HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 199, 23 August 1930, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

GOSSIP OF THE STUDIOS.

(Special to the "Auckland Star" from HOLME MERRICK at Hollywood.)

The village faces its most exciting premiere of history. Four millions of dollars have been expended upon a picture which has been three years and over in the making. The net result, a talkie called "Hell's Angle." Not a seat in the theatre that doesn't represent a line of creative or productive endeavour. The colony is turning out en masse to see this amazing show. Tremendous secrecy as to its final assembly has been maintained by Howard Hughes, young oil multi-million, aire, who is the producer. Begun in the era of silent pictures and with Greta Nissen for his heroine, it has been taken and retaken, informed with sound, and finished with a new leading lady, June Harlowe a blond of little previous experience. Eleven dollars a seat is a good price to pay for a motion picture. Yet this is the price of a ticket on opening night. The lowly movie advances. Time was when a dollar and a half for a gelatine show was considered devilish. Mary Nolan is back again with a nice long contract and some nice exciting stories to play. Having said her say and taken her punishment —exile and silence —she has been received back into the fold, and chances are her tactics will come up to studio emily post in future. Studio emily post means take orders and keep silence. Such gay notions as informing your producer exactly what you think of him are out of studio conventions entirely. Charles Bickford does a little light producer-baiting, but methinks it is part of the Bickford picture, and since it is well done and man-to-man business, he gets away with it. They're calling serials "chapter pictures" these days, but few are making them. One which will soon go into production is called "The Indians are Coming" and really harks back to the first serials made —with the difference of sound, of course. And for the benefit of those who write! feverishly to inquire of Ramon Novarro's whereabouts, that lad is in Lansing, Mich., in dark glasses and in a deep study of the voice with his teacher', Mr. Louise Graveure. He is also incognito, I might add, rejoicing this summer in his own Ramon Samaniegos. What with famous authors, actors and opera singers tumbling into Hollywood on one another's heels, the talkies would seem to have sufficiently robbed the legitimate of its prey. But movie magnates convening in the village tell that George Bernard Shaw has at last relented and agreed to allow an English affiliation of R. K. 0. to film his plays. From this to the arrival of G. B. himself in Hollywood village would be but a step. The best pictures are made here. No getting out of that. Harry Lauder insists' on making his first talkie within the studios of the gold coast'for that reason. And Mei Lan Fang, the Chinese actor, will be immortalised in celluloid here also. The village has had to date, the late William J. Locke, the historic Max Reinhardt, the genius Stanislavsky, and innumerable others of like calibre Frederick Lonsdale was here but a fortnight back. And Louis Bromfield's blond height may be glimpsed in luncheon rooms along the boulevard any day. George Bernard Shaw's white whiskers are the little recherche touch we need to put us over as a world centre. Perhaps it won't be long now.

Milton Sills should make an interesting come-back in Jack London's "Sea Wolf," which ia now in preparation. It is well over a year since Sills was stricken with a breakdown which took him out of motion pictures completely. He was one of the most popular actors of the silent regime and slipped into talkies successfully. Meanwhile six new actresses have arrived here to begin screen careers. I mean arrived here with contracts already signed. The ones that arrive here on speculation are legion. Luana Alcaniz, of Madrid, a Spanish beauty with grey eyes, heads the list. Some time back we believed the Latin type of beauty had passed from the films due to lingual difficulties. The mike is hard enough on Americans. But what with foreign versions being made of almost every picture, a good time is being had by all. Goodee Montgomery is another. She is a niece of Montgomery, of Montgomery and Stone, so comes by her histrionics honestly. Will Rogers introduced her to the follies. A slender blond, she gained most of her experience on the English stage. Althea Henley was a featured dancer in several Broadway shows —another slender blond, wh<3 will find a place in talkies open to her. Roxanne Curtis, tagged the most beautiful artist's model in New York, is waiting for an assignment on her lot. Brown hair and blue eyes and superlative youth, make this young lady the safest bet under the sun.

A pair of twins who have romped through a lot of Broadway performances, Elizabeth and Helen Keating, are all ready to begin work shortly. They are five feet tall and weigh ninety-four pounds. The world is not through with sister-acts apparently. Nor is the legitimate stage product a failure in as so many people would have you believe. The weirdest type seen in a village of queer and quaint ones, is the chappie with the brassy blond' finger wave who strolled along the boulevard yesterday giving bystanders a treat. He wore a blue flannel suit of exaggerated cut and vicious colour. In his right hand he carried a tall staff with a knob of Dresden china in royal blue liberally garnished with rosebuds. And if you think Mary Pickford or A 1 Jolson stop the traffic when their town cars swing along this thoroughfare, you're all wrong. This lad won out on the traffic jam stuff, hands down. The colony has officially greeted Sergei Eisenstein, the Russian director, who has revolutionised camera history. It is almost two years since Douglas Fairbanks first told me about Eisenstein. At that time the king of pictures was all enthusiasm about the Has en stein technique. The Russian director discovered the value of the upward movement in crowd handling. That is, masses come from below the audience and seem to rush upwards into one's face. It is the most threatening gesture conceivable. This up from 'below motion makes the beholder shrink back inevitably. About six months ago Douglas Fairbanks decided that he would have Eisenstein for his studio. But he chatted

about this around the lots. And chattering is a dangerous business in this village. Jesse Lasky went out and hired the genius. The Eisenstein technique* admirably displayed in "Potemkin," was a tour de force in silent pictures. Just how much of it will carry in sound remains to be seen. But talkies, which eliminated everything but small casts in their early days, are now enlarging to include the same huge canvas we once used for silent pictures. Mrs. Patrick Campbell will probably play the role created by Haidie Wright in "The Royal Family." Thus does the modern studio cast its coming attractions. With "singies" on the wane, it becomes necessary for producers to give .audiences the beet they can get in dramatic productions. When foreign journalists were entertained recently by the motion picture industry, W. De Mille, rising in answer to a toast, said. I have been waiting for the arrivaFof you gentlemen for twentyfive years. A quarter of a century ago my father and mother sent me to Heidelberg, and I haven't had a good chance to use my German since." He plunged into his address of welcome in exquisite Qerman, which left the visitors with a few new angles on Hollywood versatility.

Reginald Denny, that handsome English lad who made such a success in silent pictures and created some of the most attractive prize-ring films ever made, is 'having an interesting vogue once again. After on absence of some time from the larger lots, during which interval he made his own pictures, Reg. Denny comes back in talkies as one of the lads most in demand. - Cecil De Mille seized on him for his lead in "Madame Satan," and that had no sooner been completed than he was put into the lead opposite Grace Moore in "Jenny Lind." Grace Moore will sing several operatic arias in the production —launching into coloratura, which has been considered beyong her range in her operatic career. But all things are possible in Hollywood—even when, they are not probable.