AMUSEMENTS.

Grey River Argus, 10 December 1928, Page 2

AMUSEMENTS.

OPERA HOUSE—TONIGHT. “THE MIRACLE OF THE WOLVES.” The Management of the Opera House, at which thJJ famous French screen masterpiece, ‘‘The Miracle of the Wolves,” will be screened to-night and to-morrow night, have received a reply from its producer, Raymond Bernard, in answer to their re- | quest for some account of h'cw tin* 1 great masterpiece was produced. That j description given in Bernard’s own 1 word:—“Practically every day I have to answer letters from people asking Please tell us the truth about ‘The Miracle of the Wolves’; Does not that film contain a number of tricks A few hundred of supernumeraries must have, by soml? clever tricks given the impression of thousands and thousands? Some of the settings showing the siege of Beauvais must have been made on And what about the wolves? They wei’ surely

replaced by dogs? At the end of the first episode of the film there were not less than 2,000 horsein! u engaged in the reconstruction of the battle oi Montlhory, and for the siege of Beauvais, so intrepidly defended by Jeanne Fouguct, surnamf'd Jeanne Hachette, the diiLictors had at their disposal 3,000 soldiers from the French

army, as well as innumerable supernumafies. All the arms, cross-bows and spears, hav? been copied from private collections or made from drawings of the period. The old City of Carcassonne has been chosen to represent Beauvais. It is the real city with no cardboard settings, as it has listed since the Middle Ages. With reference to the wolves, they were brought f’om Poland after many difficulties, and then put in a park near Chamonix enclosed on all sides with gates 24 fd t high and, although two unimal trainees have attempted to train them, the artists playing in that scene have really risked their live*. 1 do no feel entitiul to divulge what 1 know about the means used to film the scenes of the wolves which was far from being without danger for 'h! •» artists. I will only say that before the iscene was filmed the wolves had received abundant food. But, in spite of that, when the animals were

given the order to attack th '/servants of Charles the Bold, one of the wolves played his part so well that lie seized one 'of the actors by his neck and seriously injured him. If th*- man, who was really fighting for his life, had not been lucky enough to pick up a dagger laying on the ground and kill

th'i furious animal, (no name would have been ad<b'd to the list of victims of the t-cibcn.”