THE THEATRE

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 25 July 1925, Page 18

THE THEATRE

people, plays, axd pictures

Allan W ilkie and his Shakespearian company Intel a prospoious season m pnsoai.r recently.

The Long Tack Sam Vaudeville Company, alter a \ery suceesslm tour ot the'Dominion, has left for Sydney. The next notable J. C. \y linainsoii dramatic attraction to visit -NeYV Zealand will be Huy Bates Pest, the Yveiikhowii American actor. The company opens at Wellington nekt week.

Miss Marie Burke, the charming leading lady of “WildtioYver ’ and “Ihe Cousin from Nowhere,” is very delighted with her first visit to New Zealand, where she has found the audiences very appreciative; in som e towns more than others, of course.

Such old melodramas as “The Colleen Bawn,” “Lost in London, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and ' Lady Audlev’s Secret” are set down for revival in Adelaide by William Anderson’s Dramatic Company, in the company are Guv Hastings (formerly with Nellie Brantley) and George Cross (the well-known mummer.)

The jubilee of “Trial bv Jury,” the first of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, has just been celebrated. People are inclined nowadays to take the greatest and most fortunate collaboration in theatrical history very much for granted. It was really written for ‘ i'un, but when staged Yvas an enormous success. I

Mr. Cyril Maude has decided to re : tire from the -stage, but Y\ill lie be able to tear himself away from the stage, of which he has been an ornament so long? Already, so to speak, he is hedging. Writing from New York, where he is playing in Arn t e All,” he said that he hoped to play someYvhere in Lodnon before he finally retired to his Devonshire home next spring. Perhaps, says an English Yvriter, this “finally” is one ol the elastic kind;

Oharle s It. Walenn Yvill be a member of the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Com. pany now being organised in London by J. C, Williamson, Ltd. Mr. Walenn’s Yvork as Jack Point in “The Yeoman of th e Guard,” and in other roles Yvliieh he took, was a striking feature of the 1920 productions. James Hay, the tenor, who will come to Australia again, Yv.as also in that company. The new combination Yvill open in Melbourne early in March, 1926.

“The Hound of the Baskervilles,” a Master Picture which is a Sherlock Holmes story adapted from the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, will thrill Yvith its eerie atmosphere and suspense. Mau. rice Ely-v, who produced it, has contrived to' invest the picture with the sinister quality of Dartmoor after dark, to -such a degree that the incidents of the story become e veu more mysterious and breathlessly exciting than they are in the printed book. ICllie Norwood, as Sherlock Holmes, fills the role of the famous detective as perfectly as ever.

What does the modern girl hope most for —an ardent lover, or an oak desk in some responsible banking house. Will she take a correspondence course in loje ietter writing or high finance ? The modern girl is certainty an unsolved enigma. Will she magnetise herself to attract males or mails? if you are in doubt as to Yvlietner man i s slipping, giving woman the ascendancy or man stagnating and Yvoman progressing, see the screen version of A. S. M. Hutchison’s latest novel, “This Freedom,” when it appears in the near future. ' A pretty pantomime, “The Sleeping Beauty,” in which 100 talented Christchurch performers appeared, was staged at the Theatre Uoval, Christchurch, for a week.

Six companies, in various parts of the world, are playing “Rose Marie. 1 Four of them are in America, one in London, and the other in Australia, it is a melodrama with music, and is a great success.

Picture-patrons of years ago will remember the delightful domestic comedies of Mr. and Mis. Sidney Drew. Their counterpart on the modern screen is “The Married Life of Helen and Warner,” which will be shown in a series of eight special William Fox comedies. Other series which will be si.own in Auckland are eight 0. Henry’s best stories and the same number of “The Adventures of Vail Bibber in Society,” refined screen stories from the pen of Richard Harding Davis.

“Thundering Hoofs,” is the title of the next Fred Thomson Master Picture In Adelaide, where it ha s been released, the picture received unstinted praise, A fight between a mad buli and the star is only one of the thrills, and it was during the making of this production that the athletic star was severely injmed. Endeavouring to jump from his own horse, Silver King, on to the backs of horses pulling a stage coach at full gallop, the daring stunt man sipped and fell beneath the coach, which passed over him. The pcene showing the fall is included in the picture, providing a real thrill. Fie is at present at work on “That Devil Quemado,” with an entirely new cast. “Thundering Hoofs” is th e best Thomson western to date, both the star and iris wonderful horse excelling themselves in their efforts to. provide real entertainment.

Remarks oil the decadence of the British film industry in the House of Lords on May 14 are sharply underlined by the report of Stoll Picture Productions for 1924. In that year the company made a loss of £46,639, and having pdid a half year’s dividend on the £200,090 of preference capital which was not earned, ha s now a deficiency of £63,715. Costs of producing pictures were greatly in excess of contracts for sales and leases, and the company has a large stock of films ready for release when and if a taste for British instead of American pictures can be created.

Big things, and possibly the development of a new star or two, are expected of Frank Lloyd in his picturlsation of “Winds of Chance,” Rex Beach’s story of Alaskan gold rush days. The cast is a roster of many of the biggest names in the ("screen rwforkl. Victor McLaglen, who has one of the leading parts, is an exception. He is an English actor, but First National was impressed by his work in “Winds of Chance” so that it lias idaced him under a five-year contract. Players in the cast are Ben Lyon, Anna Q. Nilsson, Viola Dana, Hobart Bosworth. Claude Gil—lingwater. Tally Marshall, John T. Murray and Fred Koehler. Another player who will, it is believed, emerge .from this Iproduction. (with a great reputation is Dorothy Sebastian.