heard of. Well everyone has heard of her since. Her name is Jean Simmons.

In Hamlet she played Ophelia and it was her first acting assignment. When Sir Laurence announced the casting of an unknown, completely Inexperienced teen-ager as his Ophelia many pundits thought Olivier had temporarily misplaced a few marbles. It was plainly evident, though, right from her first entrance that Miss Simmons had the magic quality that makes a star on the big screen. Carefully coached by Sir Laurence, she gave a depth to Ophelia that few others could. It is, at best, a rather thankless role.

People remembered her and had no trouble identifying the haughty miss in Great Expectations a short time later. Movie followed movie in rapid succession and they ranged from costume pictures, through modern comedies to desert island epics like Blue Lagoon. Miss Simmons gained rapidly in assurance. She was a natural for the films and as she began to realize this she developed strongly as an actress. Most movie actresses develop one personality and play that no matter what the part.

Miss Simmons benefited from the British tradition of versatility and took on all the parts that came her way and gave to each one a little spark of originality that made her appearances a pleasure. No matter how dismal the script, and she was stuck with some pretty bad ones from time to time, her performances always seemed to stand out. We can remember the most minor pictures because she was in the cast. If she hadn't been playing the film would have undoubtedly passed from the mind with the last reel. As her career went on, then, she gained a reputation for being a hard and serious worker with little or no temperament.

She also became, one of the best known of the British stars. It was just at the height of her career that she left England for Hollywood. We had seen this thing happen before. Many a good little actress in England has been turned into a lacquered nonentity by the Hollywood glamorizers. Miss Simmons was made of sterner stuff, however.

She knew her value was in her simple, direct approach to her parts and she stuck to her guns. The result was that she practically started her career all over again. She took the bad parts with the good and did her very best with each one. Now, once again, she is back at the top of the heap, or rather two heaps. 4 She is still well-known and liked by the British producers and she is high priced help indeed on the American scene.

She is in a particularly good position just now with movies becoming more and more international. She can work smoothly and well with a cast that is a mixed bag of British and American actors like the film she is currently appearing in, Spartacus. In it she works with Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, her old mentor Sir Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Nina Foch and John Gavin. She can be as American as Boston Baked Beans and as British as a cup of tea but whatever nationality she is playing she is always a seriqus actress. 1 ST 7-r I fe? fc-T "i rf i rrh 1 -mi inn thi i mi mi i i mm iimi mi jimnif muTii i mnui Jean Simmons as a slave girl in Spartacus How 'Adult' Should Hollywood Try To Be? Television Returns East studios which pretty well By JAMES BACON HOLLYWOOD (AP) Will 1961 be the year of decision for Hollywood and its apparent determination to make movies more adult-erous than ever? High industry sources talk officially in cliche-coated denials.

But unofficially they are seriously worried about charges of the Roman Catholic bishops and influential Protestant and Jewish clergymen. Says one top studio executive: now we have 'Lolita' with EW YUKlS. (Al'J Television grew up so fast it jumped in a little over a decade from infancy to giant size. And in the process it almost overnight grew too big for its britches or, perhaps more accurately, its swaddling clothes. Over the years, particularly in New York, the three networks have been trying to get television proper studios, stages and rehearsal space.

bulk of the audience." The executive started in the business as a theatre owner and recounts a personal experience as a parallel to what he thinks could happen to the movie industry. "My theatre did a nice business on family pictures such as 'Andy Hardy' and the like. Then one day we got greedy and bought a shocking exploitation picture on 12-year-old girl, no matter how artistically it is done? Personally, I doubt it." The producer isn't against sex per se but believes that Hollywood has ill-timed its accent on adultery, homosexuality, dope and other frank screen themes. "These are adult themes, but go to a movie house and try to find adults. The theatres are filled with impressionable teenagers.

They're the "The shock appeal of such raw films as 'Butter-field 8' and 'The Apartment have brdught millions at the boxoffice, and us. "Will the public buy a movie that deals with the sex relationship of a middle-aged man and a improvisation Gains A Disciple NEW YORK. A FEW WEEKS ago Lukas Foss, an excellent all-around musician and able composer, introduced a work which was played by the Philadelphia Orchestra only partly from the written note, portions of it being improvised by a small group of musicians. The somewhat baffling performance raises the question whether such a thing is possible and desirable. By CYNTHIA LOWRY Meanwhile, the Hollywood TV facilities of network television have been magnificently expanded one reason that it has looked as though Los Angeles would monopolize the production end of the industry as shows moved west.

While the New York facilities are still inadequate, they are gradually getting better. NBC has two huge lation, and summation just mentioned will be co-ordinated? Strange as it may seem, this is nothing new under the musical sun: it was known and practiced for centuries. To mention one example, Praetorius, the much-respected 17th-century composer-musicologist, describes what he considered the Ideal per- formance of an eight-part motet. After you finish reading his description of the actual performance and tote up the figures, you realize that you are dealing with a 20-part work. The extra Instruments or parts are not in the conductor's score, for they Were never written down, and in no performance were the sound, the ornaments, and the manner the same.

It must have been an marijuana. It did double the business our family pictures had done, so we booked more of the same. "It didn't take long for the shock appeal to wear off. Business dropped to nothing. Even worse, our cashier quit because her pastor had asked her to.

"Finally, we lost so much money that we boarded up the theatre and last I heard it was still boarded up." established traditions of a given musical practice. Actually, what improvisation means is the exercising of spontaneous but schooled inventiveness with the aid of models. The given model may be a theme, a tune, or any other definite musical entity. The improviser's task Is to vary and elaborate this model In a more or less free and independent manner. This practice is as old as music itself.

The given musical substance provides security, affords a rallying point, and enables the performer to devote himself unhindered to the exploitation of his own Imagination. The great composer virtuosos of the last cen take care of dramatic shows and specials. ABC has a centre with five studios. CBS has augmented its headquarters studios with others in a remodeled meeting-hall building. Now, however, CBS wants to bring under one roof seven studios and complete production facilities.

At least this indicates the CBS still plans to produce shows in New York. exhilarating experience to make music in this fashion, for it must be emphasized that this was no hit-or-miss affair. It was altogether based on the integrity, competence, and responsibility of the individual musicians, all of whom were thoroughly schooled in the prevailing "modern" style in those days they played only contemporary music. This also means that such music making followed certain conventions. To be sure, the conventions were magnificent; nevertheless, they were conventions which permitted improvisation to follow lines that we.e common to all musicians.

If Mr. Foss' idea is to revive this old artistic practice, he should not find it too difficult to restore group Improvisation. After all, It Is all around him Jazi Is a form of highly conventional and standardized group improvisation. tury often reserved part of their concerts for improvisation, which took the form of asking the public to designate a theme upon which the performer would elaborate. Beethoven was famous for these spontaneous compositions, as were Liszt and many others.

In every good musician re By Paul Henry Lang Hirald Tribunt Newt Srvlc To the layman Improv- Isation appears as the immediate expression of creative desire. Undoubtedly, there is such an element in improvisation, but if the improviser simply "lets himself go" he is only at the outskirts of art Improvisation becomes art when it is disciplined, when subjected to certain principles of composition, in which case it is no longer the performing artist's casual excursion but creative activity pure and simple. The history of music Includes few if any instances of improvisation in the sense that It represents unfettered outpouring of "feeling." It does, however, show a wide use of spontaneous improvisation within well a sense for order and articulation usually dominates the mechanical-digital ability. To shape any piece of music demands the gift of anticipation, recapitulation, and summation. This is difficult enough to attain by an individual, but Mr.

Foss expected a whole group of musicians to Improvise simultaneously. How can leveral persons' minds so function that the anticipation, recapitu- Tl FvnZ HaVC It opc onc' Lucille Ball, whose eyes are prob-l hi. fcti iimf. fi 6 most expressive and comic on the icreen todoy fence flirtinaly with heavy-rimmed glosses during a wryly amorous moment of "The Facts of Life," in which they ae starred. The film Is a romantic comedy In which Hope and Misi Ball portray members of the well-heeled suburban set who Have a brief encounter.

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