film page . by F Leslie Winters . Hollywood decides that 1961 will n&apos;t be a super colossal year . having looked back on 1960 last week , it is now time to think of 1961 and the films it will bring . 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 . this follows the invasion of European films in America . here I have selected 25 coming British films which look promising of their types . a picture which must strictly be regarded as American yet which has a British star and director is Lawrence of Arabia , with Peter O&apos;Toole and made by David River Kwai Lean . our own Michael Anderson has also made the drama-thriller the naked edge with American Gary Cooper and British &amp;sol; U.S Deborah Kerr . 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 . sophisticated . Richard Todd will be seen in a sophisticated comedy and a war drama - do n&apos;t bother to knock and the long and the short and the tall . another star who is also directing is Nigel Patrick and his film is Johnny Nobody , with Aldo Ray and Yvonne Mitchell as well . 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 . Stanley Baker will be on the wrong side of the law for a change in the criminal , and so will Michael Craig in payroll . crime will also be the theme of frightened city , with John Gregson and Herbert Lom - a vice expose . 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 . the phantom of the opera ( once Lon Chaney &apos;s triumph ) will also be remade over here - the third edition , I think . back to comedies - Leslie Phillips , James Robertson Justice and Eric Sykes combine with very important person ; Jimmy Edwards will give us nearly a nasty accident ; Ian Carmichael and Janette Scott co-star in double bunk , and Terry-Thomas will be with Janette for his and hers . heart-throb . 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 . Warren is engaged to Joan Collins . another American here is Susan Strasberg , to co-star with Ronald Lewis and Ann Todd in a thriller , taste of fear . British George Sanders stays on to co-star with Peter Cushing in time of the fire . 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 . this is D-day - in four different versions . no one seems to know if we are going to have two major films about D-day or not . certainly Howarth &apos;s book dawn of D-day has been purchased for filming . but Darryl Zanuck is first with details about his longest day , by Cornelius Ryan . he will start production on June 6 on the original Omaha beach , Normandy , on sequences to cost as much as an average minor epic . 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 . I would like Monty &apos;s view of Zanuck &apos;s statement : the theme will be the stupidity of war . the allies made every conceivable physical mistake but , fortunately for us , the Germans made more . unbelievable blunders on both sides took place . how the Americans love to debunk ! a pity this country has n&apos;t anything comparable with the Hollywood motion picture museum . a big new building is now planned to house nearly two million pounds worth of equipment dating to the pioneer days . 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 &amp;pound;350,000 on exhibits and &amp;pound;180,000 on equipping sound stages for demonstrations of film production . versatile Joe . by John Gordon . Joe Brown , former white-haired comedian of the ITV beat show wham , has really hit a gusher . 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 ) . on the top half he chants away happily ; the backer is purely instrumental . this splendid disc proves Joe &apos;s versatility , which is going to make him a top star this year - you &apos;ll see . Bill Bramwell &apos;s candid camera theme ( Decca F11309 ) is a most unusual combination of guitar , piccolo and gimmick vocal . the other half , Frederika , brings a more orthodox musical combination into the picture with this slow , almost haunting , bluesy piece . two good sides . film page . by F Leslie Winters . the man with a bent halo . but the life , loves and music of Franz Liszt add up to a cinematic treat . they say ( and I do n&apos;t quite know who they are ) that audiences will n&apos;t accept so eagerly these days the sort of films which were tremendously successful about 15 to 20 years ago . I have heard film executives express doubts whether a seventh veil type of theme would capture people &apos;s fancy today in the extraordinary way it once did . 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 &apos;s hearts as well as ears . shunned ? can this sort of success be repeated in these times ? 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 ? 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 . those classical composers of the great musical era are certainties for the script-writers . their private lives , mainly , were as wildly romantic and as full of drama as any novelist &apos;s inventions . even so , there is usually a tendency to soften the outlines , polish up the bent haloes , and omit a few facts . on the whole , song without end is fairly accurate . it is marred by a few American accents and expressions , and is reticent about Liszt &apos;s long affair with a Russian princess . despite the detail into which this part of the film goes , it does n&apos;t even whisper the fact that they lived together for many years in a strange atmosphere of passion , piety and regret . but jarring moments are remarkably few in the two hours and ten minutes it takes to cover Liszt &apos;s career from the age of 26 until he went into a monastery . the film &apos;s inference at the end is that the composer has found peace and will never emerge again . in fact , he merely took a minor order and toured Europe as a white-haired and pretty gay old man . 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 . she has a jealous husband and the protection of the Czar - formidable adversaries . frustration . the personal side of the story shows the frustration and bitterness of the discarded mistress , a beautiful piece of acting from France &apos;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 . the musical side ranges from Chopin to Wagner , Beethoven to Bach , Handel , Mendelssohn , Verdi , and Schumann . 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 . I do so hope that the pattern of entertainment has not changed so much that a worthy film of this type fails . perhaps we shall be surprised and Birmingham &apos;s Odeon will be packed this week . it deserves to be . an experiment in the shadows . it is strange that a Hollywood actor should get the idea for a film in a New York students &apos; 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 . that is why John Cassavetes came to England to find someone who would take a risk on something new . 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 . I feel sure they will n&apos;t regret it , from the prestige or financial angles . this film , now at the Futurist , Birmingham , was made with a 16 mm camera in 42 days and nights in New York marquees , in disguised dust-bins , from trucks , in subway entrances and restaurant windows . for six weeks the actors , all unknown to the general public , lived together and discussed the story outline . 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 . the result , if not completely satisfying ( some scenes do appear a little contrived and tentatively scripted ) , is remarkable . 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 . no one is very good or very bad . 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 . TV topics . by Robbie Ashley . secrets of the candid camera . 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 . 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 . the only professionals employed on the show are Jonathan Routh ( its originator ) and sometimes Bill Bramwell ( the musical director ) . obviously they are required to set up the victim . hidden . 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 . tiny radio microphones are dotted all over the place - Routh often wears a lapel microphone which only a person in the know could detect . 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 . sequences . several sequences are shot in one day . for instance , in a hardware shop Routh asked a woman to fill in a form to obtain a licence to buy saucepan patches . later , still in the same shop , he began selling left-handed teacups to a gullible public . thousands of feet of film are shot every week , and a tremendous amount is wasted . sometimes a stunt does not come off ; sometimes Routh is recognised ; and often nothing at all happens . 