SCREEN STARS AND FILMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 89, 16 April 1927, Page 26

SCREEN STARS AND FILMS.

In "Men of the Night," to be released shortly by Universal, Herbert Rawlinson will make his first appearance in the role of a "heavy." This is quite a departure for Rawlinson, whose penchant for the past number of years has been the portrayal of doughty hero who rushes in where angels fear to tread and saves the girl.

Virginia Valli played a stenographer in "The Family Upstairs," a graceful, spirited dancer in "Stage Manners" and a society woman who braves the hardships of the wilderness for love in •The Wedding Ring." R. W. Neill directed her in the last named Fox offering, just completed.

Tom Mix felled a tree with a six-inch trunk'in four seconds while he was making scenes for "The Broncho Twister,'' a forthcoming Fox Film release. Mix used a "one-man" machine gun, weighing nine and a half pounds, tha't sends out lead like a hose spouting water. The gun fires twenty times at a single touch on the trigger.

Kenneth Harlan, playing the male lead opposite Olive Borden in the Fox attraction, "The Secret Studio," was educated at St. Francis College, in New York. He gained his first experience on the stage in the same stock company with his mother. After two years of stock he went into vaudeville, thereafter being chosen by D. W. Griffith to play leads. Harlan is ruggedly handsome, with dark hair and dark eyes. He stands six feet tall and weighs just under thirteen stone.

"It's the woman who paYs and pars and pays," so bewails Pat O'Brien as she picks up the only remaining whole bit of bric-a-brac in Dick Crawford's fashionable apartment, leans out of the window and throws it at the owner's head as he passes beneath the window on his way from the danger zone. This is one of the big dramatic scenes in the '"Chorus Lady," one of the P.D.C. pictures being released in New Zealand by First National Pictures. Yet, while it is dramatic, there is much humour in it. Pat is funny without intending to be, and all the while she has the sympathy of those who are watching her.

Of the entire fleet of 1820 wind-jam-mers used in filming Frank Lloyd's first Paramount feature, "The Eagle of the Sea," not a single rope was used on board any of the vessels! At least, such is the assertion of Florence Vidor, co-featured with Ricardo Cortez. Miss Vidor hastens to add, however, that the ships were possessed of some twelve hundred "lines."

"One of these old sailors sprang that on me the first day we went to sea," explained Paramount's lovely star. "I can't see any difference between ropes and 'lines' myself, but those tars acted as though I'd committed some terrible crime when I started talking about ropes. Apparently it's a breach of ocean etiquette to call them anything other than "lines.'"

During the filming of Marshall Neilan's comedy drama, "Everybody's Acting," which will soon be released, Raymond Hitchcock, one of the featured players, was the subject of much goodnatured kidding by the other members of the cast because of a little incident that occurred early in the course of production. Hitchcock, a veteran stage comedian, was making his first motion picture appearance for more than five years. Certain new technical terms have come into use in the meantime and others the famous actor once knew he had completely forgotten. When Neilan, during the first scenes, called "fadeout," Hitchy thought it was his cue to faint, so he fell to the floor with all the elaborateness of a stage faint. The scene was ruined pictorially, and the uproar of laughter that followed made it impossible to re-take it for the next half hour. Not a day passed after that .without someone shouting "fadeout" the minute Hitchy came within earshot. FILMS AND THE EYES. The movies do not so often cause eye trouble as they reveal the existence, of defects already present, we are told-by Guy A. Henry, Director of the Eyesight Conservation Council, in a letter to "Clinical Medicine" (Chicago). In fKct, he says, under the best conditions they have no. harmful effect upon the eyes. He goes on: "Watching motion pictures is distance vision, and differs from ordinary distance vision only in the prolonged concentration of visual attention. If the movies cause eye discomfort, it is probable that something is wrong with the eyes. The best conditions for the eyes of the patrons of movie theatres obtain: 1. When the film i s fresh and new and free from cracks, breaks and pinholes. ( I '™™%™T hard on *& eyes) 2. When the pictures were taken with a firmly placed camera and are projected with a rigid machine, so that there is no swaying or flickering of the picture (Any movement of the image, other than the proper action of the story, causes eye-strain.) 3. When the operator is thoroughly , trained for his job, so that pictures" are always in sharp focus and the undimmed! light of the projector is never permitted .to strike the bare screen. (Pictures which ate in the least out of focus strain the eyes; and a flood of brilliant light, after the usual dimness, hurts them.) 4. When no observer has to ait closer than 20 feet from the screen, raise the eyes more than 35 degrees above the horizontal, or turn them more than 25 degrees to one side or the other. 5. When the theatre is not kept too dark; when all sources of glare or reflections are eliminated by having the walls and decorations finished in dull, flat colours, and all lights carefully *> shaded; and when there are no sudden changes in the light in the theatre. '', J* should be remembered that head- { ache, dullness and discomfort are not Li : a t 0 eye-strain, but may ,be ■ ,■■ ■: ■:■. v. ■■■■■: _-:-"■ .-•= ;■ •■. ..

"Whispering Stage," a drama of the Western plains, produced by Scott Dunlap for Fox. Films, stars Buck Jones. The locale is the open ranges of Montana, with its background of gleaming mountain peaks. Natalie Joyce, Emile Chautard and Carl Miller are in the cast.

Lon Chaney, the prince of character actors, is still keeping up his deceptive ways. He is now busy on "Mr. Wu," the Chinese story made famous by Matb,eson Lang, with Renee Adoree as his daughter—a strange role for that typically French young lady—and Ralph Forbes, in the principal junior cole.

Patsy Ruth Miller stars with Svd Chaplin in his latest farce, "Oh, What a Nurse," shortly to be released in New Zealand. This is Patsy Ruth Miller's first role in a feature comedy. In this fast story of rum-runners alid mistaken identity, Syd. once more assumes feminine guise, and as a nurse certainly swings powerful thermometer, breaking numerous hearts and finally winning the oidy girl after many hilarious adventures on a rum-runner.

Sammy Cohen, who played a comic buck private in the rear rank in "What Price Glory," is cast as a pawnshop clerk in "The Auctioneer." George Sidney, in the title role, urges him to dance to hold the attention of customers. And how Sammy dances! He combines the Charleston, Black Bottom, Highland Fling, Irish Breakdown and Russian Kazotsky in his performance. To quote little Marion Nixon, who plays the romantic feminine • lead, "that boy Sammy has hypnotised feet."

"Naughty but Nice,'* Colleen Moore's next starring picture for First National, concerns the very exclusive finishing school life of a high-geared young girl. It will reveal Miss Moore as a young person with a distinct distaste for remaining in one spot longer than necessary. Colleen herself is a young lady brimming over with restless energy and enthusiasm, but she wants to make the character in the forthcoiningjr picture a clear mirrored reflection of a 1927 model high-stepping college girl with ideas that make Mencken's and Nathan's appear old fashioned. The character will be that of a dainty portion of feminine dynamite.

Wallace Beery will don his flying togs sooner than he expected, for announcement has recently been made by B. P. Schulberg, Paramount's West Coast executive, that Beery's next starring vehicle will be "Now We're in the Air." As a result of thi3 rearrangement of the production schedule, "Firem3n Save My Child," which had been slated as Beery's next picture, will not be made until the air service comedy is completed. "Now We're in the Air" will round out Beery's cycle of service comedies. He began as a digger in the Front," followed that as a sailor in "We're In the Navy Now," and now he will don aviator's garb to execute antics in the clouds. At present Beery is engaged in making "The Big Sneeze," adapted from "Looie the Fourteenth." James Cruze is directing.

Mary Pickford and Doug. Fairbanks will soon be at it again. "Captain Cavalier," the next Douglas Fairbanks picture, has for a background the interesting history of the founding of California. It is understood that camero work will begin very soon at the United Artists Studio in Hollywood, which is really the remodelled and enlarged Pickford-Fairbanks studio. As for "America's sweetheart," the tentative title of her picture, is "The Shop Girl," the story in all probability to be written for Mary by Kathleen Norris and said to be something of a departure from previous Pickford roles.

A real relic of old Loudon is shown in the British film " Every Mother's Son." This is in the form of one of the first horse drawn omnibuses. It has not carried passengers on the London streets for the last fifty years, and was only brought out from its long retirement to give the exact atmosphere to a part of the film representing a scene in London many years ago. It is indeed a quaint sight to see numbers of men in the odd looking suits of that time, and women in bustles waiting for, and eventually clambering on to an old horse drawn bus.

"Most golfers play too seriously." according to Eddie Cantor, musical comedy star when he had completed his first ..motion picture, starring role in "Kid Boots." "Golf is no longer au old man's game," Cantor points out. " With golf clubs dotting the countryside, and young and old throwing themselves into the game with utter abandon, it's time to insert a little mirth into the game," says he. By way of edification. Eddie has incorporated a few of his best ideas on the funny side of the game in " Kid Boots." Clara Bow appears opposite Cantor in the Paramount screen Aversion of Florenz Ziezfeld's success. The featured cast, included Lawrence Grav and Billie Dove.

Johnny Hines is beginning to believe he is the proud possessor of a charmed life. He is filming comedy thrill scenes down at Coney Island for his next First National picture " Stepping Along," and accidents are happening all about him. First he decided to film thrills with his score of midgets—all members of " The Midget Follies " —on the " Thunderbolt " roller coaster, only to have a serious accident happen a f*»w hours before he was ready to film the scene. On the following day he was planning to film a chase on the board-walk but something made him postpone it a day, and on the day he had planned to shoot these scenes the huge crowds on the board-walk were thrown into a panic when the structure collapsed.

Jn this age of concentrated motion picture production almost everything under the sun has found its way to the screen, yet Cecil B. de Mille has uncovered a new feature for his personally supervised release "The Coming of Amos," the P.D.C. feature being released in Xew Zealand by First National. He has taken the Australian boomerang and built up a scries of entertaining incidents around this unusual weapon which hold a new thrill for the threatre-goer. Rod La Rocque, in the starring role, plays the part of a rich Australian sheep rancher who goes to the Riviera to be educated and takes along a trunkful of boomerangs. Upon becoming involved in the kidnapping of a beautiful Russian Princess "Amos" finds his education in tossing the boomerang of much more value than the superficial polish he acquired in France.

One of the busiest members of the Hollywood film colony is the and exotic Chinese actress, Anna May Wong. Speaking of her movie career, Miss Wong said that she had to overcome a lot of prejudice and opposition from her parents before she was allowed to ta£e up a career. " They're used to it now," she said, " but they wanted me to stay at home and get married, while I was still young, to some nice young Chinese boy. But I wanted a career, and I haven't found the Chinese mun yet whom I would marry." Usually, Miss Wong, is cast as an Oriental, but in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production, " The Desert's Toll," Miss Wong appears in the role of an Indian girl, and it is surprising how her Oriental features lend themselves to such a characterisation. " The Desert's Toll" is an adventure epic photographed amid the gorgeous surroundings of the Bryce Canyon in Utah. Francis McDonald, Kathleen Key, and a number of well-known players form the cast.

Once pictures from Lilian Gish were few and far between. This great little artiste used to allow long periods to elapse between one picture and another, so that a Lilian Gish film was something of a novelty. Thus, between " Orphans of the Storm," " Romola," and "The White Sister," there was a long gap that was anything but satisfactory to her countless followers. Now this order of things has been changed, and Lillian is now turning out an average of four pictures a year, with the resit that her work is better and her prestige greater". When Miss Gish signed a five years' contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, she went to work in real earnest, made " La Boheme " in record time, and followed it with "The Scarlet Letter," which has just finished a run of four months in New York. "Annie Laurie" is nowcompleted, and "The Wind" is well under way. "In " The Scarlet Letter " Miss Gish reveals herself at her greatest. She has attained a new stature, a new plane of art, an even greater appreciation of the lights and shades of dramatic intensity than ever she, mistress of emotions, possessed before.

Frank Neil is gold dusting his own hair, and putting on a pink and white complexion, so as to deceive his public into believing him a genuine juvenile, but he has forgotten to cut out his unconquerable sense of fun. Some" of the company are rather inclined to shout, but the general trend is good. The play is undoubtedly