THE ANSWER CORNER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE ANSWER CORNER.

SINGER.—Tou will find George Arliss by letter c/o Warner Bros.. 5842, Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood. The address of John MacCormack Is not known. George Wallace and Ella Shields may be found through the post at His Majesty's.

CHARMAINE. —The addresses you ask for :ue: Tallulah Bankhead, Paramount Pictures, 5451, Marathon Street, Hollywood; Greta Garbo, " Our Gang," and Norma Shearer, at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Culver City, California; Zasu I'itts, Universal City, California; Mitzi Green, Radio Pictures, 780, Gower Street, Hollywood; Joan Blondell, Warner Bros., 5842, Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood; and -Mice White, not known. "Our Gang" comprises " Farina," Ernie Morrison, Jackie Condon, Fatty Joe Cobb, Mickey Daniels, and Mary Korman.

SIIA'ER EAGLE. —In response to your two notes signed White Eagle and Silver King, no details are available as to Randolph Scott's age or next picture. The same applies as regards coming vehicles for George O'Brien and Tom Keene. Write for autographed photographs to Fox Films Corporation, North Western Avenue, Hollywood, for George O'Brien, and to Radio Pictures, 780, Gower Street, Hollywood, for Randolph Scott and Tom Keene. The ar.thor of "Mystery Ranch" was Stewart Edward White, of "The Fighting Sheriff," Stuart Anthony; "High Speed," Harold Shumate; "Wild Horse Mesa," Zane Grey; '•The End of the Trail," not known. The little boy in "Handle With Care" was Buster Phelps, and the little girl in "Smoke Lightning" was Betsy King Ross, a noted girl rider and equestrian acrobat. Ken Maynard is making pictures still, but his films do not come to Auckland as his company has no world distributing service. You speak of the film, "Destry of Death Valley." "Destry Rides Again," and "The Rider of Death Valley" were the two first talkies of Tom Mix's career. Lois Wilson was featured ,in the second. The titles must have become mixed in your note.

Ruth Bernhardt, grand-niece of Sarah Bernhardt, lias arrived in Hollywood to seek a screen career. Nine years ago she tried to "crash" the gates of filmland, but was unsuccessful. Now, she believes, after being successful on the stage in Europe, she will get somewhere here. She is accompanied by her husband, John Michael Schliesser, sculptor.

Bobby is a cat, half Persian and half mystery, and he has been acting for the benefit of cameramen and directofs ever since he was old enough to walk. He has supported Gloria Swanson, Pola Negri, Betty Bronson, Kicardo Cortez, Theodore Roberts, the Four Marx Brothers and other luminaries during his career, and is now working in "International House," with Peggy Hopkins Joyce and W. C. Fields. Despite his dozen years of active work under the arcs, Bobby is as spry as one of his numerous great-grandchildren.

Toys to the value of £2000 were used to furnish a "set" for scenes in the new Jack Buchanan picture, "Yes, Mr. Brown," in which the star appears as the branch manager of a toy manufacturing company. The large London store supplying the toys, delivered some of their newest novelties, such as an electric sp'eedway, a mechanical singing bird, a musical chair which, when sat on, plavo a tune, a box of bandsmen which play "God Save the King," a large model of Miss England 111., and a miniature switch-back railway. Carried out in prey and black on modernistic lines, the "sot" comprised two floors.

The cat's miaouw is the most horrible sound Hollywood's technicians can find. Sound engineers experimenting to discover the most unearthly bloodcurdling noise that may be manufactured for "horror" stories have learned that an ordinary cat's miaouw, magnified to gigantic proportions and then reversed on the "sound track"—run backwards —is the most grisly noise that may (be produced.

Rod La Rocque was recently engaged to portray the leading male lead in the English version of "S.O.S. Iceberg," now being completed at a Berlin studio under the direction of Tay Garnett, of Hollywood. Exteriors for the production were filmed off the icy coast of Greenland by Dr. Arnold Fanck. "S.O.S. Iceberg" marks the return to the screen of La Rocque after a lengthy period of retirement. Ernst Udet, Germany's famous flyer, also has an important part in "S.O.S. Iceberg." He is the first person to have landed a 'plane on an iceberg, and accomplished this difficult and dangerous feat in "S.O.S. Iceberg."

An outstanding screen attraction of the near future in Auckland will bo "Grand Hotel." Based on the widelyread novel by Vicki Baum, and featuring an unusually imposing array of stars, "Grand Hotel" has, with the possible exception of "Cavalcade," commanded more public attention than any other film since the inception of the talkies. Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore, and Wallace Beery are the five principal characters, who for a variety of reasons find themselves in the great Berlin hotel at the same time, their destinies converging for a brief interval, although some of them never meet. The important part played by the background has rendered it essential that the atmosphere of the hotel bo accurately presented, and 110 effort was spared by the director, Edmund Goulding, in reproducing a German hotel in the most meticulous fashion.

In 1932 a large British producing studio undertook to train for the screen the twelve prize-winning girls in a national competition promoted by the "Sunday Referee." The girls obtained the most thorough tuition in every branch required for screen proficiency at the Islington studios, Islington. Their progress was carefully noted by experts, who are now able to announce that the following seven girls have been placed under contract and are being groomed for stardom: Joyce Kirby, Gwynneth Lloyd, Grethe Hanson, Diana Cotton, Jane Cornell, Doreen Webster, and Glennis Lorimer. These "baby stars," who are all under 21, have already appeared in small parts in the following British productions: "Jack's the Boy," "Love On Wheels," "Marry Me," "The Rome Express," "The Man From Australia," and "After the Ball." Gwynneth Lloyd had the important role of Edna Best's sister in "The Faithful Heart," while Diana Cotton is the village belle in "The Man From Australia."

The properties used on the enormous bank "set" for "Gold Fever" at Hollywood are said to be more valuable than any other similar group of properties ever assembled on one "set." "Gold Fever" featured Walter Huston, with Constance Cummings and Kay Johnson as the feminine leads. The picture is a irelodrama dealing with the America of to-day. Just properties alone —not sets, lights and cameras—were valued at £25,000. The huge collection of desks, accounting machines, money trucks, telephones, typewriters, adding _ machines, bookkeeping machines, dictaphones, lamps, desk-pads, inkwells, fountain pens and filing cabinets glorified tme intricate mechanism of our present economic age to the tune of about a quarter of a million dollars. Reduced to terms of the present-day pay of a movie "extra," this represents the income for about 109 years. The bank president's office alone, which in the picture Walter Huston occupied, had furnishings worth £4000. An Oriental rug was valued at £000, tapestries and oil paintings at. £400, and four pieces of antique furniture were appraised at £1000. However, to the character of Tom Dickson, which Huston portrays, it wouldn't matter whether his office cost £100,000 or only a penny, whetlicr it was sumptous or like a barn, for Dickson lias little consideration for material objects. His chief concern is the continued progress of his bank and the confidence of its depositors. But the bank president did not furnish liis own office. That was attended to for him, and the office was furnished according to propriety.

Somerset Maugham's play "Our Betters" Las evolved into a motion picture. As the American girl who marries into the British nobility, Constance Bennett is in the leading role. Anita Louise, Gilbert Roland, Charles Starrett, and Violet K-emble-Cooper play some of the other principal parts. George Cukor directed the film.

"After the Ball," with Esther Ralston and Basil Eathbone, has its plot situated in Geneva. It is a romance in which international diplomacy and social intrigue contribute to the story. The supporting cast includes Marie -Burke, Jean Adrienne, George Curzon and Clifford Heatherley. Music for the picture was composed by Otto Stransky, with lyrics by Clifford Grey, while the direction is by Milton Rosmer, maker of "Many Waters" and other films.

Two delightful comedies will be released in Auckland in the near future. The first is a new George Sidney and Charlie Murray feature, entitled "The Cohens and Kellye in Trouble," which presents these two comedians in further ludicrous situations. It also includes in the cast Maureen O'Sullivan and Frank Albertson, the British screen comic. The other production, "Out All Night," is an even funnier comedy than the last Zasu Pitts-Slim Summerville picture, "They Just Had to Get Married," and presents the sad-faced comedians in the roles of two lovers who try to go for a honeymoon without a determined mother-in-law.

"King Kong," Merian C. Cooper's film dealing with prehistoric monsters in general and a 50-foot ape in particular, recently had its dual New York premiere at the Radio City Music Hall and the Roxy Theatre, the two biggest film houses in the city. The fantastic story was one that the late Edgar Wallace prepared for the film-makers just before his death. Kong is' the giant ape who is shown running amok among New York's skyscrapers, pulling aeroplanes out of the sky, biting pieces out of the Sixth Avenue elevated railway, and otherwise annoying the metropolis. All the trouble starts when a motion picture party, led by Robert Armstrong, Fay Wray, and Bruce Cabot, invade a 'lost" island and find surviving monsters of another age.

Barbara Stanwyck is responsible for her latest screen sensation in "Ladies Tbey Talk About." The story revolves about women in prison, with Miss Stanwyck as a dashing bank bandit who matches her wits against the police and loses. Opposite her is Preston Foster, who is no novice at these prison melodramas. Elsewhere in the cast are Lyle Talbot, Dorothy Burgess, Lillian Roth and Maud Eburne.

Some of America's most famous and successful radio artists—commanding fabulous remunerations —such as Bing Crosby, Kate Smith, etc., are included in "The Big Broadcast," an unusual musical comedy-romance. The "straight" stars are Stuart Erwin and Leila Hyams. This film will be shown as from next Friday at the Regent, but only in the evenings. Morninc and afternoon sessions will be occupied with a timely revival of "Peter Pan," in which Betty Bronson, in the title-part, and Mary Brian, as Wendy, charmed millions some years ago.

A bit of the "ould sod" lias been transported from Ireland to Hollywood for the reproduction of an Irish village to be used in the screening of "Peg o My Heart." The importation consisted of 1001b of Irish grass seed to be sown on the site of tlie Mayo County fishing hamlet the technicians are constructing for this new Marion Davies film. The technicians have prepared a special loam in the topsoil to germinate the imported seeds, the idea being that no grass in America quite resembles the native sod of the Emerald Isle.

The spirit in which Hollywood's highsalaried players have accepted tlieir lialf-pay, and in some cases no pay, is reflected in Spencer Tracy's view. "Many, like myself, who have been here twd or three years, getting paid every week, have been lucky that we've enjoyed such a long run. This industry is getting more and more like the show business," he laughed. "We've just bumped into that old Easter pay-roll vacation period again." The attitude of others was not unlike that of Maurice Chevalier, who, when requested to chop his salary 50 per cent for eight weeks, enthusiastically replied: "Sure theei'g! This ees a good time for all of us to work harder for less money." For those who might be worried about finance, Estelle Taylor recommends jig-saw puzzles. "Get a 500-piece puzzle," said she, "with one piece missing. You'll •ven forget to sleep."