News of the Cinema

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21631, 15 November 1935, Page 5

News of the Cinema

FILM NOTES It has been announced that Paul Robeson has been cast in "Show Boat" in the role he played in the original Ziegfeld production on the stage. The role of Magnolia will be played by Irene Dunne, who also played this role in the Ziegfeld production. The picture will go into production as soon as the balance of the cast has been selected. • • • Mr H. G. Wells is back at the London Film Studios supervising "Things to Come," after the severe facial bruises he suffered when a ladder fell on him at his new home in Regent's Park, London. a • • Mme. Namare, the famous soprano of the Opera Comique in Paris, and the Metropolitan, in New York, has an important musical part to the Gary Cooper-Ann Harding Paramount picture, "Peter Ibbetson." • • • Admiral Richard E. Byrd, the famous Arctic and Antarctic explorer, is now in Hollywood assisting in the final editing of "Little America," Paramount's official record of the recent Byrd Antarctic expedition. • * * A film that book-loving picturegoers will be pleased to see, will be arriving in New Zealand shortly. It is "Jalna," from Mazo de la Roche's prize winning novel of family life. Kay Johnson, lan Hunter, Peggy Wood, C. Aubrey Smith, and Nigel Bruce, are amongst the cast which brings the Whiteoaks family to the screen. • • • Charles Bickford will have the leading role in "East of Java," a picture which has been taken from the novel entitled "Tiger Island." The supporting cast includes Leslie Fenton, Elizabeth Young, Frank Albertson, Edgar Norton, and many others. • e « Warner Oland will shortly be seen In the Fox picture "Charlie Chan in Shanghai," in which he encounters the most perilous adventures of his exciting career in the hunt for an international ring of dope smugglers. James Tinling diluted the picture, which also features Russell Hicks, Halliwell Hobbs, and Irene Hervey. • • • Kathleen Burke is to be featured In the role of "Beauty's Daughter," a new Fox production. The engagement of Miss Burke completes the list of players in the screen version of Kathleen Norris's novel, the other including Claire Trevor, Ralph Bellamy, Ben Lyon, Jane Darwell, and Warren Hymer. • • • During the last two years there has been a considerable lull in the. making of Western films by the major studios in America. Paramount, however, has made a bid for the return of these popular outdoor pictures by purchasing the best works of Clarence E. Mulford and Zane Grey. This company has acquired the screen rights to six of Mulford's and 22 of Zane Grey's works. The first to reach the screen will be Clarence E. Mulford's "Hopalong Cassidy," which will introduce a new personality. William Bovd, in the leading role. This picture will give plenty of outdoor action and will also contain a new song, "Following tho 5 tars." • • • Grace Moore, the star of Columbia's successful film, "Love Me Forever," fresh from her operatic triumphs ibroad, where she repeated her role as Drima donna in "La Boheme" to sing l command performance at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, London, left for Hollywood recently to resume her screen work. Elaborate preparations are already under way for Miss Moore's third Columbia production, which will be started immediately the star arrives at the studios. The title will be announced shortly. It will have a musical background similar to her recent pictures "One Night of Love" and "Love Me Forever." • • « George Marshall, who recently completed directing "Snatched," has been commissioned by Twentieth CenturyFox to direct Wallace Beery in -"Mes-

NEWSREEL FROM ABYSSINIA A film that shows how news of the declaration of war was received in Addis Ababa has just arrived by airmail in Melbourne and will shortly be shown in New Zealand. This film from Abyssinia was taken by one of the three Fox Movietone News units under the control of Laurence Stall-

sage to Garcia." John Ford, who first received the assignment, will instead direct "Shark Island," starring Fredric March. a • « Frank Capra, winner of the 1934 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences award for the best direction of the year, is the new-named president of the organisation. The selection was made at the annual meeting of the board of governors and various branch committees of the organisation. Howard Estabrook, writer, was re-elected first vice-president.

t ings, which have been in Abyssinia I since the commencement of war, film- ■ ing military events. I Ernest Vajda, author of many of I Hollywood's most successful pictures, i has started work at Paramount on the - screen adaptation of "The Life and i Melodies of Victor Herbert," planned f as one of the most important musical 3 romances on the studio schedule for - this year. The rights to this story ; and some 400 of Victor Herbert's melodies were acquired by Paramount in a recent purchase.

TO-DAY'S NEW PROGRAMMES Sharp," starring Miriam Hopkins, Alison Skipworth, Alan Mowbray, Frances Dee, Billie Burke, Nigel Bruce, and Cedric Hardwicke. Drama, in technicolour, from.Thackeray's "Vanity Fair." RKO-Kadio. PLAZA—"Chasing Yesterday," starring Grete Natzler. Musical comedy, from the operetta, "Old Heidelberg.". Associated British Pictures. MAYFAlß—"Dressed to Thrill," starring Clive Brook and Tutta Rolf. Musical drama. Fox. REGENT—"Escapade," starring William Powell and Luisa Rainer. Drama. M-G-M. TIVOLI—"After the Dance," starring Nancy Carroll, George Murphy, and Thelma Todd. Musical comedy. Columbia. "What Price Innocence," starring Jean Parker. Drama. Columbia. MAJESTIC—"PubIic Hero No. 1," starring Chester Morris, Jean Arthur, and Lionel Barrymore. Adventure drama. M-G-M. ClVlC— "Scrooge," starring Seymour Hicks, Donald Calthrop, and Philip Frost. Drama, from the novel, "A Christmas Carol," by Charles Dickens. Julius Hagen Twickenham production. Second week. "The Midshipmaid," starring Jessie Matthews and Fred Kerr. Comedy. Gainsborough. CRYSTAL PALACE—"Bright Lights," starring Joe E. Brown, Ann Dvorak, and Patricia Ellis. Comedy. First National. Second week. AVON— "CaII of the Wild," starring Clark Gable and Loretta Young. Adventure drama, from the novel by Jack London. Twentieth Century. Second week. LIBERTY—"The Little Colonel," starring Shirley Temple and Lionel Barrymore. Romantic drama. Fox. "She Gets Her Man," starring Zasu Pitts, Hugh O'Conneil, and Helen Twelvetrees. GRAND —"Too Much Harmony," starring Bing Crosby, Judith Allen, and Jack Oakie. Musical comedy. Paramount. "The Notorious Sophie Lang," starring Gertrude Michael and Paul Cavanagh. Drama. Paramount.

FILMS OF TWO COUNTRIES AMERICA AND ENGLAND The announcement made recently on this page that Mr Alexander Korda, the producer of London Films, whose work has found outstanding success, both in England and America, has been made a member and producer of the American film company, United Artists, is only another instance, though perhaps the most important one, of the happy co-operation that is marking the end of the long feud between English and American films. The interchange of actors between the two countries that has been going on for the last two years marked the beginning of this movement, and has produced some excellent results, but in the alliance of Mr Korda's producing genius with the resources of one of the most influential American companies one can hope for developments of very great importance. It is unfortunate that there was not more cooperation between England and America long ago. Time was wasted in mutual abuse where it could have been spent in tolerant enquiry into what were the best features that each country could contribute to screen art. Though many comparisons have been made between the English and American films, there is one point which it is very necessary to consider, yet which is almost invariably overlooked. The film is one of the few arts, perhaps the only one,' that has origins and traditions in America, and not in the Old World. Most of the arts in America were imported and have until very recently borne the mark of imitation of foreign sources, but the screen came to life there, passed through the difficult stages of early development, and at last grew to a flourishing maturity as perhaps the most typical medium of national artistic expression. Its origin in America was of the kind that is characteristic of all the greatest arts—it began and grew up as a folk art. There was nothing highbrow about it; it survived the ignominy and scorn that was heaped upon it only because it pleased the people and was, and aimed to be nothing more than, an expression of their outlook on life. It was firmly rooted in popular taste, and, unlike poetry and most of the other arts, it

lives to-day almost solely for this reason.

In England and in Europe generally the circumstances of the development of the film were very different. It was imported from America in much the same way that poetry was imported from England into America, that belles lettres were imported from France into England in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, and that music was imported from Italy during the same period. But there was one important difference: while these other arts were taken over with grateful acknowledgment and every expression of respect and admiration for the countries which gave them, the film was taken from America to a chorus of booing and jeering, and with every attempt to belittle the artistic standards, the life and manners of the country from which it came. Only in one way was it shown how impossible it was to avoid at least an understood acknowledgment of the debt: the language and jargon of America in all matters pertaining to moving pictures was, in disregard of loud and angry protest on all sides, taken over almost completely. This was no new method of paying tribute to a nation which taught an art to another: it happened in all the instances of importation mentioned above, and it happened when "captive Greece took captive her proud conqueror," and taught the arts to Rome. Such borrowing, incidentally, has always called forth similar protest, such as may be found, for instance, in the satirical comments of Swift and Addison on the use of French words in England during the eighteenth century. The underlying difference, therefore, between English and American films has largely been the difference between conscious and unconscious art. England, jealous that her former acknowledged position as the superior of America in every branch of art should thus have been so strongly challenged, looked naturally enough, especially after the talkies had been introduced, to an art in which she had an undoubted supremacy—the stage. With its assistance she was able to give something of her own to the film, something that America had not before been successful in achieving. It was now that America began to recognise that she could learn something in her own field from England, and with this came a corresponding recognition on the part of the English producers. It is in this fusion of what can be contributed by a vital folk art and a cultured tradition of many centuries that the greatest hopes for the future' of the film lie.

MUSIC AND DRAMA Till November 21— J. C. Williamson musical comedy company in "Roberta," "High Jinks," and "Our Miss Gibbs," Theatre Royal. November 21 and 22—Christchurch Harmonic Society's third concert. November 23 —Laurian Club's recital, Radiant Hall. November 30, December 2 and 3 Repertory Society's production of Stuart, at. Radiant Hall. "Sixteen," by Aimee and Philip December 7 and 13—Viennese Boys Choir. December 12—Combined concert at Civic Theatre by Royal Christchurch Musical Society and Christchurch Harmonic Society. December 17, 18, and 19— Morality play, "Everyman," at Holy Trinity Church, Avonside. "Everyman," the fifteenth century morality play, which will be staged at the Holy Trinity Church, Avonside, on December 17. 13, and 19, is a translation from the Dutch. The characters in addition to "everyman" represent various moral characteristics, round which the theme of the play is built. The subject dealt with in "Sixteen." the next three-act play to be staged by the Repertory Theatre Society at the Radiant Hall, is the reaction of a girl of 16 when her mother marries for the second time. The play is by Philip and Aimee Stuart, two of the best-known playwrights in England. • » • Accompanying the Viennese Boys' Choir to New Zealand are the Rev. Father J. Schnitt, director, Mr Victor Gomboz, musical director, Mr J. Kodyek, tutor, and Madame F. Marsi, who was responsible for making the original arrangements to bring the choir to Australia and New Zealand. Mr Claude Kingston, concert director for Messrs J. and N. Tait, who is supervising the tour, states that the performances by the choir were a greater success in Australia than the famous Sistine Choir that visited the Commonwealth about 12 years ago. . . • • • The story of "White Horse Inn," jphicb. i» to be the sext f. fc William*

son attraction in New Zealand, is ft romantic one, and is set in the magnificent background of the Austria! TyroL The pretty proprietress cf tha inn is loved by her head-waiter, but is herself in love with a young English solicitor. A young heiress enters the triangle, and the squaring of the difficulties is attended by all the perquisites of musical comedy—singing, dancing, glamorous scenes, with the charm of sun and snow over all. Romola Hansen and Herbert Brown will play the leads. Behind the filming of the South American war and aviation drama, "Storm Over the Andes," is the story of the actual experience of one of the authors, Eliot Gibbons, a traveller and newspaper writer. He wrote the story in collaboration with Laclede Christy, and actually was at the front in the South American war as a guest of a general. He also flew over the desolate country where the fighting occurred, and from these experiences the story was written. • • • People in England take their drama and comedy seriously, according to Mary Ellis, who recently appeared in the Paramount picture "Paris in Spring." Miss Ellis has had wide experience on the English and American stage, as well'as in films. "If they don't like a play in England," she continued, "they have no hesitation in saying so. It seems to me that there is something quite normal in this. English theatregoers feel that they have paid to be entertained, not to be bored. After all, it must be a fine evening for them, and whether it is through enjoyment of the play or of themselves does not seem to matter very much. In England a player must 'sense' an audience before the curtain rises. If she does not trouble is apt to break out. That is why every day presents new problems during the run of a play. If the audience seems to be a lively one, you emphasise your comedy lines; if it is a serious group, you strengthen your drama." I