STAGE & SCREEN

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 13 November 1926, Page 7

STAGE & SCREEN

Another new contract has been signed by the Warner Brothers, and by it Dolores Costello was elevated to stardom. She has been hailed by critics as the great screen find of the year because of her work in “The Sea Beast.”

The Koval Wellington Choral Union has drawn up its programme for 1927. The following works are set down for performance: “St. Paul” (Mendelssohn), “Cavalleria Rustieann” (Mascagni), Verdi’s “Requiem” and “The Messiah.”

The screen version of George B. AlcCutcheon’s novel, “Beverly of Graustark,” kept, the audience at the Capitol Theatre, New A'ork, in chuckles throughout the production. Marion Davies proves herself an excellent commodienne in the role of an American girl, who is mistaken in her skiing costume for a Balkan prince. An amusing situation calls for Marion to drink many toasts at an officers’ banquet and the unaccustomed quantity begins to show its effect.

Seldom, even in the most fantastic novels, is there to be. found such a character as that played by Priscilla Dean in “The Crimson Runner,” to be screened iu Auckland shortly. Alias Dean presents a new kind of female Robin Hood, a super-woman whose quest for vengeance leads her to rob the rich and feed the poor. Post-war Vienna is the city in which all of the action is laid.

Charlie Chaplin is- making progress with his next picture, “The Circus.” Two or three hundred scenes have been run through the camera. Chaplin usually takes three or four thousand scenes before lie starts cutting liis production. The comedian is planning to produce another picture with Edna Purvianeo in the stellar role.

>Seymour Hicks proposes to produce in London during the autumn a dramatisation —by himself —of Prank M. Packard’s book, “The Miracle Man.” Afore than a million copies of the book have been sold, and it has already been seen as a film, with Thomas Ateighan in the chief part. “The Aliracle Man” has been dramatised for the stage as a big production in four acts containing 11 scenes. The action takes place iu the United States, and the basic idea of the play is faith-healing. It is not yet certain if Mr Hicks will appear in it.

Commercial success promises to attend the four first-rate British films shown to the trade in London last week. Proprietors throughout the metropolitan area are hasteping to book “Mademoiselle from Armentieres,” “The Lodger,” “Mons,” and “Palaver” for their theatres. Air Gordon Craig, director of the New. Era Film Company, stated that their magnificent war picture “Alons” bids fair to be the most successful British film ever made. It will bo generally released on November 8, following a special pre-release in London where the film is to be shown at the Marble ArMi Pavilion for six weeks. Seventy-three copies of the film have, oven so far in advance, been booked for exhibition, starting on November 8, in Great Britain, and the number will ineieasc.

The Gumont Film Company report the most encouraging reception of their war romance “ Afademoisellc from Armentieres ” “It, is a magnificent film,” savs the Daily Mail critic. "It tells, with a technical brilliance rare enough nnv where and hitherto unknown m England, a simple but thrilling talc, of war-time France, and of a little obscuro French heroine who valiantly did her bit for the Allies and almost lost her English .soldier-lover in doing it. There is no patriotic pomposity in it, no false sentiment; only the unforgettable liu;uan emotions of the war.

“Palaver” was filmed wholly on the Bauchi plateau of Northern _ Nigeria, 5000 miles from London and 700 miles from Lagos. It tells a most dramatic and unusual story of a young political officer’s adventures among the nonChristian tribes of that quarter, and his efforts to circumvent the harm done to British prestige by a rascally tinmining manager. He holds “palaver with the, native kings, all of wnom seem to be first-class actors, and he becomes a victim of “palaver” himself, when circumstances compel him to give shelter for the night to a young English nurse. It. is odd to find this highly emotional story in a semi-official film, produced under the supervision of the Colonial Office, with its intimate glimpses of Empire administration amt all the operations of that fascinating industry, alluvial tin-mining.

“The Lodger” is taken from Mrs Belloe Lowndes’s murder-mystery of the same name. Here is a British film which grips the imagination. Mr Alfred Hitchcock, the talented young director. opens it with a terrified, scream ing woman’s head, and swiftly follows with brilliant impressions of newspaper offices, the 8.8. C., and paper boys all bruiting abroad the news of a murder. The very angles at which these scenes are photographed create terror, and the exquisite homeliness of the settings piles up apprehension. “The Lodger can more than hold its own against any foreign production. It is ai resting without being in any way gruesome.

W. J. Locke, the well-known novelist, has written another comedy, called “The Light on the Mountain.” Locke is probably less famous as a dramatist than as a novelist, but he has, however, written several plays since his comedy, “The Cvnic.” was given at the Royalty Theatre', London, in 1809, and all of them have shown the charming whimsical touch which has made his books so popular. “The Light on the Mountain,” satirises an alleged tendency of present-day society ladies to become devotees of‘oriental religious cults, and o„e of the characters is a pretended Lama, who comes to London from his remote hill-top to make converts. An English soldier, however, proves more than a match for him. The play did not make' a great appeal when produced „.t the Regent Theatre, London, on August 1 (i. It was described by the critics as a plav of violent transit.ons, rang-:-i r from' the wildest farce to r-agic intensity, with the result, that the audic.uL’j was in a constant stale cl wonderment as to what the author wished o convey.

One of the most interesting innovations in the new picture theatre being built for J. C. Williamson, Ltd., in Queen Street, Auckland, is the huge Wurlitzer organ, which is now being installed at a cost of over £IO.OOO. It is of the same design as the organ now in use in Australia’s two finest picture theatres, the Capitol in Melbourne and the Prince Edward in Sydney. Tli3 organ contains 107 distinct and separate characters, giving an accompaniment manual equivalent to 1(1 violins, four clarionets, four flutes, four trumpets, two orchestral oboes, two bassoons, bass viol, orchestral bells, xylophone, chimes, the human voice pipes (of which there are three sets, each consisting of 73 pipes) and also a piano, which is played from the manual. In addition, are the diapason woodwind and the reed and percussion stops. It . is not intended that the organ will sujiulant the orchestra, but supplement it*