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| Sunday, 14 September 2003 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Lester and Ivan : The Green Years by NOEL CRUSZ If Lester James Peries is too well known in the film world, it is an experience to tell the story of Lester and Ivan and the green years. We all grew up together in Colombo South where the Galle Road was hardly widened and where trams ran, and schoolboys collected bus tickets to play marbles. As a student Lester always had his eyes on films. At St. Peter's College they were prolific readers: the Peries brothers, and Dr. Jim Peries and his wife Winifred spared no pains to give the boys all the latitude they wanted, to do their own thing. In the school library whilst the librarian Angelo Rajakarier was typing his Radio Ceylon talks for Great Contemporaries, Lester poured over the film reviews and literature. Ivan, Lester's famous artist brother was in my class, where Fr. Hugo Fernando the Mathematician taught us. Ivan was caught reading Great Expectations without doing his sums. So Fr. Hugo gave off his threat to dub him with "B.I." We dreaded that distinction of 'Blithering Idiot', which was done in a gentle sort of way and Ivan with his wavy hair, burst into laughter. Both Lester and Ivan had a crack at the Classics, and it was Noel Phoebus, that brilliant Classics scholar from St. Joseph's, who taught us. How we crammed Mensa and Mensas, and suppressed our laughter. Phoebus attacked pupils if they missed the Latin declensions. The Greek classes were also a martyrdom. But Ivan always paid a tribute to Mr. Phoebus, who in later years was to die, after being knocked down by a bus on Galle Road. The Peries brothers like most of us owed a debt to the Classics and to the Latin and Greek we learnt at school. Lester confessed that Greek drama gave him the stability to translate action and mood and theme on films. Yet it was in those green years that we were attracted to what the film had to offer. The Peries brothers were sent by car from Dehiwela to St. Peter's for Sunday school, and after Sunday school, Fr. Gregory Goonewardena had film shows in the science auditorium. Fr. Gunda, as he was popularly known had a Pathe Baby 9.5 film projector which Fr. Maurice LeGoc had given him, along with a dozen 9.5 films. We enjoyed the free film shows. We were often invited to Lester's home in Dehiwela where we were treated to short eats and tea and Lester would speak of films. At that time Ivan was showing an interest in painting and later was to follow classes from Harry Peiris and David Paynter. But it was the cinema that attracted us, and Lester and Ivan would join us to come to the Plaza Theatre with the De Nieses and other school mates. The early thirties reminded us of the part that Madan Theatres Circuit in the Plaza gave us. C. V. de Silva and the Caders were the men who kept the celluloid rolling. In the Plaza we saw silent films that were screened on the Gaumont Kalee 21 35 mm projector. These were run by illumination from carbon lamps. It explained the fires that took place in the early cinemas when inflammable film was used. Lester can remember the early silent films that the Plaza screened. The music was provided by Papa Menzies or George de Niese at the organ or piano, players who matched music improvisation to the action on the screen. But all the excitement came when as schoolboys we gathered at the pigeon hole of the Plaza ticket booth. There were no queues at that time and it was a free for all, and a problem to extricate our hands. We almost had our shirts torn off our backs. One ruse was to get a fat boy like Jacob Rasanayagam to buy our tickets. His fist was big enough to cover the pigeon holes at the box office, and to terrify other film fans. Most of our tickets took us to the gallery. They were 25 cents, and we braved the bug infested hard benches at the Plaza, with our heads held up high to see the film, a good part of it was distorted! The problem was often solved when students jumped over the barrier to the 3rd class seats, when there were dark portions on the screen. The genial C. V. de Silva turned a blind eye to our pranks. It was a memorable day when sound films invaded the cinemas and The Plaza Theatre got a rehaul. There were colour posters of the new sound films displayed outside the cinemas. It was a dimension that enthralled us for the Talkies had at last arrived. I remember well the Tarzan films that were shown. One was with Herman Brix on The New Adventures of Tarzan. Stars like Bela Lugosi, Rudolf Valentino, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer, Shirley Temple and Deanna Durbin hit the screens. Lester had a way of seeing the prospects of entertainment in films. At St. Peter's he spoke at a Debating Society meeting about the "Judge Hardy Films", where Mickey Rooney featured. The films we saw were a prelude for our discussions in Lester's home. He always liked dissecting films, an art he was to perfect as a film critic, and later as a producer. Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan films cracked box office takings, and every schoolboy had a go at the Tarzan yells. Lester's green years were part of our transition too. It was then that Ivan showed us what his future held. Painting was his forte and George de Niese at St. Peter's identified the inherent talent of his pupil. In the family home at Dehiwela, Ivan set his easel and took to oil painting. From a post card he painted a large portrait of G. K. Chesterton, which J. P. de Fonseka bought, and exhibited... For Ivan school life had its funnier side. Ivan hated Maths, and to his horror he remembered the Geometry class of Captain R. T. Samarawira, who wanted his pupils to demonstrate certain angles. The victim had to lift his legs for right angles, and triangles, but came a cropper to show obtuse angles. Schoolboys cheered as Captain Samarawira twisted the boy in various contortions to teach Geometry! One lad took his revenge by breaking wind when the Captain had him locked between his legs! Lester meanwhile produced his first book The Cathedral and a Star a volume of poems on various themes. Lester was already writing for the Daily News Blue page, which was edited by Hilda Roversi and later Betty Hunsworth. At that time we had Tarzie Vittachi, Francis Ashborn, Harrison Peries, Wendy de Kretser, Annette Swan, Alfreda de Silva, Rex Rabot, Andrew G. de Silva, Sujata Udugama, and other new writers, who got a start on journalism. We were also writing for the Young Timers Page, and I had many short stories published in the Sunday Times. However, the green years saw us cycling to all the cinemas to see the new releases. Many were our trips to the old Regal, the Majestic, Empire and Olympia. It was Lester who joined us (as my old diaries show) for Alexander's Ragtime Band. That film ushered Tyrone Power. Lester may recall his desire to see Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald in San Francisco, a romantic tale of the San Francisco earthquake. My brother Hilary and I were pretty broke, so we talked our good Aunty Ada (of revered memory) to take us to the Regal to see San Francisco. We told her it was the story of St. Francis Zavier. The good aunt bought our tickets and came with us to expensive seats. As the film unfolded, the good aunt took out her rosary, and Clark Gable at that moment on the screen asked Jeannette MacDonald to raise her skirt and show her legs! My dear Aunt nearly collapsed in her seat. We had later to explain that the film had nothing to do with St. Francis. Those were the years when films were real entertainment. Lester on his part got all the encouragement he needed to find his place as one of Sri Lanka's great film producers. Ivan went his way and painted as he went on. Lester did confess that Ivan for forty years never painted an English scene. He got all his inspirations from the Dehiwela beach and the fishermen, the coconut trees and the sunsets that provided a riot of colour. Lester admitted that Ivan went to England and really died a pauper. I remember Ivan coming back to Ceylon in the fifties, when he did the sets for Arthur Van Langenberg's production of The Song of Bernadette at St. Peter's College Hall. Today Ivan Peries' painting is worth a fortune and hard to buy. Anton Wickremasinghe bought many of Ivan's paintings. Lester saw the future. I can recall his visit to Sydney, when we met him at Paddington, the scene of Art lovers. It was the early years that gave Lester the break he needed. He learnt a part of the mechanics of films at the GFU, and with that doyen of the cinema George Wickremasinghe gave us some valuable films. But Lester had to find new fields. As a creative artiste the world was his oyster. He knew how to go beyond plot and theme and action, and yet blend the culture of a nation to the way he interprets his visual and story. He can take all the encomiums for redeeming the Sinhala film from the 'South Indian song and dance patterns.' To be continued |
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