NOVEL MICROPHONE.

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 100, 29 April 1937, Page 21

NOVEL MICROPHONE.

I A new type portable microphone, which RKO Radio- sound technicians have called a "stirrup boom," is proving highly successful in following dialogue of moving characters. The "stirrup boom," so called because it is carried in a holster similar to one used by marching flag bearers, was design- \ ed by the studio sound department ; specially for "Sea Devils," co-starring ; Victor McLaglen and Preston Foster. ! Equipped witn a lightweight inductive microphone, the boom is made of aluj minium and can be carried by the ; sound technician much in the same j manner of a fish pole. The portable ■ rig was found necessary in filming ! sequences aboard ship where the usual I sound apparatus would have been too I unwieldy during rough weather. NEW MANAGING DIRECTOR. Among the passengers on the Aorangi, which passed through AuckI land a few days ago en route to Syd- ; ney, was -Mr. Harry Hunter, from I Washington, D.C., U.S.A., who succeeds i the late Mr. John E. Kennebeck as ; managing director of Paramount PicI tures in Australia and New Zealand. Mr. Hunter has enjoyed a brilliant career with Paramont, having been I associated with the company in various | high positions in America for the past ; twenty years, the latter fifteen years i of which have been spent as manager I of the Washington branch. Approached i by reporters, Mr. Hunter had much ! to. say about the motion picture industry and Hollywood in particular. "Today, more than ever before," said Mr. Hunter, "Hollywood is making an important issue of the varied tastes in entertainment. Production executives j are completely conscious of the fact that they must strive to please disant and foreign countries. This part of the world, just as much as larger European countries, is considered by an educated group of men, whose duty it is to determine whether story material and planned production detail is in keeping with the tastes of world audiences." "KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOUR." ; , ( Marlene Dietrich, leading lady of i Knight Without Armour," welcomed r * her leading man, Robert Donat, for :■ his first day's work at the Denham Studios after his recovery from his recent illness. For two weeks Marlene Dietrich had been hard at work on sequences in which she appears by i herself. Her first scenes with Robert • i Donat show him posing as a Russian i Commissar at her villa at Khalinsk ; which has been commandeered as the 1 headquarters of the Red Army. Donat :is dressed in the familiar dark ! breeches, high boots, and leather jacket, with peaked hat, and she is dressed in plain peasant clothes. Heis taking her prisoner and under guard to Petrograd. A squadron of rough mounted troops escort the Commissar's carnage. This set was built oh the ; grounds at the Denham Studios and ; the long, low white front of the house ; surrounded by big trees made a mot I effective setting. SEVEN ORIENTALS. One Korean,- one Japanese, and five Chinese have important roles in : China Passage," RKO Radio's new ; wrlIA. myf tery featuring Constance Worth and Vinton Haworth. Phillip Ahn, probably the only actor in Hollywood to have come from Korea, is ( one of the seven principal "suspects" ; in the exciting story. He portrays an 1 American-educated professor. Tsetsui I Komai, a Japanese who has appeared ( in many recent -screen offerings, plays i the part of an Oriental gangster. The i five Chinese, in addition to the scores 1 of Chinese "atmosphere" players in 1 the Shanghai sequence of the film, in- s elude Lotus Long as the wife of a 1 Chinese war-lord; Lotus Liv as her 1 . maid; Moy Mind as a Shanghai jewel- : , ier, and Lew Loy and John Sing as i 3 two Chinese army officers. j » "ROMEO AND JULIET." \ \ { The old.adage that it takes nine c ' tailors to make a man was born long 1 . after the Shakespearean era. This * ! was demonstrated in one of the most _ intricate costuming operations in the £ , history of the screen when more than f ; 1200 players were costumed for Shake- a : speare's "Romeo and Juliet." The task J . employed five hundred workers for I , two months at the Metro-Goldwyn- t . Mayer studios. As an example of what 1 ; such a picture does to the textile mar- C ket, a total of 18,000 yards of cloth of various kinds went into the glamorous gowns of Norma Shearer, playing Juliet, the court ladies of Verona, and the crowds of peasants, soldiers, nobles, • men-at-arms, and others in the picture. '■ Male modes were almost as elaborate .as those of the women. Leslie Howard I ias Romeo wears one cloak , that re- c i quired nine yards of fortuni cloth im- . ported from Italy. John Barrymore as ;, • Mercutio wore a similar cloak, as well z. as another scarlet silk, and another of ■ white wool almost as voluminous. The ii gorgeous costumes designed for Miss ~ Shearer by Adrian and Oliver Messel V required a hundred yards of assorted {: ; silks, satins, and other materials, all 2 ■ specially hand embroidered or beaded f, ■ to reproduce embroidering of the time, ; now no longer in manufacture. One ' hundred tailors laboured at special cqs--1 tume shops on the garb of the men in the picture—doublets and tights, cloaks, 1 hats, and the rest of the male outfit. « Special looms were set up in Los An- jj geles, and two mills were engaged in c New York to weave tights, all in one . piece, for the principals and nobles in 0 the picture. Each player had several h changes, for tights are apt to stretch c and lose form. According to ' Larry a Keethe, in charge of this detail at the i, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer wardrobe de- J partment k more tights were bought E for this picture than had been bought yi altogether in the past ten years in all n the studios. Bootmakers were em- R ployed to manufacture the special foot- ii wear of Howard, Barrymore. Basil vi Rathbone, Reginald Denny, C. Aubrey p Smith, Ralph Forbes, and the nobles ti in the picture. In each case the boots, si as was also true of the gloves, all hand- ri made after the period, were initialled g or monogrammed with metal-thread " embroidery. CORNELL WEDDED TO STAGE. G — h Katharine Cornell, the popular Ame- ai rican actress, who made such a success of Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan" on Broadway last year, is fond of the movies, but has no desire to go to Hollywood. She considers that she n has not the strength to give half a year w to the stage, and then to undertake c< motion pictures, with all that such an G assignment-would involve in the way of ci preparation and study. She feels that oi she could never give up the stage in oi order to devote herself to learning a e< new job. "If I were to go into mo- tc tion pictures," she said, "I would like w to approach them as I approached tha re theatre —as a student, just to get the b: feel of things. I would like to do api small part first, but that would be dim1- " cult, and too much at stake for what- ai ever studio I entered, as well as for my- w self." Miss Cornell has received fabu- — lous offers from Hollywood, especially fi' after her superb work in the Shaw in drama, but has always refused. She X almost resents the attempts of the film M people to persuade her to change her M mind. "j RENEE KELLY'S RETURN. \v Renee Kelly, who will be remem- Di bered for her excellent character studies during a New Zealand tour some years ago, has returned to the London stage. She appeared with her husband, A. Hylton Allen, in "Strange sit Barrier," a comedy by a new author, wi E. C. Pollard. The Little Theatre wel- fei corned Miss Kelly and her husband Ja with most enthusiastic audiences. R;