TALKING PICTURES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 131, 15 March 1935, Page 3

TALKING PICTURES

CHATS ABOUT THE CINEMA. (By “Spotlight.”) With its colour, its action, its blare and heraldry of the circus, both as seen in the ring and as lived behind the tent drops—will be shown on the screen in Ashburton next week, uIIOTI Joe E. Brown will appear in the greatest circus film ever made, “Hie Circus Clown.” One of the greatest comedians in the history of iilmdom, who lias actually lived the life he depicts together with the entire cast of All. G. Barnes’ circus, Brown brings to his audience a screamingly funny comedy that is replete with live interest, thrills and action. The romances in this picture are badly tangled, for the bareback rider, Donald Dillway, is in love ,with Dorothy Burgess, in the role ol a lion tamer. To cover up his own treachery, lie leads the husband, Hany Woods, "the knife-thrower, to believe that Joe is liis wife’s lover, which makes it warm for the star clown. Some of the world’s most famous clowns are included in the cast.

Jeanette Macdonald, is reported to be, going to Europe to star in a new Franz Lehar opera, “Judith.” If the stage version is a success, it will be made into a film by M.G.M.

Among the many brilliant features of Paramount’s picture, “Cleopatra,” m which Claudette Colbert is seen in the title role, Warren William as Julius Caesar and Henry Wilcoxon as Marc Antony, is the magnificent barge m which Cleopatra entertained Marc Antony. Here are a few of its features, all of which areminutely incorporated in the picture. Around the banqueting salon were 12 couches decked with embroideries and cushions. Before each couch stood a table on wincn dishes of gold inlaid with precious stones and drinking goblets of even more exquisite workmanship. Hie original bargo was 400 fete long an could carry 4000 persons. It was propelled by four banks of oars, one hundred in each bank, all of which were made of solid silver. The oarsmen were entertained by the group of slave girls dressed as slave typmhs, and a company of musicians playing then flutes and harps. At the head of this beautiful barge was Cleopatra’s couch of ostrich feathers, where she surveyed all this splendour. In the picture Cleopatra inets Marc Antony in this setting and out of this meeting comes the greatest love affair history has e\ ei recorded.

Claudette Colbert, now working on “The Gilded Lily” for Paramount, has signed a further two years’ contract with the same company, at a reputed salary of £20,000 per picture. Her contract gives her the right to make pictures for other companies at intervals.

The finest gift of all is the ability te laugh. Without laughter this world would be a dreary place, and a world without the cinema wouid also ho a dreary place, for the cinema fills a big place in our life. High and low comedy, farce, musical comedy, the Marxian absurdities, and the gentle wit of Arliss, and that strange world of the animated cartoon all provide the joy of being able to laugh. Whether hearing a Tracy wise-crack or watching fantastic creatures pursuing a tortuous course through a bizarre wonderland, we feel immensely thankful for the gift of laughter and the cinematic resources that give it a full life.

A laughter-laden production is “The Girl From Missouri,” starring Jean Harlow, Franchot Tone, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone and Patsy Kelly.

The colour boom in America is headed by more technicolour for RKO Radio Pictures. The subject of colour is resuming a prominent position in American studios. RKO Radio, for instance, whose “Rio Rita” in colour caused such a sensation in the early days of the talkies, have decided to make two of their forthcoming important pictures ot the year in coioui, namely “The Last Days of Pompeii” and “The Three Musketeers.”

Four tuneful new song hits are featured in “Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round,” Reliance’s all-star comedy drama with melody, mystery and romance, shortly to be released by United Artists, with Jack Benny, Nancy Carroll and Gene Raymond heading a cast which includes Sydney Howard, Alitzi Green, in her first grown-up role, and Sid Silvers. l*rom the pens of Sidney Clare and Richard Whiting come “It Was Sweet of You,” “Rock and Roll,” and “Oh, Leo,” while “If I Had a Million Dollars” was contributed by Mercer and Malnick.

One of Britain’s greatest novelists and dramatic authors was the late Mr John Galsworthy, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932, and bis last book, and one of bis best, “One More River,” has been adapted to the cinema by Air R. C. Sheriff, of “Journey’s End” fame. “One More River,” one of the most tensely dramatic stories ever filmed, is a revelation of modern love and mar-

riage. A magnificent east has been assembled for this classic of cinema entertainment, headed by Diana Wynyard. Supporting her are such household names as Colin Frank Lawton, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Lionel Atwill, C. Aubrey .Smith, Reginald Danny, Alan Mowbray, Jane Wyatt, Henry Stephenson, and many others. Mae West is natural, unaffected, witty, big hearted and good humoured . . in the flesh she is just as you see her on the screen . . . except that no breath of scandal has ever touched her private life. Writes, sings, acts, dances, designs her own clothes and manages her own business —even helps to direct her pictures. Off the screen Alae is smaller and even more feminine—weighs Bst 61bs,

but she does not diet, merely misses luncheon, and drinks cream because she believes it gives her that peach and cream complexion. Born in Brooklyn, she admits that her father was a pugilist and a good one—Battling Jack West, prominent feather-weight contender and a contemporary of John L. Sullivan, so her sweetheart in “Belle of the Nineties,” Roger Pryor, is an exponent of the manly art of fisticuffs. ■ Her acting career began at five in a vole in which she clutches the hero’s coat-tails and cried, “Father, deal father, come home.” Never married and says she will “keep talking herself out of marriage as long as she is in the pictures.” Likes big. handsome, masculine men, not necessarily dark or too handsome.