AN HILARIOUS NIGHT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 10386, 4 May 1925, Page 3

AN HILARIOUS NIGHT.

TESTING OF SCREEN "STARS."

SOME ASHBURTON TYPES. If Beaumont Smith, the Australian film producer, obtains any artists for his pictures as a result of his director's tests in Ashburton, the crowd that packed His Majesty's Theatre on Saturday evening will be greatly surprised. For some weeks Mr Smith has been combing New Zealand for screen types, and sending thrill upon thrill through a great many young men and young women, who have fallen under the spell of the motion picture, and who have had visions of trips to Hollywood, Los Angeles, there to act before the camera for the trifling sum of 00,000 dollars a year! He has held tests on the stages of theatres throughout the Dominion, but it has not yet been announced whether he has obtained any "stars,"'and while there who took part in the tests at Ashburton may have been looked upon by the promoters as screen types, to the audience they were "scream'" types. In an interview recently, Mr Smith said : "I have seen in your streets many types who, I think, would be successful, but until the camera tells me I cannot pass judgment. The camera gives the searching test necessary, and it doesn't lie. So, until the camera docides I can say nothing." There is truth in the statement that the camera does not lie! But how Mr Smith is going to select good types from his Ashburton tests is difficult to arrive at in view of the fact that most of the "actors" and "actresses" did their part with their backs to the camera!

It is perhaps well that there was no comedy on the picture programme, for the closing scenes of the evening's entertainment would have been too much for one night. That the spectators were looking for amusement was evident, and they got it, in double measure. Under the director's guidance the would-be picture idols went through a series of sketches in a manner that sent the onlookers in convulsions.

Three youths proposed to their lady loves in "accepted" style, and three young ladies said yes, and scrambled, or rather flopped', into the stiffly outstretched arms of the budding Rudolph Valentinos. Rapidly the players were put through their paces in the blinding white glare of two studio arc lamps, but the final piece was the gem. In this little scene a youth took Ins love for a walk, and when they paused near a brick wall (seagrass settee), the lady wanted her wrap. The gallant left \i» haste and then the madman, who hod been lurking behind the wall, rushed out, onlorcformed the uushrickrafi damsel, r.n.u carried her off. Two different "madmen" played the pirfc. and because the first shuffled from hihiding place like the Hunchback ri Notre Dame, the seeond, looking w if he had been attacked in his nether limbs bv infantile paralysis, must foliov suit. The women in the ttcati'. screamed, and the men laughed ar.--smote their own and each other's kne.v in their merriment.

It was soon over, and the director, who all the time had been shoufcpp instructions, and apparently eujoxrnr the fun as much as anyone, announcer that the films taken would be shown in Ashburton in six or eeven wcv : time!