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Top-Line British Film
Producer Is A Woman
From a Special Correspondent in London
"ßLOODTHIRSTY" Betty Box, they facetiously call
Britain's first woman movie producer-and one
,of the few in the world-all because she scorns the
overworked boy-meets-girl film formula in favour of
themes rooted in phobias, fixations, and complexes.
^BNORMAL psychology, rather i
than adolescent mating, com-
mands her greatest professional in-
terest, and this, is often the dark,
mysterious field in which homicidal
dramatics get full play.
Blonde, slight ofv build, impeccably
clothed, and amply young enough to
keep her age out of the publicity
without prompting envious sarcasm,
Betty Box flatly repudiates any im-
plications, mock or real, that she
has a sanguinary temperament.
Chic and efficient, she might be
the owner of a fashionable gown
shop, a fine arts teacher, a BBC an-
nouncer, or one of the aristocratic
junior set that gave up charming
idleness for exacting war work.
Acknowledging that she has taken
cinematic .inspiration from the ex-
pansive Alfred Hitchcock, master of
suspense and chills, she neverthe-
less is too much an individualist to
be content with that alone.
She affirms a belief that her future
as a producer lies chiefly in the
creative development of modern
psychological ideas, interpreted ur-
banely, Ironically, and subtly.
She doesn't want to be another
Hitchcock, nor a second anybody
else, but a new force in British
pictures-on her own.
Virtually solo, her first venture,
under a contract giving her the un-
precedented job of producing four
major feature pictures a year in as-
sociation with, her brother, Sydney
Box. is "Dear 'Murderer," a tense;
analytical crime story which was
[ adapted from a popular London
play.
Costing about hali a million dol-
lars, in American money, and star-
ring Eric Portman and Greta Gynt,
it will be an early 1947 release from
Gainsborough's Islington studios.
In v those studios, which are not
much to look at from the outside
and cramped for space inside, she
spends 12 to 14 hours nearly every
day'except Sunday, overseeing work
on the sound stages, conferring with
staff, reading manuscripts and
handling the chain of administrative
detail in a small private office.
"Every story I have at the moment
has a murder in it," she said, add-
ing with a laugh : "It's no wonder
I'm .being called 'Bloodthirsty Box'."
Avoiding costume pictures, frothy
comedies and musicals, she aims to
produce superior pictures on a bud-
get of £5,000,000 for all four films
in a year. By sticking to modern
sets and small casts, and by niling
out elaborate wardrobes, she feels
this can be accomplished without
sacrifice of quality in any depart-
ment.
She has worked closely with her
brother on such pictures as "29
Acacia Avenue," "The Seventh Veil,"
"The Years Between," "A Girl in a
Million," "Daybreak," and "The Up-
turned Glass," new screen drama
starring James Mason and Rosa-
mund John. She took over at Isling-
ton in late October.
More than ever, she reasons, Bri
tish pictures should be addressed tc
world audiences.
$