Picturegoer – Jun 14 1958

WordPress Photo Gallery Plugin

Bogarde is tough on writers

The Wind Cannot Read . . . but Dirk Bogarde CAN. And that makes him a very awkward customer for film scriptwriters. He usually insists on altering the script. That’s what us unusual about Bogarde’s “The Wind Cannot Read.”

Says Bogarde: “It’s one of the few scripts that I didn’t feel I had to alter before accepting the rôle.”

“I would say that about eight per cent of scripts need amending before they are playable.

I know scriptwriters get furious about this. But they could improve things greatly by putting some character into the lines they want the actors to speak instead of into their descriptions.

The character of the lines spoken by writer Wolf Mankowitz when I told him of Bogarde’s comments was something Bogarde would not have admired at all.

Here I’ll quote only his least heated comment: “There can’t be more bad scripts than there are bad actors. It’s just not physically possible.”

Mankowitz’s comment may be justified. After all he can WRITE as well as READ.

DEREK HILL