FILM PAGE .sx by F. Leslie Winters .sx Hollywood decides that 1961 won't be a Super Colossal year .sx HAVING looked back on 1960 last week , it is now time to think of 1961 and the films it will bring .sx As far as Hollywood activities go , my correspondent there says that , after preliminary box-office results of " The Alamo " and " Spartacus , " there is a big drop in super-colossal productions and emphasis trends to intimate little pictures with Sex as the big motif .sx This follows the invasion of European films in America .sx Here I have selected 25 coming British films which look promising of their types .sx A picture which must strictly be regarded as American yet which has a British star and director is " Lawrence of Arabia , " with Peter O'Toole and made by David " River Kwai " Lean .sx Our own Michael Anderson has also made the drama-thriller " The Naked Edge " with American Gary Cooper and British/ U.S. Deborah Kerr .sx Peter Finch , for whom 1960 was triumphant , will be seen in a political drama " No Love for Johnnie , " while Peter Sellers stars and directs a big business drama " Mr. Topaze .sx " SOPHISTICATED .sx Richard Todd will be seen in a sophisticated comedy and a war drama- " Don't Bother to Knock " and " The Long and the Short and the Tall .sx " Another star who is also directing is Nigel Patrick and his film is " Johnny Nobody , " with Aldo Ray and Yvonne Mitchell as well .sx We also have such extremes as " Carry On Regardless , " with a cast you could pretty well guess , and " Macbeth , " with Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson .sx Stanley Baker will be on the wrong side of the law for a change in " The Criminal , " and so will Michael Craig in " Payroll .sx " Crime will also be the theme of " Frightened City , " with John Gregson and Herbert Lom- a vice expose .sx Horror plus science fiction are scheduled with " The Children of Light " ( uncast ) and the film of the TV success " Quatermass and the Pit , " which would be unthinkable without Andre Morell .sx " The Phantom of the Opera " ( once Lon Chaney's triumph ) will also be remade over here- the third edition , I think .sx Back to comedies- Leslie Phillips , James Robertson Justice and Eric Sykes combine with " Very Important " ; Jimmy Edwards will give us " Nearly a Nasty " ; Ian Carmichael and Janette Scott co-star in " Double Bunk , " and Terry-Thomas will be with Janette for " His and Hers .sx " HEART-THROB .sx There is much prophecy that the new heart-throb of the year will be Warren Beatty , over here to star with Vivien Leigh in a sordid drama called " The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone .sx " Warren is engaged to Joan Collins .sx Another American here is Susan Strasberg , to co-star with Ronald Lewis and Ann Todd in a thriller , " Taste of Fear .sx " British George Sanders stays on to co-star with Peter Cushing in " Time of the Fire .sx " To end with another contrast , we shall have Max Bygraves in a serious film about slum school life , " Spare the Rod , " and Virginia McKenna returning to the screen for a tense drama set in Sweden- " Two Living , One Dead , " in which she will co-star with husband Bill Travers .sx This is D-Day- in four different versions .sx NO one seems to know if we are going to have two major films about D-Day or not .sx Certainly Howarth's book " Dawn of D-Day " has been purchased for filming .sx But Darryl Zanuck is first with details about his " Longest Day , " by Cornelius Ryan .sx He will start production on June 6 on the original Omaha beach , Normandy , on sequences to cost as much as an average minor epic .sx The story is in four parts , each with its own director , telling the same story from the British , American , French and German points of view .sx I would like Monty's view of Zanuck's statement :sx " The theme will be the stupidity of war .sx The Allies made every conceivable physical mistake but , fortunately for us , the Germans made more .sx Unbelievable blunders on both sides took place .sx " How the Americans love to debunk !sx A PITY this country hasn't anything comparable with the Hollywood Motion Picture Museum .sx A big new building is now planned to house nearly two million pounds worth of equipment dating to the pioneer days .sx It will be built opposite the Hollywood Bowl ( famous arena and scene of spectacles , music and pageantry ) and the American film industry is to lay out +350,000 on exhibits and +180,000 on equipping sound stages for demonstrations of film production .sx VERSATILE JOE .sx by JOHN GORDON .sx JOE BROWN , former white-haired comedian of the ITV beat show " Wham , " has really hit a gusher .sx Just before starting out on a tour of one-nighters- in West Bromwich this week- he recorded two numbers , " Shine " and " The Switch " ( Pye 7N15322) .sx On the top half he chants away happily ; the backer is purely instrumental .sx This splendid disc proves Joe's versatility , which is going to make him a top star this year- you'll see .sx Bill Bramwell's " Candid Camera Theme " ( Decca F11309 ) is a most unusual combination of guitar , piccolo and gimmick vocal .sx The other half , " Frederika , " brings a more orthodox musical combination into the picture with this slow , almost haunting , bluesy piece .sx Two good sides .sx FILM PAGE .sx by F. Leslie Winters .sx The man with a bent halo .sx BUT THE LIFE , LOVES AND MUSIC OF FRANZ LISZT ADD UP TO A CINEMATIC TREAT .sx THEY say ( and I don't quite know who " they " are ) that audiences won't accept so eagerly these days the sort of films which were tremendously successful about 15 to 20 years ago .sx I have heard film executives express doubts whether a " Seventh Veil " type of theme would capture people's fancy today in the extraordinary way it once did .sx Many of you will have a warm regard for that immensely popular " Song to Remember , " in which Cornel Wilde played Chopin- made in wartime and which captured people's hearts as well as ears .sx SHUNNED ?sx .sx Can this sort of success be repeated in these times ?sx Or does a mixture of costume , classical music and courtly manner seem likely to be shunned by audiences said to be horror and crime addicts ?sx I should be sorry to think so , for " Song Without End , " which tells some of the story of Franz Liszt , is a film worth going to for its music , its decor , its acting , and its elegance .sx Those classical composers of the great musical era are certainties for the script-writers .sx Their private lives , mainly , were as wildly romantic and as full of drama as any novelist's inventions .sx Even so , there is usually a tendency to soften the outlines , polish up the bent haloes , and omit a few facts .sx On the whole , " Song Without End " is fairly accurate .sx It is marred by a few American accents and expressions , and is reticent about Liszt's long affair with a Russian princess .sx Despite the detail into which this part of the film goes , it doesn't even whisper the fact that they lived together for many years in a strange atmosphere of passion , piety and regret .sx But jarring moments are remarkably few in the two hours and ten minutes it takes to cover Liszt's career from the age of 26 until he went into a monastery .sx The film's inference at the end is that the composer has found peace and will never emerge again .sx In fact , he merely took a minor order and toured Europe as a white-haired and pretty gay old man .sx The picture also merely includes two women in his life ( from the many who caught his eye)- French Countess Marie , with whom he ran off to Chamonix and whom he deserts to start another concert tour , simultaneously with one roving eye on Russian Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein .sx She has a jealous husband and the protection of the Czar- formidable adversaries .sx FRUSTRATION .sx The personal side of the story shows the frustration and bitterness of the discarded mistress , a beautiful piece of acting from France's Genevieve Page , and the passion-battling-religion of the entranced princess , played with the face of Ava Gardner and the coolness of a real princess by Capucine , lovely model with no acting experience before this .sx The musical side ranges from Chopin to Wagner , Beethoven to Bach , Handel , Mendelssohn , Verdi , and Schumann .sx All this played by Jorge Bolet , but magnificently co-ordinated with the hands of Dirk Bogarde , who makes of Liszt an irresponsible but rather lovable puppy-dog rather than a dare-devil , philandering genius .sx I do so hope that the pattern of entertainment has not changed so much that a worthy film of this type fails .sx Perhaps we shall be surprised and Birmingham's Odeon will be packed this week .sx It deserves to be .sx An experiment in the shadows .sx IT is strange that a Hollywood actor should get the idea for a film in a New York students' loft on January 14 , 1957 , and a few months later , with money borrowed and money donated after a TV interview , make this film in the streets of that city and then fail to find anyone in the United States who would show it .sx That is why John Cassavetes came to England to find someone who would take a risk on something new .sx It was the directors of newly-constructed British Lion , who have got faith in fresh faces , talent , ideas and letting people try them out , who saw " Shadows " one evening and immediately offered Cassavetes the money for world distribution rights .sx I feel sure they won't regret it , from the prestige or financial angles .sx This film , now at the Futurist , Birmingham , was made with a 16mm camera in 42 days and nights in New York marquees , in disguised dust-bins , from trucks , in subway entrances and restaurant windows .sx For six weeks the actors , all unknown to the general public , lived together and discussed the story outline .sx Each fully understood the situations planned and the nature of the characters ( which bear the same names as the actors ) , and when the camera started they just talked- without a script , as the words came in their minds or were provoked by others .sx The result , if not completely satisfying ( some scenes do appear a little contrived and tentatively scripted ) , is remarkable .sx There is a coloured girl who pretends to sophistication but is horrified at her seduction ; her trumpet-playing brother who finally stops his aimless existence after a slum beat-up ; the clash and inner concern of the colour problem .sx No one is very good or very bad .sx It may not be a film for everyone , but it is an experiment that almost comes off and is , undoubtedly , of importance in the technique of film-making .sx TV TOPICS .sx by ROBBIE ASHLEY .sx Secrets of the 'Candid Camera' .sx SO often have I heard suggestions that " Candid Camera " is " rigged " that I decided to find out just how they go about eavesdropping on the public .sx An ABC spokesman was quite adamant in refuting the charge of " rigging " of sequences and employing actors in the role of Mr. and Mrs. Public .sx The only professionals employed on the show are Jonathan Routh ( its originator ) and sometimes Bill Bramwell ( the musical director) .sx Obviously they are required to " set up " the victim .sx HIDDEN .sx Cameras , in soundproof cabinets , are hidden behind curtains , in cupboards with the rear door left ajar ; and for street scenes the camera often shoots through the windows of a plain van parked nearby .sx Tiny radio microphones are dotted all over the place- Routh often wears a lapel microphone which only a person in the know could detect .sx An aerial runs down the trouser leg from the radio microphone , and the speech is picked up by a receiving aerial in the next room , under the counter , or just around the corner- wherever the scene is set .sx SEQUENCES .sx Several sequences are shot in one day .sx For instance , in a hardware shop Routh asked a woman to fill in a form to obtain a licence to buy saucepan patches .sx Later , still in the same shop , he began selling left-handed teacups to a gullible public .sx Thousands of feet of film are shot every week , and a tremendous amount is wasted .sx Sometimes a stunt does not come off ; sometimes Routh is recognised ; and often nothing at all happens .sx [END]