THE ANSWER CORNER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 150, 27 June 1931, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE ANSWER CORNER.

REPLIES TO INQUIRIES. I ' 1 nr Carroll is 24 years old. She 1 "u married to a playwright, John I K'rkland. ost photos of film stars obtained free. You could inI nicli further at the local offices of the I corporations in Albert Street. 1 pc_Write Ken Maynard, Universal I • Films; John Wayne, Fox Films; Gary I Cooper, Paramount Films; all at Holly- ■ -~sl California. John Wayne was |i California in 1907; Gary I Cooper in Montana, 1901; Ken Mayiii \ it i in Texas, 1897. ;■ up—The players you mention in your I first question have retained their I original names on the screen. MontaI <rueho ve and John Garrick were born i ° n England; the Moore brothers in I jjeland; Greta Garbo, in Sweden; • Dolores Del Rio, Ramon Novarro and i Lape Velez, in Mexico. ■AUSSIE —Leon Errol, the comedian in ; "One Heavenly Night," was born : I jn Australia and was eclu- [ cated at St. Joseph's (Marist I Brothers') College, Sydney, and Syd--5 ner University, where he studied I medicine. He toured Australia and | Vew Zealand in opera and musical f comedy up to 1910, then went to New York, where he has scored many I stage successes. i "Skippy" is the next juvenile talkie . I to follow "Tom Sawyer." The cast inf eludes such child players as Jackie , u. Cooper, who plays the title role, Mitzi ! I Green and Jackie Searle. I John Loder, popular English leading man, has replaced 'Paul Lukas in Ruth 1 Chatterton's next film, "Unfaithful."The sudden illness of Paul Lukas necessiI fated the change. Others in the cast are : Juliette Compton, Paul Cavanagh, Lester I Jail, Donald Cook and Emily Fitzroy. I Emil Jannings, acclaimed by the world I as one of the finest actors on the screen, I will shortly start work on a talking picI ture entitled "The Man I Killed," from a i play by Maurice Rostand. Ernst Lubitsch, i under whom Jannings made his finest i ■ productions, will direct. i I I Fredric March, after appearing with || Nancy Carroll in "Laughter," is to be hep lj leading man in "Between Two Worlds." ' The film is from an original story by • Edmund Goulding, who will also direct. I Heading the supporting cast is Charlie Ruggles. • § When Clara Bow starts work on her next production to follow "Kick In," it will be. under the direction of one of I Hollywood's newest megaphonists. He is Stuart Walker, former director of I some of America's leading stage com- ' panies. The forthcoming film for Miss 8 Bow has been tentatively titled "The Secret Call." : ; "Almost a Honeymoon," one of the I funniest matrimonial comedies ever presented on the stage, has been filmed at Elstree, and will be released in New | Zealand shortly. The play had a great | run in London last year and was re--1 cently staged in Melbourne. The film cast will include Dido Watts and Clif- > I ford Mollison. 1 The atmosphere of the scenes in "The j| House Opposite" is being maintained in i-.j away that is calculated to cause picture goers to be apprehensive of every sound and shadow after they have seen it. | The company has passed out of the cob- | webbed room with its uninhabited-for-fifty-years gloom into the hall of the | same house, which is in the 1 same state of dilapidation. Frank Stanmore and Celia Glyn head an English I cast.' I Swiftly-moving action and eparsity of dialogue are the chief features in the script which Alfred Hitchcock has pre- ■ pared for "Rich and Strange," which he will direct at Elstree. The story, adapted I from the book of Dale Collins, is one I of a young couple's adventures abroad, I and lends itself admirably to Hitch - I cock's treatment. From the inception of | the talkies he has refused to be tyran- | aiaed by the microphone, and in "Rich I ' and Strange" more than ever he will I break away from the usual talkie —talk | and pursue a cinematic treatment. The script contains no less than 500 distinct I "scenes, this being double the amount | employed by the average director. The I will view a rapidly-moving 1 panorama in which, among other locations, a tube station, channel steamer, theFolies Bergercs and American bar in | Paris, the dock of Marseilles, a ship's ! gymnasium, the native quarter of Port Said, Suez Canal, Colombo, a hotel in | Singapore, and Brixton High Street flash ty in romantic and exciting action. Many I of the scenes will occupy the screen for I 00 longer than a second.

Frank R. Capra, now busy on interiors for the big air special, "Dirigible,'* featuring Jack Holt and Ralph Graves, has an eye to efficiency as well as art. Proof of this lies in the fact that, in order to speed up production, he is consistently keeping two stages working at once. Capra manages to do this by keeping two complete technical staffs on *he job day and night. These staffs, including scenic artists, sound men, electricians, carpenters, "grips" and "Prop" men, work continuously, keeping one set in preparation while the other! is being used. Thus, when shots are completed on one set, the director shifts *o the next, thus avoiding the usual delays encountered due to changing of lights for new camera angles. "Dirigible" is being made with painstaking attention to technical detail, every sequence— even of the interiors—being under the supervision of expert naval explorers. Exteriors shot at the Naval Air Station & Lakehurst, New Jersey, U.S.A., were "made under the direction of the United States' naval authorities, and further eo-operation of the Navy Department tas provided the use of the giant aeroplane carrier U.S.s. Lexington.

Warner Fabian's "The Men in Her Life," one of America's "best sellers," has been secured for production. It is the story of a girl's struggle to adapt herself to the new moral code, played against a background of high society, night clubs and cocktail parties. "Man of the World" has "oeen chosen to replace "Gentleman of the Streets" as the title for William Powell's latest picture. This production, based on a novel by Michael Arlen, deals with a gay wayfarer of the boulevards who blackmails a woman, saves her from scandal and then falls in love with her. Carole Lombard and Wynne Gibson have the feminine leads. Jean Harlow, who created a sensation in "Hell's Angels," was signed for the leading feminine role in "The Iron Man," Lew Ayres' next film. Miss Harlow, who is IS years old and a striking blonde, went to Hollywood and got a contract with the Hal Roach studio, but her grandfather strenuously objected to her entering the pictures and the contract was cancelled. Later she won him over to her point of view, and in competition with a large number of girls won the principal feminine role in "Hell's Angels."

A ship of death sails into Whitby Harbour. Literally freighted with horrors,the cargo vessel Maude lurches up to the dock, after an escape from a terrific storm at sea. The ship has been abandoned by its crew.. The mate, shrieking in terror, has thrown himself into the surging waters of the Atlantic. The captain, dead, and with a look of incredible horror on his face, slumps against the wheel, his hands lashed to its spokes. A brooding silence hangs over the vessel. This is one of the striking situations in "Dracula," a weird screen production of thrills and horrors.

"Charlie Chan Carries On," Earl Derr Biggers' well-known mystery drama, concerning the adventures of a Chinese detective, will be released in Auckland next week. Warner Oland, famous for his portrayal of Chinese characters, notably as "Dr. Fu Manchu," will be seen as Charlie Chan, while Marguerite Churchill and John Garrick have the romantic leads. Warren Hymer and Marjorie White fill the comedy roles. A locale of the picture is the world with Scotland Yard starting the trail in London where the first murder is committed. Charlie Chan "carries on" at Honolulu and manages to trap the murderer just before the _end of the trail.

• The production of "Love Lies/' which will star the English coniedian, Stanley Lupino, has been assigned to his no less famous cousin, Lupino Lane. Though .adapted from the musical comedy story by the same name, "Love Lies" will not be an "all-singing, all-dancing" picture, though it is possible that Lupino may render one song in his original role. It is interesting to note that this will be the first occasion on which the two cousins have worked together, and also because it will mark the film debut of Stanley Lupino. Lane has already achieved film fame both in England and in Hollywood. He appeared there in "The I Love Parade," played a leading part in "The Yellow Mask," and recently produced and starred in his own picture, 1 "No Lady."

FILM SOCIETY. CHAPLIN'S ART, THE MAN AND HIS CRITICS. (By JOHN STORM.) A recent cablegram alleges that the Frenchman, Jean Sarmcnt, demands some sort of satisfaction from Charlie Chaplin on the grounds that the comedian has made use of his plot in "City Lights." If this is true it would be interesting to discover to which of these reputations the fact would add most lustre. According to Robert Herring, in the "London Mercury," there are the. makings of several plots in "City Lights." He does not altogether like the one chosen and he complains that the film is no answer to talkies.

The critic expatiates on the film thus: "The tramp —that is Mr. Chaplin— swallows a whistle at a party and has hiccoughs. Every time he hiccoughs the* whistle blows, and he interrupts the singer. He goes out, hut the whistle calls up taxis, and finally all the dogs come after him. This was perfect, and the idea might have made a film in itself a comic Pied Piper. It was entirely due to the talkies, and when the film began a statue was being unveiled, and Mr. Chaplin burlesqued with distortion the voices of pompous provincials on public occasions. This was so brilliant that people ignored the fact that it depended entirely on the microphone. said it was Mr. Chaplin's dig at the talkies and missed completely his sharp stab at humanity." True indeed! but still no one thought of such a thing till this creature of, genius and buffoonery made it an apt opening to his egregious pantomime. It is in these ways rather than in his little mechanisms, his shuffling boots, his swinging cane, his tearing trousers — all these self-imposed mannerisms by which the world knows Charlie, that he counts for so much. And although a genial satire is the basis of all his play, and particularly of this, his most ambitious work, he alone seems to know how far the satirical mood may go, and how soon he must lead his whole world hack to the realm of airy nothings. As Robert Herring rather cynically has it: "Air. Chaplin may not consider 'City Lights' as a funny film, but the public expect it to be, and large sections of the public to whom laughter is not only an expression but an explanation of the world we have made for ourselves, will be disappointed."

Appeal to Public. Indeed it may be known to those who most appreciate Mr. Chaplin for what he most appreciates in himself, as well as to some of those who love him for his boots alone!—that it is only in this shallow cup he holds his whole wide fickle. public. Thereto is the genius of Mr. Chaplin subservient, as in his sentimental romance with the blind flower girL Ho knows his audience, he knows that these things come down to us straight from our Early Victorian great-grand-parents, as the ideal stuff for a heart and home story, evergreen as Little Red Riding Hood. They are the proper setting for Mr. Chaplin's little parables. His public of grown and half-grown children, he knows, will lap up blind n-irls and tired grandmothers and heaps of pathos! —witness those who wyept in their millions for Al Jolson and "Sonny Boy!"— a u the pathos that Charlie lias to offer in fact, but like the wise Chinaman, Charlie does nothing too much. He is now indeed almost as inscrutable as an Oriental. We are all, including Robert Herring, touched so easily to laughter by his' inimitable , mimicry. Froln a duchess to a dustmop Charlie knows so much about so many things, we scarcely notice he grows more sphinxlike, but Robert Herring notices it, and thinks he is "tired," not so silently and deliriously hilarious as of yore. It may equally well be that Mr. Chaplin is not tired but for the first time in his public life may be seriously "joking," and that now he has proved some kind of Do'int that he at least will be accepted ' "silent" —for the funny noises he caused to accompany the other people, and" sometimes himself, were "Chaplinescme" or "Chaplin-on-the-air," but not reallv necessary to him—now he has shown himself to be "Charlie as ever, he may be willing to direct other people in talkies or even himself to play Shflnkesp^aa' 6 '