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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 15, No. 12. July 3, 1952
"Broken Barrier," N.Z. Feature Film, Boasts Ex-Vic Star and Producer-Director
"Broken Barrier," N.Z. Feature Film, Boasts Ex-Vic Star and Producer-Director
The Old Clay Patch has brougth forth many fruits but the addition of film-makers strikes a novel note. In a sense, associations formed during attendance at V.O.C. were one of the important factors involved in the making of "Broken Barrier," the feature film produced in New Zealand about the love affair of a Maori girl and a white boy. When the co-producer and director of the film. John O'Shea. was seeking the co-operation of the Maori people and searching for suitable locations, it was through the assistance of two contemporaries at Weir House and V.U.C., Bill Parker and Tom Ormond, that he and his associate in Pacific Films, Roger Minims, were able to make suitable arrangements.
Bill Parker assisted with casting the Maori players in the film and acted throughout production as Maori adviser.
Tom Ormond's invaluable assistance as general factotum while the production unit was working on exteriors on the Mania Peninsula—on which most of the cattle and sheep runs are owned by members of the Ormond family—greatly speeded up the bulk of the location shooting.
To present-day students at V.U.C. and especially members of the Drama Club, Terence Bayler's emergence as a film star will be greeted with inter-eat Terry's most recent appearance with the College Drama Club was in the role of Tarquin in last year's "Lucroce," His role in "Broken Barrier" is a far cry from the theatrical histrionics of Tarquin. He plays a slick journalist who is cashing in on his friendship with the Maoris. While working on a Maori farm, he falls in love with the farmer's beautiful daughter, and the film dramatises the personal and racial complications that ensue. Soon after he completed his work in the film, Terry left for England to study drama under the bursary awarded each year by the Government in association with the Drama Council. Top star billing in a feature film might well prove a turning point in his professional career as an actor, especially as "Broken Barrier" has now been accepted for commercial distribution in the United Kingdom.
The co-producers of "Broken Barrier," Roger Mirams and John O'Shea, think that their film will give overseas audiences, especially English audiences, a new conception of New Zealand. They have concentrated on people, not the magnificent scenic backdrops that have been fed to the world in tourist films. Of course, as their film has been laregly shot on exterior locations, the landscape is there, but only as a backdrop, and the traditional sights that identify New Zealand throughout the world come in for some implied criticism.
Terence Bayler shares starring honours with Kay Ngarimu, a member of the well-known East Coast family. Kay was a student at Wellington Training College and is at present teaching in Ruatoria. The large cast includes a few of New Zealand's semi-professional players but consists largely, of people recruited on the spot and people photo, graphed in their ordinary environment at their usual occupation. Welingtonians in the cast include Dorothy Tamiley. Carol Chapman, F. W. French, Anne Muni, Vilma Prow, Lloyd Morgan. Margaret Davies, Guy Smith and Barrie CooKson.
This film will be shown from July 10 at the Regent Theatre.
—A.M.
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