CINEMA GHOSTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 253, 24 October 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

CINEMA GHOSTS.

IN HOLLYWOOD'S VAULTS. Behind great iron safe doors, protected by combination locks, lies a host of Hollywood ghosts. More than 800 pictures, practically every production in the history of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio, are in the film vaults, "canned," listed and cardindexed. There are negatives of thousands of tests—some of which brought stars to prominence, others which are forgotten, save for an entry on the card index. These pictures come to light more often than the public supposes. Almost every day some item from the past conies from the vaults to relive a brief moment of triumph. "Ben Hur" is there, "The Big Parade," "Bardelys the Magnificent;." Going further one may find "Sinners in Silk," with Eleanor Boardman and Lew Cody, or "Wife of the Centaur," with Miss Boardman and John Gilbert. "His Hour," John Gilbert's first great triumph, is sometimes brought out, to show the star brilliant at the beginning 6f his sensational climb to success. "Confessions of a Queen," with Ramon Novarro and Alice Terry, pr "The Great Divide," with Miss Terry and Conway Tearle, "The Tower of Lies," with Xorma Shearer and Lon Chaney, or Chaney's "The Unholy Three," may come forth to work the spells that gripped millions of filmgoers years ago. In one small tin can is a series of tests of a bashful blonde girl; she is today the great Greta Garbo. Another small reel of negative is that of the last screen appearance of Mabel Xormand. Desperately ill at the time, she posed for a little reel as a present for her husband, Lew Cody, now joined with her in the Great Beyond. This was only a few months before her" death. The world, acclaiming the films of today, may have forgotten most of these people and pictures. But in Hollywood they live on, to have their occasional hour of glory on the projection room screens.