The SCREEN STARS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11404, 3 January 1931, Page 12

The SCREEN STARS

SILVER SHEET AND MICR OPHONE.

(By the Movie Fan).

REGENT THEATRE. To-day, To-night and -Monday—“A Lady to- Love” —-Metro-Goldwyn- “ Mayer Californian romance, starring Yilma Banky, Robert Ames, and Edward C. Robinson. ' Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday—“ The Hottentot” First National Warner comedy drama, starring Edward Everett Horton and Patsy Ruth Miller. MAJESTIC THEATRE. To-day, To-night, Monday and Tuesday—“Cohens and Kellys in Scotland,” uproarious comedy special, featuring C<eorge Sydney, Charlie Murray/ Vera Gordon and Kate Price. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday—- “ Skin Deep”—Underworld drama, featuring Monte Blue, .Davy Lee, Betty Compson and Alice Day. BERNARD SHAW RULES TALKIE KINGS. Mr George Bernard Shaw is not. I allowing British International Pic- , tores to deal as they elect with the alking film of his play, “How He Lied ■ ro Her Husband.” The actors in.the film are all being • selected hv Mr Shaw himself. Mr Edmund G-ienn was chosen some time ago for the principal male part.. Ev- ! cry cinema actress in the country aspired to play the leading lady, and dozens of tests were made at Els- ‘ tree; but- none of them satisfied Mr Shaw. He has now made his selection Irom outside the orthodox ranks. It- is understood that Miss Vera. Lennox, | of whom Mr Shaw thinks very highly and who is playing in “Frederica” at the Palace Theatre, has. been chosen, El struts already recognises that tins nim is to be made on extremely unorthodox lines. A technique has been evolved in -talk-films known as waiting for tiie -laugh." Each line which the director hopes will make his audience chuckle is. followed by a hiatus in the dialogue, for the director does not want his next line drowned in a gust of wholesale laughter. But Air. Shaw will not wait for his laughs. Shakespeare and Shaw, he told tho studio people on Saturday, demand to he played as they are written ; he will not have his action held up for guffaws. NOTES AND NEWS. Mr and Mrs Jesse Lasky-—Mr Lasky is the big boss of Paramount—entertained at their boac-li homo, Hollywood, recently. '1 hey had a dance floor built on fhe sands in front- of their house and had a tenpiece orchestra to play for the dan- . •ring. It was a very dark night, so Mr Lasky had an electric moon strung up to help with the romantic effect. The guests were mostly dressed infonnally. Gloria Swanson was strikingly gowned in yellow satin, modelled lightly to her figure. Over this she wore a black velvet coat. Mary Pickford was in white organdy., She wore a short jacket of red taffeta. Joan. Bennett went- in for a sports costume of canary yellow and a sports hat of yellow straw. Lilyan Tashmna had printed chiffon. Lilian Roth had one of green and coral. Georgie Hale went with Charlie Chaplin. Doug.•-Fairbanks, jun., and his wife, Joan Crawford, wore there, too. Joan wore aquamarine-blue, fitted tightly to her figure. Ctrinne Griffith wore a dancing frock of pale pink. Buddy Rogers took Alary Brian, who was in white, wearing some stunning colored bracelets. June Colyer wore printed chiffon of or ; chid, yellow and pale green. Fay Wray wore white chiffon, with gold metal figures.

Universal is so enthusiastic over Mary Nolan’s fine dramatic performance in ‘.‘Outside the Law,” which Tod Browning directed,, that the studio lias announced two Mary Nolan starring vehicles to .be made directly following the completion of “ExMistress,” for which Carl Laemmle, Jinx, “loaned” tho bloiije star to Warner Bros.

Lewis Ayres who is to be seen next in “East, is West,” under the* direction of Monta Bell, made his first appearance since becoming a screen idol of San Diego, Calif., recently, when he attended a local premiere of “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Despite his sudden rise to prominence. Ayres is a rather bashful lad and although he didn’t mind the surprising dynamite explosions in “All Quiet on the Western Front,” speaking to an audience was quite, an ordeal for him.

The first story by the famous author James Oliver Curwood, to. he presented on the talking screen is “River’s End,” a romance written around the Royal North-west Mounted Police. Its locale is the scenic grandeur of the Canadian Rockies. Charles Bickford is entrusted with a dual role in this Warner Bros, and Vitaphone production, and is-suppor-ted hv Ernest Torrance, Evelyn Knapp, and Zasu Pitts

Raymond Mallard, popular English stage juvenile, has arrived at Hollywood under contract to Metro-Gold-wyn-Maver. On the stage Millard appeared in “He Walked in HisSleep” and “The Woman in Room Thirteen.” He has also appeared abroad in several pictures. His first M-OUM role has not yet been announced-

Foreign language pictures are not only those that go abroad. In Me-tvo'-Goldwyn-Mayer’s ‘ Min and Bill’ a crowd of fisherman speak in Japanese. Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese. In “The New Moon,”, there are scenes, in which Russian, French and German are heard, and Lawrence Tibhett sings an entire song in a gypsy dialect.

Film celebrities, when, they attain fame, eventually find new film celebrities for they often bring friends into the business who, as a rule, “make good.” In fact, many a successful player of to-day owes his oilier success to the fact that another player opened the liard-to-crasli doors of t-lie studios. For instance, Edward Brophv, a- rising young comedian, has scored because Buster Keaton started him acting m pictures for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Brophv was a production manager until discovered as a comedian. Another screen celebrity of to-day is JohnAy MackBrown. He won fame as a football player, and became a friend of Geo. Fawcet, veteran character actor, who took him to the studios and launched him. The late Lon Chaney had a friend, Clinton Lyle, variety performer, now in pictures, introduced by Chaney, and winning success. Malcolm Waite, screen “heavy”, was son of the collector of the port of New York, became a friend of Norman Kerry, and Kerry brought him to Hollywood and made an actor of him. Incidentally Kerry was a bridge salesman when Art Acord did the same for him. Gordon Davis, now a successful film comedian, was first brought to his studios by his friend William Haines. Even hack in the old days these things happened

Lillian and Dorothy Gish were first introduced to the studios by a former stage friend, Mary Pickford.

David Wark Griffith, the noted film director, has given the names of the 50 motion pictures that he considers the finest yet produced. Only four talking pictures are among them, “The Valiant”. “Disraeli,” “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and “Halleluiah”, “The Kid” is tne best of Charlie Chaplin’s pictures. ‘The Mark of Zoito” and “Robin Hood” the best of Douglas Fairbanks’s films. “Smilin’ Through”, is Norma Talmarlke’s best. ‘‘Stella Maris” is Mary Pickford’s best, and “The'Four Horsemen” and Alousienr Bcnucaire” are the host of the Rudolph Valentino series.

standing to the credit of this distinguished actor.

Universal announced one of its most important player contracts of the year in the signing of Basil Rathbonc, noted stage and screen actor, for the important role of Carl in “A Lady Surrenders,” which John M. Stahl directed from John. Erskine’s best seller, “Sincerity. 0 with Conrad Nagel, Genevieve Tobin, Rose Hobart, Carmel Myers, Frnnklyn Pangborn and Edgar Norton. Rathbone’s screen career, which followed his great success on the stage, has included such productions as “The Last of Mrs Chaney”. “This Mad World” “The Bishop Murder Case” and “A Lady of Scandal.”