SILVER JUBILEE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 89, 17 April 1939, Page 14

SILVER JUBILEE.

UNITED ARTISTS CELEBRATES

CINEMA DEVELOPMENT.

Twenty years ago to-day a famous producer and three great motion picture stars met in America. D. W. Griffith was the producer, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks the stars. Out of that meeting grew the United Artists Picture Corporation.

Now, in this month of April, 1939, the company back over two decades of film history with the pride of genuine achievement. The twenty years that have preceded United Artists' silver jubilee celebrations have seen the rise of the film from the daye of the flickering screen to the superb artistry of the modern cinema. It is romance, for the romance in films ie not only that on the screen. Romance, and drama too, lies behind the story of the rise of the industry itself.

United Artists hns played a major part in cinema development. As a firm, the company does not make pictures, but publicises and distributes the works of its independent member-producers. Thus only A class films appear with the "U.A." senl. And thus also has the independent production of pictures been fostered

United Artists' producers stand supreme in the film world. Associated at present with the company are Samuel Ooldwyn, Alexander Korda, David O. Selznick, Walter Wanger, Hal Roach, Edward Small and Douglas Fairbanks — all names to conjure with. To mark the jubilee, theatres throughout New Zealand are showing United Artists' releases, and the seven producers have planned several notable attractions.

On Goldwyn's list appears "The Daring Age," marking the screen debut of famous violinist Jascha Heifetz, associated with Adolphe Menjou and Sigrid Gurie, and "Wiithering Heights" with Merle Oberon, taken from the Emily Bronte novel.

Korda's schedule for English production provides for the A. E. W. Mason tale "Four Feathers" with Ralph Richardson, and "The Tliief of Bagdad," in technicolour. with Paul Robeson, Sabu. Vivien ("Scarlett O'llara") Leigh and Jon Hall.

A Carole Lorn bard-James Stewart vehicle "Made For Each Other," will come from Selznick International, while the producer of "Suez" and "Trade Winds," Walter Wanger, has made "Stagecoach," starring John Wayne and Claire Trevor. Edward Small"intends releasing "The Man in the Iron Mask" and "The Duke of West Point." Ace comedy producer Hal Roa«h has come to light with another Thorne Smith "fourth dimensional" comedy, "Topper Takes a Trip," with Connie Bennett and Roland Young. Another screen event of note is the recent release of a new series of beautiful short subjects entitled "World Windows."

All these United Artists' silver jubilee attractions will be released in theatres controlled throughout the Dominion by Amalgamated Theatres, Limited in this city the Civic and the Plaza.