TALKING PICTURES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 74, 9 January 1936, Page 3

TALKING PICTURES.

CHATS ABOUT THE CINEMA. (By “Spotlight.”) Rights of operas are now rocketing in price. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have acquired rights of most of the famous Italian operas. They have paid about £50,000 for them. Britain is not lagging. Capitol Films have acquired the rights of “I Pagliacci.” The exact cost is not known, but it is believed to be about £IB,OOO. Richard Tauber will he starred in it. _ I The ladies of the film “Shipmates Foreoyer” had no monopoly in extensive wardrobes. Dick Powell found this out when lie packed his trunks for Annapolis, where important scenes for tho First National production, “Shipmates Forever,” which owing to the Christchurch season being extended will not commence at the St. James Theatre until Tuesday next, were made at the United States Naval Academy. His part required 27 uniforms and several changes of “civvies” or street clothes. Several of the uniforms were duplicates, carried as a precaution in case of spilled soup, rips or any other damage that might occur in tho life of an active cadet. “Five trunks full of clothes made mo feel like a prima donna,” said Powell. “Shipmates Forever,” a Warner Bros.’ release, is a glorious romance and a stirring drama of Annapolis life. The cast includes Dick. Powell, Ruby Keeler, Lewis Stone, Ross Alexander, Joseph Crehan, Dick Ferau and hundreds of others. The “speech meter” is the latest invention for perfectly spaced sentences, proper speech speed to get lines into exact footage, and aqliieve the maximum of recording perfection. The device was introduced on the set oi “Woman Wanted,” with Maureen O’Sullivan and Joel McCrea, at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. Its large disc, placed outside the camera lines, can be seen from almost any distance on a sound stage. When a speech starts, the big needle moves, registering footage. The players are told to keep their lines to a certain number of feet, and by trying it with the “speech meter” a couple of times can usually achieve this result. Then, in a scene, they can watch the device and know just how much more time *they have to finish. If Bette Davis’s mother had been anything but a professional photographer, tho vivacious Warner Bios.First National screen star might still be one of thousands still clamoring fox cinema success. For it was Betters mother who decided that the actiess s hair clashed with her cream complexion and blue eyes. Hence, the , curly tresses were blonded, and Bette s success was instantaneous. Bette’s blonde locks stand out in marked contrast to William Powell’s dark hair in the First National picture, “Fashion Gaieties,” in which they play opposite each other. “Fashion Gaieties,” coming to the St. James Theatre Saturday next, is the first real story of designers,, with 200 glorious girls and 60 beautiful models, and is the sensational novelty picture of the season. Just as big-'-just as tuneful—just as thrilling as “42nd Street,” “Gold Diggers,” and all the other great Warner Bros.’ musicals, but entirely different! The Marx Brothers, three, not four, now have finished their latest “A. Night' at the Opera.” “Princess O’Hara,” Damon Run-, yon’s breezy, saucy yarn that ran serially in Collier’s Magazine last year, has been booked into the St. James Theatre, starting Thursday next. Jean Parker and Chester Morris are costarred in this racy comedy, which supplies a laugh a minute in the typical Runyonesque dialogue, familiar to thousands of newspaper readers and movie-goers. Morris plays tho part of a dashing, debonair young sportsman and taxi company owner, who becomes involved in a raging taxi war much against his own will, while Miss Packer in the title role, gives one of the most sympathetic and appealing pei formances of her career. It is a powerfully told tale,, with comedy galore, ably supplied by such actors as Leon Errol, Vince Barnett, Henry Armetta, Raymond Hatton, Tammany Roving and Lew Kelly. David Burton directed it.

Shortly to bo released is Lhe Bishop Misbehaves,” Metro-Goldwyn-Maycr’s adaptation of one ol t - year’s brightest comedy stage hits, written by Frederick Jackson aed adapted to the screen by Leon Goi don. On the stage it was the starring sliou for Walter Connelly, on the screen o Edmund Gwenn. Rustic English countrysides and romantic London serve as dramatic and romantic backgtminds. The story concerns the amusing mishaps of the kindly old b.shop wl»o comes involved in a crime Mameen O’Sullivan and Norman hostel « featured in the romantic leads, lhe cast also includes Lucile Watson Reginald Owen, Dudley Diggs, Lilliai Bond, and others. “There is no law west of the Pecos. This saying, current during the sett mg of the Western part ol the Uinta States, had truth as well as cn dilation. There was no law W est of the Pecos except the law of the rope and aun and that law was administered strictly on a non-professional basis, m that there were no courts, no judges, and very few sheriffs. Zane Greys story, “West of the Pecos, ’ which RKO-Radio has made into a starring vehicle for Richard Dix, concerns the stirring days of that particular territory “west of the Pecos.” The Pecos River rises in New Mexico, flows through the Western section of Texas, forming the Eastern boundary of Pecos County, and empties into the Rio Grande in Valverde County. The cast includes Martha Sleeper, Fred Kohler, Sleep V Eat, Louise Beavers, Russell

Simpson and Maurice Black. “West of the Pecos” will he the week-end attraction at the Majestic Theatre. Members of the cast appearing in the new Laurel and Hardy comedy feature, “Bonnie Scotland,” adopted a wide variety of pastimes to keep themselves entertained while on location during the filming of the picture. Between scenes the two stellar comics participated in a horseshoe pitching tournament. Jimmy Finlayson and David Torrence rode bicycles about a Scotch village set, while June Lang and William Janney indulged in a checker contest when they were not appearing before the cameras. Others organised a bridge tournament.