CAMERA FLASHES

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 282, 27 November 1937, Page 7 (Supplement)

CAMERA FLASHES

jyjERLE OBEROX, after finishing "Divorce of Lady X," with Laurence Olivier, goes straight into another film, "Over the Moon."

JT really seems that "Wuthering Heights," the long-planned Walter Wanger production, will reach the wound stages some time in October. Before leaving Europe on his return to Hollywood, the producer telephoned his studio to inquire about the production costs of the film and to learn the whereabouts of some of his contract plavers. ♦♦♦ ♦ " OLIVIA DE HAVILLAXD, young star, dislikes intensely the jangle of an alarm clock. So she is awakened every morning by a clock with a phonograph attachment which plays "Sleeptimn <JaJ" softly at first, then louder until Olivia is convinced she really is "wasting hours away" abed.

"V"ORMA SHEARER is to make "Marie X Antoinette." This will be her first part since Irving Thalberg, her husband and Hollywood's greatest producer, died in September of last year. For months past even her closest friends have been doubtful whether she would ever appear on the screen again. The role of King Louis is stirfuncast, but Peter Lorrc will probably be given it. There was a suggestion that the picture would be made in Britain, but there is now no doubt that it will be produced in Hollywood.

rpHE early Victorian gold diggings and a Melbourne music hall in the 80's are among the sequences in the latest Gracie Fields film, "He Was Her Man," which is going into production at the Deiiham studios in Buckinghamshire. In the film, on which £200,000 is being spent, and in which Victor McLaglen plays opposite Miss Fields, the opening scene shows (trade singing in a Melbourne music hall. McLaglen plays a clumsy, reckless husband to Miss Fields' high-spirited but staunch wife from Australia. The scene switches to the Johannesburg gold rush, in which McLaglen is mobbed. "The Australian scenes revive old memories," McLaglen told the "Herald" representative. "They recall the days before the war with my brother Arthur, I toured Australia and New Zealand in a posing act called "Masterpieces of Sculpture.' After that we tried pearl-fishing in Fuji. I know several Australians m Hollywood, particularly 'Snowy' Baker. I hope to revisit Australia, possibly in 1938."

Q.LORIA BLOXDELL, Joan's sister, has signed a contract with Warner Brothers. Her first picture for them will be "Money Talks," to be directed by John Farrow. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ OOLOL'R production schedule has been increased by the announcement that Dorothy Lamour's picture, "Her Jungle Love," will be made in natural colour. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ QSCAR HOMOLKA, who makes his American screen debut in "Ebb Tide," wanted to be an actor long before he ever saw a stage play or watched an actor at work. His parents wanted him to become a painter and kept him away from theatres, so that when he finally went to the Vienna Dramatic Academy at the age of It! he had seen only two plays, both operas.

rFHE Genaral Cinema Finance Corporation is forming a unit to make films of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas at the Pinewood Studios, Bucks. The first will be "The Yeomen of the GUard," which has been adapted to its new medium by the musician Geoffrey Toye, who will act as producer and be hi charge of the musical and artistic side.

rpYROXE GUTHRIE, the stage producer, is to make his film debut in an important part in the Charles Laughton-Erich Pominer production, "The Vessel of Wrath.'' The tall Mr. Guthrie had never stepped in front of a camera before he was invited to make a test for this film. He is the producer at the Old Vic this year, and he was producer there in 1033 when Charles Laughton deserted Hollywood to appear in Shakespeare.

tSHADES of Anna Held! Instead of milk, which she looks upon solelv as a beverage, Merle Oberon, star of Alexander Korda's "Divorce of Lady X," uses sherry in her bath whenever she feels the need of a pick-me-up. Says Merle: "A glass of ordinary sherry sprinkled into a tub of hot water is the 'soother' par excellence. I use it after a fatiguing day at the studio, when I've been standing on my feet for hours, my head aches and I'm all done in. Twenty minutes of rest in the tub, with an ice compress on my head and witch hazel pads over my eyes, accomplishes wonders. Try it some time."