The SCREEN and its STARS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12750, 4 January 1936, Page 10

The SCREEN and its STARS

PROGRAMMES FOR THE WEEK. REGENT To-day and Monday: “The Rod Salute,” romantic comedy, featuring • Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Young. • Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: “The Goose and the Gander,” com ot!y dram a, fen tu ring Ka v Francis and George Brent. Also “.lane Eyre,” romantic drama, featuring Virginia Bruce and Colin Clive. Friday; “Look Up and Laugh,” -■ comedv, featuring Gracie I' ields.

MAJESTIC To-day arid Monday: “Stolen Har- . niony,” comedy, featuring George Raft and Grace Bradley. Also “Midnight,” drama. featuring Sydney Fox and 0. P. TTcggie. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: ‘•The Girl from I,oth Avenue.” comedy romance, featuring Bette Day is ijnd Colin Clive. Friday: “People Will Talk,” comedy, featuring Charles Rugglos and Mary Boland. Also “No Escape, drama, featuring lan Hunter and Finnic. Rarncs.

OPERA HOUSE No screenings. KING’S THEATRE To-day and Monday: “Last Bays of Pompeii,” historical drama, featuring Preston Foster, Basil Bmthbonc arid Dorothy Wilson. Tuesday, 1 Wednesday and Thursday: “The Gild Friend," comedy, featuring Ann Sotbern and J"ack Haley. Also “Thunder Mountain” Zano Grey romance, featuring George' O’Brien. Friday :'“This'is the Life," comedy, featuring Jane (Ginger) Withers.

. “LAWRENCE OF ARABIA” TITLE ROLE FILLED LESLIE HOWARD NOT AVAJLI • • A RLE. Many picturcgoers will regret, that Irik American contracts stand in the way of Leslie. Howard's ambition to star ih Alexander Korda’s film biograph,(" of Lawrence of Arabia. However,' Walter Iludd, the actor who has been chosen to take his place in the film, will at least have two advantages over Howard. The first i’s that Hudd is as yet unknown' to film audiences, although he has had a lot of stage experience. This should make it endie.r for him to play Lawrence with the complete conviction which the autobiagropliicnl nature of the film demands. lie has no ready-made screen personality which must he “sunk’’ in the part. In the second place he benrs a remarkable resemblance to the man: lie is going to portray. Hudd has already, in effect, appeared as Lawrence. Sir Henry Jackson ■ noticed the likeness between the two men when he was searching for an actor lo play Private Meek in Bernard Shaw’s “Too True to hcGood. Privnto Meek was openly admitted to boa, portrait! of Lawrence, wjjo was a great friend of Shaw’s, and Hudd, consequently, was given the role. Lawrence, wont to see the play, remarked on the striking resemblance and made a few constructive criticisms of the performance. Thus the actor actually met the man lie is to portray on the screen. Hudd is 35 years pf age. After serving in the B.F-A. during the war, ho embarked on a successful stage career. Alexander Korda tested him (for the Lawrence role while he was ,’aeting in “Youth at the Helm’’ recently. It. is said that in Arab dress lie looks more like 'Lawrence than over. iHe has written several plays and is a skilled l horseman —which will make it casrier for him when the film unit goes out “on location” in Arabia. Zoltnn Korda, who made 1 such a success of “Sanders of the River," will lip the director, with Colonel W. F. Stirling, Lawrence’s one-time chief of staff, as technical adviser. i The film will he eagerly awaited as Lawrence, despite the fact that he shunned publicity, has always been a picturesque figurp and his life in pictorial form will 'enable the people to become better acquainted with him. | The release of the film in New Zealand some time in the future, should

prove-to be a*j popular as the famous historical stories of recent years.

STABS OF FORMER YEARS

Offered a come-back chance more than a year ago by Mae West in ‘Bejle of the Nineties,’ George Walsh, athletic star-or silent films, recently teas granted a new opportunity by Paramount in Miss West’s currentpicture, “Klondike Lou.” iu “Klondike Lou,’* , the still handsome darkhaired Walsh - will play the role of quartermaster on an Alaskan boat—scene of some of ilie western action of the north. A woman's prison sequence in tho Sylvia Sidney picture, “Mary Burns, Fugitive,’! which Paramount will shortly release, proved tho meeting place for some of the most famous .screen names of former days. Among the ex-stars and featured players- who donned the striped prison garb for a day's work were Helen Chadwick, Vera Steadman. Ethel Lynn, Maude. Fealy and Melissa. Ten Eyck, all of whom were top-notch motion picture performers. Miss Chadwick. has appeared in recent years in.“ Father and Son” and “Confessions of a. Wife.’ 1 . Miss Steadman started out as n Mack Sennet t- ha thing girl n.nd became a lend for Christie .comedies.

SHIRLEY’S NEW FILMS “THE LTTTLE3T REBEL.” Shirley Temple celebrates her second year as a star with the most versatile work of her scintillating baby career in the title role of “The Littlcst Rebel,” a tender romance of the Civil War. Shirley is -supported b.v a. talented cast consisting of John Holes, Karen Morloy, Jack Holt, Bill Robinson Guinn (“Big Boy”) Williams, Frank .McGlynn.seii., Willie Best (“Sleep ’an Eat”) etc.

David Butler, who directed the baby star in her previous triumphs, “Bright Eyes,” and “The Little Colonel,” considers “The’ Littlcst Rebel” her most appealing effort. He is directing the film.

As “The Littlest Rebel,” Shirley portrays the adorable daughter of a confederate officer who fe trapped in the Union lines when lie steals into enemy territory to meet his dying wife and their child. She takes delight! ul advantage of the .opportunity to capture the hearts of Yankee as well as Rebels, in her brave attempt to ’ avo her f ather from a firing ■quad. Ttveiitually, accompanied by her faithful bodyguard, -an old slave portrayed by 11)11 Robinson, Shirley goes to the White House to present tier appeal to Lincoln himself. ’1 hroughput the story she sings beautifully and dances as she has never danced before, ■ with Robinson the “ace” of tap-dancers.. ■ The winsome little star has created box-office history with “Stand Up and Cheer,” "Change of Heart,’> “Baby, Take a Bow,” “Little Miss Marker,” “Now and Forever,”- “Bright Eyes,” “The Little Colonel,” and “Curly Top.” Now comes “The Littlest Rebel,” which will he followed next year by “The F-oor Little Rich Girl,” and “Captain January.” ’’

FICKLE FILM

CAMERA FLATTERS MEN WHILE 1 SLIGHTING WOMEN i n HOLLYWOOD, Nov- 18. The movie camera ‘doesn’t do right J by our little Greta, or our little Mar- , letie. '■’ •■ •. 1 Rut conversely it plays favourites: with men, enhancing the bulk «nd'' . brawn -of a Gable, enhancing the lean rangy, ch’nnii of a Gary Cooper, , and giving even the Wallace Beery types a more or less presentable figure on the screen. I An export on all these tilings, Wallace' Westmore, head make-up man at , a major movio studio, made this , statement. “In other words,” ho explained, , “the /average moviegoer has never i seen the real loveliness of Deitrieli. i They get an image that is only about' 75 per cent, adequate. ' “And no‘ matter how glamorous . they find Mae West on the screen they lire not getting the full force of ]n r . personality. Some of it is lost :?i transmission to the film.” Westmore said a woman’s oeanty was compounded of colour and symmetry. ‘“To show symmetry in pictures, we •neecl dimension. The camera dorm't give it. Set designers have made tremendous steps to correct this fault, by arranging scenes to give no illusion of depth. But they can’t surmount the physical obstacle of- ti “mg’ . to make a flat image anything hut . flat. 1 ‘‘So symmetry is lost, j "The same thing is true about eol- . our. A woman’s complexion, the shades of her eyes, and the colour of her hair arc what make her beautiful, or not- Wo can’t show much Of that -in black and white pictures.” 1 He said Claudette Colbert actually is about twice as pretty as she appears in pictures. The camera seems to pick her full, rounded cheeks, her: high cheek-bones. Off screen in natural light these facial characteristics do not appear. I “There isn’t much we can do about it, either,” Westmore continued. “Make-up really helps very little. All if does is make a woman’s skin look smooth and even, and emphasise her . features.” - I But as for men 1 “I wouldn't say men like Gary Cooper, or Buster Orabbe, or Clark Gable aren’t as handsome off-screen as they appear in pictures,” Mr. ( Westmore said. “But I. will say the camera gives them a better break than it does .the women.”

NOTES AND NEWS

| Katherine De Millo, Paramount featured player, attends from one to four movie shouts a day when she is. not working, claiming that through observation of the work of l others she learns more than any dramatic school can-offer. - ' : & * K Nailed to the gate of a farm near Santa Cruz, where the Twentieth, Century Fox Company is on location filming “Way Down East.” is the sign: - 1 WARNING. I Anyone found near my chickenhouse at night will bo found there next morning.

Ruth Chattcrton returned from Cleveland more enthusiastic than ever over aviation. Ruth sponsored the Ruth Chattcrton Air Derby from California to Cleveland and awarded prizes and a cup to the successful (entrants. She’ll do it again next year, the declared as she alighted from her ’plane following her flight from Cleveland to Hollywood at the close of the National Air Races. Miss Chattel-ton will shortly star in a new picture for Columbia Studios.