PARAMOUNT WEEK NEAR

Evening Star, Issue 23355, 26 August 1939, Page 5

PARAMOUNT WEEK NEAR

Known the world over as a period heralding the commencement of a new movie season, Paramount week , for 1939, has been scheduled for celebration throughout Australia and New Zealand from September 4to 9. * Attractions of special calibre will find their place on release schedules for all theatres froin the largest city to the smallest provincial situation, and) a gala atmosphere will be taken on by those theatres participating in the time-honoured campaigns. The famous slogan “ If it’s a Paramount picture it’s the best show in town ” will be emblazoned from theatre lobbies, in the Press, and over the air with renewed vigour, and pictures such as Elizabeth BergneFs ‘ Stolen Life,’ Irene Dunne’s ‘ Invitation to Happiness,’ and the great de Mille epic ‘ Union Pacific,’ should do their part to uprold such a claim. CITY OF THE DEAD Suakim, the Egyptian city • where Harry Favers'ham goes when he leaves London to retrieve his reputation during the dramatic action of ‘ Four Feathers,’ the technicolour adventure drama produced by Alexander Korda, is to-day an abandoned city. As it now stands it is one of the most extraordinary places on view. The houses are on a scale of magnificence almost impossible to believe, but completely uninhabited. It is a city situated on an island, and it used to house nearly 150,000 people; but to-day it is peopled by snakes and a few half-starved cats. The Fuzzy-Wuzzies wouldn’t go near it after dark because they thought it was haunted, but they did work during the day, and they staged some impressive camel charges with 500 camelmen. Luckily for the picture-makers, after the scenes were shot the vultures came in thousands, .and the camera photographed astonishingly fine pictures of these vultures wheeling in the sky.

David Niven, currently playing a leading role in ‘The Dawn Patrol,’ was a wine salesman for six months after arriving in New York from London. His entire knowledge of wines was acquired from a cheap pamphlet.