Films and the Stage.

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 181, 26 April 1924, Page 15

Films and the Stage.

For the winter carnival scene in “Main Street,” a huge ski slide covered with ice was erected. On the frozen paond at the bottom of the slide, professional Canadian skaters give a thrilling demonstration of their skill.

Zane Grey’s recent success “To the Last Man” is to be followed shortly by another of his stories in screen form, “The Call of the Canyon,” adapted by Paramount, with Richard Dix and Lois Wilson in the east.

A romantic comedy, as full of speed as of laughter, is “Watch Your Step,” the Master Picture at the Strand next week, featuring Cullen Landis land Patsy Ruth Miller. There’ is not a dull moment anywhere.

A bunch of very capable people are to be seen in the Master Picture entitled “The Hero.” They include Barbara La Marr, Gaston Glass, John Sainpolis, and Frankie Lee. Glass, according to the author, is the real hero. but. as there are no less than three individuals entitled to that honour, there will be sqm» difference of opinion.

Dick Turpin, the King of Highwaymen, had but one love —his mare, “Bonnie Black Bess” —who cared not for distance and knew not distress. This old favourite story is told again in the Master Picture, “Dick Turpin’s Ride to York.”

One of the year’s most lavish photoplays is registered “The Spanish Dancer,” Pola Negri’s latest picture for Paramount. -. It is a romance of the court of King Henry IV., in the days when Spam was at the height of her power. Miss Negri is featured as a Spanish girl, who so pleased King Henry that he wished to make her a great lady in the court. Wallace Beery and Antonio Moreno are in the cast.

At the Strand Theatre' this week, there is a comedy-drama right away from the ordinary, and calculated to giv« a liberal amount of genuine amusement, although there are wny strong dramatic moments in the story itself. Ranch life in Arizona with its daring exploits, is combined with New York atmosphere, and Holbrook Blinn. Jack Mulhall, Harry Myers, and Enid Bennett, make the story live on the screen. Also screening at the Strand this week is “Main Steet,” the magnificent Master Picture based &B Sinclair Lewis’s well-known iwyel.

Stern realism marks the remarkable jury trial screened in “The Acquittal,” a Universal-Jewel adaptation of Rita Weiman’s stage play, which, is now on the screen at the King’s Theatre. Presented by an all-star cast, headed by Norman Kerry and Claire Windsor, the play unravels a baffling mystery story in which the audience is kept guessing, and the identity of the true criminal is not revealed until the very end of the picture. A massive court room scene shows witness after witness . testifying. the testimony being depicted in action that makes up the principal part of the play, something the legitimate production • could never have hoped to accomplish.

When is a plumber not a plumber?. When the daughter of the family gets “uppety” and decides to call him a “Sanitary Engineer.” That is one of the spontaneous flashes of humour in “The Flirt,” Booth Tarkington’s human drama (Universal), which is on the new programme at the Eketahuna Town Hall. The uppety daughter is, of course, “The Flirt.” Her role is brilliantly played by Eileen Percy. The sanitary engineer, who eats with his knife just as though he were a plumber, is tho brother-in-law of the story, and is played by Tom Kennedy.

If a. husband has not faith in his wife; if he is unreasonably, foolishly jealous; if he believes the tongues of gossip in preference to his wife ; if he judges by appearance rather than the truth, does marriage pay for a woman ?_ A woman has answered these questions in “Don’t Doubt Your Wife,” a powerful dramatic feature now showing at Shortt’s Theatre, Wellington. Leah Baird, herself a woman of keen perceptions, broad vision and great intelligence, wrote “Don’t Doubt Your Wife.” She is also the star.

The tatterdemalion garb worn by Mr. Seymour Hicks in “Scrooge,” the powerful dramatic Dickens play which is being presented with “Sleeping Partners,” the delicious French comedy at the New Palace Theatre, Melbourne, has been used by the famous actor as “Scrooge” for the past 20 years. That the weather-stained, patched and darned rags hold together at all is cause for wonder, and Mr. Hicks long ago decided to take no risks with them by sending them to the cleaners to be furbished up. Their theatrical interest antedates by a considerable period Mr. Hicks’s possession of them for they were worn by the elder Farren, a great actor after Garrick, when he sat for a life-size painting by the Artist Clint. The picture now hangs in the Garrick Club, Loudon, of which Mr. Hicks is a member.

“God Save the King” and “Rule Britannia” arc the most up-to-date tunes played in “Kate,” the new ballad opera produced at the Kingsway Theatre in London recently. Tho other songs, ballads and melodies, go back much further than the 18th century. Some, which have been found in the British Museum in old collections of ballads, are so old that their date and origin arc- unknown. The most charming of these old melodies are sung to words in which the old atmosphere is retained. “The old-time airs which have been woven into the opera by the composer, Mr. Gerrard Williams, have been as little altered as possible,” said the conductor of the orchestra. Mr. Anthony Bernard, +o a “Daily News” representative. “That is the main difference between ‘Kate’ and ‘Tho Beggar’s Opera.’ Tho latter was 18th century music modernised; our opera is 14th, loth, and 16th century music with its charm unspoilt.” Mr. Bernard added that one old instrument was used in tho orchestra, the tenor drum, which reproduced the effect of tho tabor of Elizabethan times. The old dances which Miss Marian Wilson arranged for tho opera were taken from John Playford’s book of dances. He wrote in tho middle of the 18th century, and “tho “Dargason,” the most beautiful of them, and others, were old then. They have very simple steps, but the groupings are exceptionally charming. Another dance is tho old waltz in the form in which it fii«t shocked London h 1814.

The Big Brotherhood movement In America is one of the strongest organisations that has ever been set up for the betterment of the youth of the modern age. In the same respect British countries have tbe Y.M.C.A., and it is in these kind of institutions that we have to look for the real spirit of betterment and good feeling. Some time ago Rex Beach was called upon to write a novel around the movement in America, and he wrote “Big Brother,” which has been brought to the screen by Paramount, and will bo shown in New Zealand soon.

AH the spinsters in Hollywood are making use of their leap year privileges by asking their fellows to see “Daddies,” a Master Picture starring Mae Marsh. They expect it to do the trick, as it shows four flinty bachelors. who put their necks in the matrimonial noose with happy results.

Adolphe Menjou’s wardrobe is at last a thing known and measurable. The director of “Broadway After Dark” asked him to use his own clothes to fill a cabinet in the scene to bo filmed. Menjou agreed. Tho suits numbered sixty, the shoes 18 pairs, and the walking sticks eight-

Poets have sung of the beauty of a woman’s hair. But what is beautiful hair if it stands in the way of art? Anna Q. Nilsson sacrificed all her hair that she might appear in the leading feminine role of “Ponjola,” showing at the Empress next week.

A tragedy in mid-air is one of the outstanding thrills in ‘ ‘The Broken Wing,” a Master Picture featuring Kenneth Harlan, Miriam Cooper, and Walter Long. Besides this, there is an aeroplane smash through a Mexican house, an aviator who forgets his past, and marries a fascinating Mexican girl, and then an astounding surprise.

Larry Semon’s latest Master comedy is about to be released under the name of “The Gown Shop.” Without knowing anything about the story, it is safe to predict that every gown in the shop will be wrecked before the final fade-out!

Picking up several men bodily and then hurling them over his head, and with one hand snatching a man clear over the top of a bar are no mean feats of strength performed by Anders Randolph in the role of Big MacDonald in “The Man From Glengarry, ” a Master Picture.

3h uproarious mirthful comedy 9f a trio of unmanageable kids with no one to manage them is the theme of “The Country Kid,” a Master Picture which is coming soon. Wesley Barry, “Spec” O’Donnell and Baby Bruce Guerin, known as the liveliest lads on the screen, show how kiddies are outsing their elders from film honours.

The last scene in the Stoll screen adaptation of Sherlock Holmes’s story “The Hound of Baskervilles,” was taken outdoors and at night. In it Eille Norwood, as Holmes, made an end of the hound with his revolver, and drew attention to tbe phosphorus on its jaws, which had given it such a ghostly stppeayance. Needless to sav. +he n,,:. mal was none the worse for being shot, and took its film death in good part.

As the dandy par excellence, the dandy who dominated the brilliant court of the prince regent, the exquisite dresser and superb wi* .John Barrymore will assuredly carry off honours in “Beau Brummel,” a forthcoming Master Picture. He is made for the role.

Bebe Daniels, Nita Naldi, and David Powell are the stars in the Paramount de luxe special production, “The Glimpses of the Moon,” which will be screened at the Artcraft Theatre O' Tuesday next. The lovely Bebe i seen as a society beauty who agrees t< marry a poor man for a year—ther marry for money. This picture is one of the most costly and elaborate scree)' society dramas ever presented to the public, the settings and acting bein; superb.

Many racing pictures have been pro duced in the past, and many doubtless will be produced in tho future; bin “Long Odds,” a British M"=ter picture, is in a class by itself. There is a villain in the story, but he is a company promoter, and contrary u> oust.. he does not try to dope or injure the horse in any way. And the big sui prise—which is also the big sensation of the film —is associated with one of the little-known rules of the turf, instead of with an impossible circumstance. There are several novel effects, and the most exciting steeplechase ever screened in this splendid Master Picture, “Long Odds,” which is showing at the Empress this week.

“Lavender and Old Lace,” now on the screen at the Paramount Theatre, is a picturesque adaptation of Myrtle Beedi’s famous novel. Marguerite Snow, Seena Owen and Louis Bennison, are in the principal roles. “Lavender and Old Lace” is a yery creditable depiction of a. New England idyll that holds attention because of its quaint humour and the character types that are exceedingly well done. In contrast to the North Shore background. a Japanese sequence has been inserted in a logical manner. Also on the programme at the Paramount Theatre is “Temporary Marriage,” which has the high merit of telling a good story —and it is well acted.

The breath of scandal J How many lives it has poisoned. Of the danger of the tongue of scandal many romances have been written, and the Paramount-Metro release “The Famous Mrs. Fair,” which is billed for screening at the King’s Theatre at an early date is a powerful screen document levelling criticism at scandal. It is tho store of r. wejaan whose head was turned by fame, her husband came to mean nothing to her, only those who fawned and fluttered within the precincts of the light that she radiated could mean anything to her. It is the story of many women of today, and it will carry a potent lesson.

Charles Windsor, who is coming to the Tivoli as one of the trio, Windsor, Edgar and Kelleway. has many Australian associations, although this is his first trip to the Antipodes. He has played with Fred Leslie, the wellknown Australian y?tor, and ho knows Miss Daphne Polla'.\l quite, well. How many Australians can look back fondly to the happy days of the Pollard Lilliputians. It was with them that Miss Pollard first made her stage bows and vows. Mr. Windsor was a partner of Mr. Billy Knming at one time. Australia is just recovering from the ioy of the visit of Morris and Kuming.

An escape that was nothing short of miraculous recently saved Ella Hall from permanent disfigurement. She was thrown through the wind screen of her car, after the big limousine had jumped a ditch, and hit a telegraph pole in avoiding a collision with another car. Miss Hall was on her way to the studio where she was working on “In the Name of the Law,” a Master Picture.