“I can’t tell, of course, until I get back to the laboratory and develop the pictures; but so far as young Leamington is concerned, she’s wonderful. I hate predicting at this early stage, but I believe that she’s going to be a great artiste.” “You didn’t expect her to be?” said Michael in surprise. Jack laughed scornfully. “I was very annoyed with Mendoza, and when I took this outfit on location, I did so quite expecting that I should have to return and retake the picture with Mendoza in the cast. Film stars aren’t born, they’re made; they’re made by bitter experience, patience and suffering. They have got to pass through stages of stark inefficiency, during which they’re liable to be discarded, before they win out. Your girl has skipped all the intervening phases, and has won at the first time of asking.” “When you talk about ’my girl,’” said Michael carefully, “will you be good enough to remember that I have the merest and most casual interest in the lady?” “If you’re not a liar,” said Jack Knebworth, “you’re a piece of cheese!” “What chance has she as a film artiste?” asked Michael, anxious to turn the subject. Knebworth ruffled his white hair. “Precious little,” he said. “There isn’t a chance for a girl in England. That’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s true. You can count the so-called English stars on the fingers of one hand; they’ve only a local reputation and they’re generally married to the producer. What chance has an outsider got of breaking into the movies? And even if they break in, it’s not much good to them. Production in this country is streets behind production either in America or in Germany. It is even behind the French, though the French films are nearly the dullest in the world. The British producer has no ideas of his own; he can adopt and adapt the stunts, the tricks of acting, the methods of lighting, that he sees in foreign films at trade shows; and, with the aid of an American camera-man, he can produce something which might have been produced a couple of years ago at Hollywood. It’s queer, because England has never been left behind as she has been in the cinema industry. France started the motor-car industry: to-day, England makes the finest motor-car in the world. America started aviation: to-day, the British aeroplanes have no superior. And yet, with all the example before them, with all the immense profits which are waiting to be made, in the past twenty years England has not produced one film star of international note, one film picture with an international reputation.” It was a subject upon which he was prepared to enlarge, and did enlarge, throughout the journey back to Chichester.