Films and the Stage.

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 257, 26 July 1930, Page 27

Films and the Stage.

The most varied ancestry of any screen actress is claimed for Dorothy Janis, the 96pound girl whom Herbert Brenon, United Artists’ producer-director, chose for one of the biggest roles in the all-talking production, “Lummox.” Little Miss Janis boasts Scottish, Irish, Welsh and Dutch blood—but she’s proudest of all of her one-sixteenth Cherokee Indian. Brenon picked Dorothy from a field of 25 candidates for the role of “Chita” in the screen version of Fannie Hurst’s best-selling novel.

The beard market, having suffered a severe slump because of the popularity of musical films, again has come into its own in Hollywood. The virile outdoor dramas of frontier days are creating a demand for a bearded gentry and longnourished whiskers once more are an asset. / Beards of the 1870 gold camp style were recently required at the Paramount Hollywood studios for “The Border Legion,”'the talking screen version bf Zane Grey’s popular novel, in

which Richard Arlen is starred. The film story deals with life in the roaring camps of Californian mother-lode region, and with the operations of the famous band of outlaws, under Black Bart, which gave rise to the vigilante movement. "The Border Legion,” which is Paramount’s fourth great all-talking Western picture, was filmed under the co-direction of Otto Brewer and Edwin Knopf, the makers of “The Light of Western Stars.” Fay Wray is featured in the leading feminine role, and Jack Holt, Eugene Patlette, and Stanley Fields head the supporting cast

Grace Moore, famous Metropolitan Opera Company soprano, has commenced rehearsals on,her first starring production, a story suggested by the career of Jenny Lind. Reginald Denny will have the chief male role and Sidney Franklin is the director. New additions to the cast include George Marion, Jobyna Howland, Bodel Rosing and Paul

In sharp contradiction to the popular notion that, sound pictures must necessarily sacrifice action for dialogue is George Fitzmaurice’s treatment of “The Locked Door,” the United Artists’ production co-featuring Rod La Rocque, Barbara Stanwyck, William Boyd and Betty Bronson. This picture was filmed with the same elastic technique that caused silent pictures to supplant. in popularity the comparatively actionless and static le-

gitimate drama. In “The Locked Door” the actors are constantly on the move, doing things and speaking their lines regardless of their position in relation to camera and microphone. Thus Fitzmaurice attains the degree of naturalness which reached perfection in the silent screen and was lost again through the inflexibility of recording apparatus.

Nancy Carroll is sft. din. tall, weighs 8 stone 21b., and has red hair and blue eyes.

Paramount’s lavish multi-star screen party, “Paramount on Parade,” which received its grand gala Australian pre-

miere at the Prince Edward Theatre, Sydney,' on June 27, won the unanimous approval of. the audience and Press critics alike. Composed as it is of 20 starring interludes, ranging from operatic singing and dramatic playlets to uproariously funny comedy, “Paramount on Parade” holds something of interest for every picturegoer. Each star on Paramount’s roster is presented in an intimate closeup, and in the type of work that has made that star popular with screen audiences.

For the first time in the history of British motion pictures, the military authorities in England have permitted the use of Hyde Park, world-famous agitators’ square in London, for scenes in a motion picture. Associated Radio Pictures’ “Escape,” the Galsworthy play, directed by Basil Dean, with Sir Gerald Du Maurier in the leading role, has one of its important scenes laid In this celebrated London spot.

RKO has . borrowed Bessie Love from M-G-M to appear in the leading role in the film to be based on the play, “The Conspiracy,” by John Emerson and Robert Baker.

John Gilbert is busy learning how to heave heavinglines, throw running bowlines, make monkey . fists, tie sheepshanks, sling bos’ns’ chairs and splice hawsers for his role in “Way for a Sailor,” his new Metro-Goldwyn Mayer talkie.

Ruth Chatterton can act, write and compose. She has been a stage and screen star for the past ten years. Two of her plays have been produced on Broadway and more than half a dozen musical compositions are accredited to her.

Mona Rico, Spanish screen beauty, has been signed for the role of Rosita in “Sez You—Sez Me,” Irving Cummings’s next Fox production, which will have Victor McLaglen and Mona Maris as the featured players. “Sez You—Sez Me” is from Clement Ripley’s hovel, “Dust and Sun.”

Four special engagements of John McCormack’s first Movietone picture, “Song o’ My Heart,” are now in full

swing on highly successful runs in as many different American cities. Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre (Hollywood) was the scene of the epoch-marking event in California, and never has this famous theatre held a more renowned tenant. Seats for the first 30 performances (15 days, two shows a day) were exhausted before the- opening, and tickets for the gala opening were sold at a dizzy premium.

! Leon Gordon, now in “Tea for Three” at the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, is nearing the end of his stay in Australia. Few stars from abroad have achieved the continuous success in this country which Leon Gordon has won. He has been described as “the star who has never made a failure. When he leaves Australia shortly he will go straight to Hollywood to appear in a series of “talkie” plays which have been specially written for him. Later, it is possible that he will be presented in a London theatre by J. C. Williamson, Ltd.

■ft.rtog the rf 'Dangerous . „ * Nan McGrew, the Paramount all-talk-ing picture in which Helen Kane is featured,” says Mr. Frank Ross, makeup artist at the Paramount New York studios "we made up James Hall with soft shading over his cheeks. This was done slightly to decrease his high cheek bones. After that, every extra player in the studio wanted to be made • «. up in exactly the sa - we obliged them, all would have looked dish-faced and the result would have been grotesque.”

Among the highlights in the United | Artists’ all-dialogue picture, “Be Your I self,” with Fannie Brice starred, are gigantic night club and prize ring : scenes. The night club set is one of i the most elaborate ever constructed for I talking motion pictures and depicts an I impressionistic “Heaven,” with mobile j clouds and disappearing platforms and steps, which hold a dancing ballet of fifty girls and young men. Supporting Miss Brice in this lively, all-talking and singing feature are Robert Armstrong. Gertrude Astor, Harry Green, G. Pat 1 Collins, Budd Fine, and Jimmy Tolson.

DooMtag » ™St ««« newest claim to fame. Hignt in rne & he wag directing for „ Montana Moon ” with Joan Crawford starr j ng( a cow mooed, the sound being recor( jed with the dialogue through the mountain location equipment. When the scene was retaken from another angle, the moo had to again. come in at the same place, so Mai supplied the moo ng from the sidelines. Johnny Mack Brown plays in the Metro-Gold-wyn-Mayer outdoor feature, and the SU p port i n g cas t includes Ricardo Cortez, Dorothy Sebastian, Clift Edwards, and Benny Rubin.

Josephone, motion picture monkey, is no respecter of persons. Playing in a scene with Greta Garbo for' “Romance,” the monkey became annoyed at the star’s attention to another pet and promptly bit ,her on the hand. Miss Garbo ignored the wound and calmly continued the scene, waiting until it was over to have it bathed in an antiseptic.

Richard Arlen and his beautiful wife, Jobyna Ralston, have an unpretentious Spanish style home at Toluca Lake, a residential suburb of Hollywood. Arlen has the distinction of being honorary mayor of the place.

Maurice Chevalier, popular French film star, likes boxing above all sports. He is quite handy with the gloves .himself, and keeps fit by his daily encounters with the punching -bag at Paramount’s gymnasium.

Betty Compson is in the midst of a cycle of war dramas. She steps from the role of Babka, in “The Case of Sergeant Grischa,” into “Inside the Lines?’Earl Derr Bigger’s war tale depicting life within the mysterious confines of Gibraltar. This is a stirring and breathless tale of spies, their plots and counterplots, and will give the Radio Pictures’ star plenty of dramatic moments in which to emote. Roy J. Pomeroy is to direct It’s his first assignment at the Radio Pictures' studios.

Jillain Sand, English actress, will play opposite Warner Baxter in “This Modern World,” which is to be directed by Alexander Korda from Eleanor Mercein’s novel, “Basquerie.”

From dreamy mystic Chinatown to the revelry of Monte Carlo from Buddha’s shrine to the perfumed sanctum of a modern girl’s boudoir; from a Chinese funeral ceremonial to the roulette tables of the world-famous Casino. Such contrasting scenes appear in “Son of the Gods,” the First National and Vitaphone production, starring Richard Barthelmess. Constance Bennett plays the feminine lead in this lavish and dramatic production.

There is an almost unknown corner of north-eastern India, skirting the impassable Himalaya Mountains, 1 where a strange goddess known as Kali is worshipped. It. is this tiny and all but forgotten country and ■ this weird religion that is the basis for * the dramatie story of “The Green. Goddess,” which the famous actor, George Arliss, has made into a Vitaphone alltalking picture for Warner Bros. Mr. Arliss'is a past-master of the polished and heartless roles, and in “The Green

Goddess” portrays forcefully all the delicious devilry of the suave Indian Rajah who baited his guests with taunts of torture and death while entertaining them with all the lavish hospitality of an East Indian potentate. Assisting Mr. Arliss is a notable cast, including Alice Joyce, H. B. Warner and Ralph Forbes.

Milton Sills and Kenneth Mac Kenna, who were teamed in “Living for Love,” have been cast together in another Fox Film, “The Sea Wolf,” an adaptation of Jack London’s story of the same title. Alfred Santell will direct.

Two famous comedians appear with Buster Keaton to aid and abet his laugh-making in “Forward March,” his new talkie, a hilarious adventure in army life. Edwards and his ukulele appear in camp scenes, in the trenches, and Cliff is even “shot in the ukulele” at the front. . Katz, New York stage comedian, plays a Jewish “doughboy.” Victor Poetl, Frank Mao, and others of note are in the cast

Universal has remade “The Storm,’’ with full dialogue and sound. “The Storm” was released as a silent picture by Universal in 1923. It established a box office record that stood until the release of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Addition of dialogue and sound has made “The Storm” even stronger drama. The dialogue and synchronisation rights were purchased by Universal from the playwright Lang-

don McCormick. As a stage play “The Storm” had a long run at the Broadhurst Theatre, New York, with Helen MacKellar in the leading role. Reginald Barker directed “The Storm” as a motion picture, the principal roles being played by House Peters, Virginia Valli and Matt Moore. The talking version of “The Storm” features Lupe Velez, Paul Cavanaugh, and William Boyd, the well-known American stage star, who is not to be confused with the equally famous screen favourite.