SCREENLAND JOTTINGS

Evening Star, Issue 20061, 29 December 1928, Page 15

SCREENLAND JOTTINGS

‘Captain Lash,’ starring ■ Victor M'Laglen, has been put into production at the Fox studios. The ing cast includes Miss Claire \'indsoi, Earle Foxe, Albert Conti, and Clyde Cook. , . , Miss Maria Alba, who was telephone girl in Barcelona, Spain, is talking lieloro a Fox movietone camera at present. She makes her debut in a-** talking ” picture in ‘ln Old Arizona,’ cast as°a Mexican-Spanish senorita. Warner Gland has been added to the cast of ‘ The Tong War,’ the Paramount production co-leaturing Wallace Beery and Florence Vidor. The picture is now in the making at the Paramount studios under the direction o) William Wellman, one of the youngest directors in motion pictures, who has pictures such as- ‘Wings,’ ‘The Legion of the Condemned,’ and ‘Beggars ol Life ’ to his credit.

Miss Lupc Valez is to play the feminine lead in ‘ The Wolf Song,’ the Paramount screen version of the famous novel of that name, which is soon to go into production. Gary Cooper will play the leading part, and the picture wili be made on a large scale. F. W. Murnau, the "most brilliant oi present-day directors, is now engaged on a drama ol people of the soil, ‘ Our Daily Bread,’ a Fox production, in the wheat country of Oregon. His first American-made picture, ‘ Sunrise,’ also dealt with farming folk. His ‘ Four Devils,’ recently completed, is centred in a European circus. In 6rder to film the arrival in America of the Graf Zeppelin after its Atlantic flight four Paramount cameramen were assigned to the Lakeliurst hangar, with two aeroplanes in readiness. Six others were stationed at strategic points round New York, with two seaplanes and one amphibian also in readiness. When the Zeppelin was reported in distress off Bermuda radios to a branch office had a cameraman with a last plane on the Atlanta Aerodrome in less than three-quarters ot an hour, ready to strike for either Charleston or Florida in case of disaster to the Z'eppelin. Eventually the dirigible was picked up at Washington, and was followed thence to New York. The Washington motion pictures actually reached New York before the airship. They were then rushed to the laboratories, developed, printed, and released for screening D. W. Griffith, who gave to silent films the close-up and the fade-out, now contributes to sound pictures the sound dissolve and the sound fade-out. These effects will be presented in ‘ The Love Song,’ in which William Boyd, Miss Jetta Goudal, and Miss Valez will appear.

With two sound stages completed and equipment installed Universal has started construction of a third stage, believed to be the largest soand-prool stage in Hollywood. This .%/ill be used to house tile production of * Broadway under the direction of Paul Fojos. The new stage will measure 150 ft by 200 ft, and will be 50ft hi;jh. One end of this stage will house an entire night club, and it will be fully equipped for movietone.

Annie Ondra, a beautiful ingenue blonde type, is the star of ‘ God’s Clay,’ which is from the novel by Alice and Claude Askew, and she proves very conclusively that she is a screen luminary to be'reckoned with in the future. ‘ God’s Clay,’ with its exquisite scenery, its fine acting values and its great and compelling heights of drama and pathos, its hilarious humour, provides us with indisputable proof of the amazing strides that British production is making. Produced by First National Pathe, this fine picture is solid entertainment, apart from the patriotic appreciation of a fine achievement evoked by its arresting merit. English life, high and low, is shown with no exaggerated splurges of colour, but each in unbelievable contrast, adding to the general dramatic and unusual note.