SCREENLAND JOTTINGS

Evening Star, Issue 20316, 26 October 1929, Page 22

SCREENLAND JOTTINGS

Following ‘ Dangerous Curves.’ Clara Bow’s latest completed talkie, which has already played New Zealand, the sta" has started work on another alltalkie entitled * The Saturday Night Kid. 1 at the Paramount Studios. James Hall has the male lead and Edna May Oliver, a former Ziegfeld comedienne, is featured.

Almost immediately on his arrival in Hollywood, Shayle Gardner, the New Zealand actor, signed a contract with United Artists. lie is to play in the all-talking picture, ‘ Three Live Ghosts.’ He gave one of the most memorable performances of the year in Rex Ingram’s ‘ The Three Passions,’ recently. Miss Nancy Carroll is now hard at work on her latest Paramount talking picture, ‘Sweetie.’ The story concerns a New York chorus girl, who inherits a boys’ college. The supporting cast includes Miss Helen Kane, Jack Oakie, and William Austin. Frank Tuttle is directing. ‘ Rosalie,’ Ziegfeld’s famous musical comedy, has been purchased by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to be a starring vehicle for Miss Marion Davies. Harry Beaumont, of ‘ Broadway Melody ' fame, will direct. • The brilliant music of the original comedy will mark the production, and West Point Military College will form its background. Production on ‘ Rosalie ’ will begin immediately following the filming of ‘ Dnley,’ Miss Davies’s next production. Which King Vidor is to direct. ‘The Song Shop,’ a new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer colourtone revue, will introduce to tho screen many famous composers oi popular music. Jack Benny, who was master of ceremonies in‘The Hollywood Revue of 1929,’ will serve in the same capacity, and among those to appear in this film will be Fred Fisher, who wrote ‘ Dardanella,’ Raymond Klages, who wrote ‘ The Japanese Sandman.’ Dave Dreyor, Roy Turk, Fred Ahlert. Nacia Herb Brown, Arthur Freed and Buster Dees. Paramount’s big singing and dancing extravaganza, ‘ Glorifying the American Girl,’ which has just been completed at the Long Island studios, has an exceptionally large cast of New York stage favourites. Miss Mary Eaton and Dan Healey play the leads. Edward Crandall, Bull Montana, and Miss Sarah Edwards have featured roles. Excitement, fast action, suspense, legic. Mix these ingredients well and a good film mystery drama is the result, according to Rowland V. Lee, director of Paramount’s all-talking super-mystery drama, ‘ The Mysterious Dr Fu Manchu.* “ Mystery pictures must stir their audiences to subtle excitement,” says Lee, “ and they must move fast and and have the audience constantly wondering what is going to happen next. They should not cheat; that is, incidents should be logical and fully explained. Tho good mystery picture will not stoop to incidents just to shock or thrill an audience. The thrills and chills must exist in the plot. Credulity should not be overstrained in striving for atmosphere. For instance, in ‘The Mysterious Dr Fu Manchu, tho popular Sax Rohmer story, the heroine, Jean Arthur, does some weird things under a hypnotic spell. They are made reasonable through tho logical planting of the fact, early in the picture, that Dr Fu Manchu, played by Warner Oland, is a hypnotist.” A permanent Fox Movietone chorus ensemble has become a reality with the signing to long-term contracts of fourteen male and ten female singers selectel from over 500 applicants. This brings the list of Fox Movietone artists under contract to exactly 115, v.ith seventy-five contract players, sixteen dancers of the Fox Follies, and the twenty-four just signed. The vocal ensemble will first be heard in its en- ’ tirety in ‘ Married in Hollywood,’ in which Miss Norma Terris and Harold Murray have the leading roles, with Miss Irene Palasty, the Hungarian pnma donna, Walter Gallett, and Tom Patricola in the principal supporting roles.