FIRST NATIONAL

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 165, 14 July 1928, Page 5 (Supplement)

FIRST NATIONAL

THE COMING SEASON.

TWELVE BIG "SPECIALS."

THIRTY-EIGHT FEATURES.

Twelve 'specials" and thirtv-eight feature pictures are billed on First National's programme for 1928-29. One of the specials which was listed, "The Patent Leather Kid," starring Richard Bartheia.lready been released. t ™ T, inie " (from the Jane CowlJane Muffin B t a g € hit), "Baby Face" (from Cosmo Hamilton's stories), "The Richest Girl on Earth" and "Synthetic

Sin" (from the play by Frederic and Fanny Hatton) will be made, with Colleen Moore starred; "The Divine Lady" (the story by E. Barfington, of Lady Hamilton) will be Corinne Griffith's only "special"; "JL,a Tosca" will have Billie Dove as the famous diva; "The Barker," with Miiton Sills, supported by Dorothy Mackaill, Betty Compson and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., will be another "special"; "Cangeling" (from Don Byrne's story of the South Seas), "No, No, Nanette" (from the popular musical comedy), and "The Squall" (from Jean Bart's* Broadway "hit") will also be made into "specials"; Dorothy Mackaill and Jack Mulhall will not appear 'together in "specials '; Miss Mackaill will star .n "The Whip," with Lowell Sherman, Anna Q. Nilsson and Ralph Forbes, and Jack Mulhall will make "The Butter and Egg Man" (George S. Kaufman's comedy). °°

The list of feature pictures as arranged is as follows:— °

"Diversion" and "Mutiny" will be Richard Bartlielniess' two Alms. "Outcast" (from Henry Hubert Davis' play made famous on the stage by Elsie Ferguson), "Saturday's Children" (from the stage play by Maxwell Anderson). "Paid For," and one other feature, will star Corirfne Griffith. Beautiful Billie Dove will be seen in "The Heart of a Princess" (in which she appears as a Russian priucess who escapes dangers to become a star in a new world), "The Other Tomorrow" (a modern domestic story of the South, by Octavus Roy Cohen), "Pleasure Bound," and another story yet to b-j chosen. Milton Sills' pictures will be "Captain of the Strong," "The Eagle's Trail" (a strong adventure story), '"rite Spotter" (in which Sills will be seen as an "easy come, easy go" character), and "Hard Rock." Ken Maynard and his horse Tarzan will be together in six Westerns—"The Glorious Trail," "The Phantom City" (in which there is a strong mystery element), "The Royal Rider," "The Lawless Legion," "Cheyenne" and "Wells-Fargo Express" (a story of the early trans-Continental express). Four comedy-dramas will star Charlie Murray, "The Sport of Kings," "The Lying Truth," "Wine, Women and Song," and "Charlie's Night Out." Besides two pictures in which they will he co-starred, Dorothy Mackaill and Jack Mulhall will each make other features. Their team pictures will be "Children off the Ritz" (an adaption of Cornell Woolrich's 10,000 dollar novel published in "College Humour") and "Waterfront" (an original story combining the drama of the docks with, comedy angles). Dorothy Mackaill will also be starred in "Two Weeks Off" (from the play by Kenyon Nicholson, author of "The Barker") a>>d "The Girl in the Glass Case" (from George Gibbs Turner's story), while Jack Mnlhall's other picture will be "Applesauce'* (the picturisatiou of Barry Conner's stage "hit") Tiud "\Vhen Irish Eyes are Smiling" (Gerald Duffy's story). |{»;n Lyon will return to the screen after a I long absence, in "Dancing Vienna" (with jLya Mara in the feminine lead). "On the Air" (by Paul Deresco Aigsbers;>. "Show Girl" (from J. P. McEvoy's serial in the "Liberty" magazine), "Rosie or 'the Ritz" (an original by Charles Beeimn and Garrett Fort), and "Bluffers" (described as a feminine "Harold Teen," from Robert C. Carr's "Smart Set" story) will all star Alice "White "The Haunted House" (Owen Davis' stage play), "Seven Footprints to Satan" Il v A. Merritt), and "Sli! The Octopus" (a last year's Broadway offering along the same lines as "The Gorilla," by Ralph Murphy and Donald Gallaher) will be three of the best mystery thrillers. Two international pictures, one of which will be "The Strange Case of Captain Ramper," complete the list as it stands at present.

William Wellman, famed director of the air epic, "Wings," is directing Clara Bow's latest starring picture, "Ladies of the Mqb." This is a tensely dramaric story of the underworld. Mary Alden. expert at mother roles, has a character part under the title .of Soft Annie.

"The Bush Cinderella" with Dale I Austen in the star part is nearly made. It will soon be billed in box office vestibules. In making a picture just as jn making a stage drama there must be | the three elements, good, evil and the particular theme that brings thpm into [ relationship. Mr. Henry Hayward, in I adapting his story to . the screen, 'has I remembered the importance of the footlights. Their effect also must be got |in a different way. The casting of the | principals in strong relief against their background is still the same as on the stage, but the background is different. In a play it is a piece of painted paper or canvas and quite unreal. In a screen drama it must be people and places and both must be very real. In "The Bush Cinderella" the two principal* are cast against a background of New Zealand scenery and old colonial tvjies. All those are represented that in the past flew South for adventure or for fortune, and with them the companion of all real adventure, the mother of the people. This part is played by Miss May Bain. Her many interests and sympathies doubtless contribute to the subtle hari uiony of detail with which she interprets her part.

As the big super-serial for next year, Carl Laemmle Las just acquired the rights to "Jungle Tales of Tarzan," and will put it iuto work at Universal City immediately.

Billie Dove just doesn't seem to be able to get out of Europe. Miss Dove is actually in Hollywood, but her present pictures have had European locales, and her next starring vehicle for First National will also be located on foreign shores. It is "The Night Watch," the story of a French naval officer's wife, and is to be directed by Alexander Korda, who held the megaphone on Miss Dove's last picture, "The Yellow Lily," which was a story of Hungary. Several leading men are now being coisidered for the male lead in "The Night Watch." Production on this picture will start in a couple of weeks.

To the making of motion pictures come men and women from all nations. Hollywood claims a large percentage and every studio has its delegates from the farthermost corners of the earth. Nowhere is this truth more evident than in the Paramount studios. Bebe .Daniels is only one generation removed from sunny Spain; Pola Negri was born near Warsaw, Poland, and has since lived in Berlin and Paris; Clara Bow's father is Scotch, although Miss, Bow herself was born in Brooklyn; Clive Brook is a native of England; Marietta Millner is Viennese; Vera Verotrna wa< brought from Russia, and Nancy Cart.ll, the Rosemary of "Abie's lrieh Rose," is "as Irish a3 Denis O'Toole.'" Emil Jannings, greatest star of them-all, is a native of Berlin, and lived for a time in Switzerland. China, •H.'nga-v, Scandinavia, Denmark, ara all , represented. The list does, indeed, circle, the globe, and it is true to say the "world" can be eeen at Hollywood.

Jetta Goudal has been signed to play the role of Simone in "Her Cardboard Lover," starring Marion Davies. "Her Cardboard Lover" is a screen version of a famous stage success.

Europe's most beautiful and exotic feminine contribution to films is Lya de Putti, who will be seen with Kenneth Harlan in Universal's "Midnight Rose." The supporting cast includes Henry Kolker, Lorimer Johnston, George Larkin, "Gunboat" Smith, Wendell Franklin, and Frank Brownlee.

A First National comedy which has many hilarious moments, at the same time embodying finely dramatic situations, is ''The Big Nois<V' a perfect starring medium for the walrus-mous-tached comedian, Chester Conklin. A brilliant cast has been assembled in support of Conklin, including Sam Hardy, Alice White, David Torrance and other well-known players. Conklin does some exceptionally fine "work as the "dumb" subway guard, and the plot throughout sparkles with humour and satire.

Extraordinary things happen in Hollywood. When United Artists determined to make "Ramona," starring Dolores Del Rio in the title role, the question arose as. to whom to engage for the part of Allesandro, the romantic Indian lover of the heroine in the story. For many days, Edwin Carewe, who directed the production, searched for an actor to assume this difficult role. His cameramen were busy making tests from morning to night. Then someone suggested Warner Baxter, but he did not give the suggestion a second thought. Warner Baxter was a handsome leading man, not an Indian type. Next day, however,' he sent for Mr. Baxter, who was given the screen test which won for him the leading masculine role. For those few who are not familiar with Helen Hunt Jackson's Indian classic "Ramona," it should be noted that it is a tale of love in nineteenth century California. It is a story of white man's greed, a romance of a half-breed girl and her Indian lover. In bringing the novel to the screen, Mr! Carewe has done something decidedly worth while.