Cinema Section.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 7 September 1934, Page 3

Cinema Section.

NEW MUSICAL HIT, “DANCING LADY” OPENING HERB. The appearance together in a picture of Joan Crawford and Clark Gable is an unmistakable sign of screen entertainment above the ordinary run. The popular pair are again seen opposite each other in “Dancing Lady,” opening next week at the Regent theatre. Miss Crawford, who in “Dancing Lady” starts out as a cheap burlesque chorine and ultimately ends up with her name in bright lights, has a part which gives her every opportunity for dancing, singing and plenty of displays of emotional fireworks. Gable, likewise, has an excel-

lent role as the musical comedy director who at first considers the pushing (Miss Crawford as the biggest pest of all his chronics, [but is eventually brought to realise that there is more to the girl than a striking figure and particularly adept dancing legs. The unusually line supporting cast grouped together for this production include the fast-rising Eranchot Tone, May Robson, the irrepressible Winnie Lightner, the world-famed dancer, Fred Astaire, and Ted Healy and bis stooges, Sammy Lee and Eddie Prinz supervised the musical ensembles of the picture which features a chorus of one hundred dancers. Songs heard in the production include “Let’s Go Bavarian,’ “Heigh Ho,” “Everything I Have Is Yours,” “That’s the Rhythm of tne Day,” and “Dancing Lady” as sung by Miss Crawford, Art Jarrett and Nelson Eddy. “Dancing Lady” is the first picture to be directed by Robert Z. Leonard since “Smilin’ Through.”

“SONS OF THE DESERT.” Erring husbands who have been in the habit of using attendance at a national convention as an excuse for their dereliction had better begin a subtle propaganda to keep their wives from viewing Laurel and Hardy’s new Metro-Ooldwyn-Maycr full-length feature, “Sons of the Desert,” to be shown at the Regent Theatre next week. For the “lid will be off” once the comedyf is thrown on the screen and the inside of many such gatherings exposed to the gaze of irate wives. “Sons of the Desert,” declared by those who have previewed the picture to be one of the most hilarious comedies ever conceived, brings Laurel and Hardy to the screen as a couple of zealous fraternal brothers who pledge themselves to attend a convention of their order despite their wives objections.

A HURRY CALL. 'Setting a new speed record, Helen Vinson, screen actress, arrived in Los Angeles from Hew York just three days after she received a wire from Hollywood asking her to play a leading featured role in R.K.O. Radio’s new Ann Harding starring film, “The Life of Yirgie Winters.” Miss Vinson received the telegram late in the evening after returning from a Broadway show and the next day was air-bound for Hollywood. The hurry call was sent to the actress when Director Alfred Santell decided that she was the one perfect type for the role in question. Miss Vinson joins a cast that includes John Boles, Betty Furness, Donald Crisp and others. The picture is to be staged in the period in which the operetta was written by Franz Lehar, rather than in a more modern time as it was finally produced on the stage. The Lehar period, of about 1885, was selected as being more glamorous. Uniforms were gayer. Ambassadors and court functionaries wore more elaborate garb; feminine modes were beautiful and alluring.

Hubert, who worked with Lubitseh on many of his European pictures, and on “The Student Prince” in America, is now installed in an office at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios with all his research data. Lubitseh is busy putting the final touches into the script.

“TERRY.” Elizabeth Allan, playing the romantic role in “Looking Forward, ’ ’ had to keep and feed “Terry,” a trained Scotty, for a week, so that the dog would always he at her heels in the picture. ‘ ‘ The trouble is, ’ ’ she be- j wails, “that now I’d like to buy him, | and his master wouldn’t sell him for a i million pounds!’' FROM CHURCH TO STUDIO. Richard Tauber recently filmed the finale of “Blossom Time,’’ in which I the bitter tragedy of Schubert’s love! life is epitomised, A great cathedral interior was constructed at Elstree, and here the marriage of the charming Viennese girl with whom Schubert is deeply in love (played in the film by lovely Jane Baxter), was filmed. The dramatic situation is that not only has Schubert'lost the girl to a dashing young Austrian officer (played by Willy Eiehberger), but as choir leader he must sing at her wedding. In the

USE OWN NAMES IN FILM ROLES. Few actors permit the use of their own names to be attached to the characters they portray on the screen. Notable exceptions to this general rule are Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, who are,co-starred in the Hal Roach M.G.M. championship production, “Sons of the Desert, “ playing at the Regent Theatre next week. As a pair of wayward husbands who sneak away to a lodge convention, the two actors call each other by their real names and also address their screen wives as Mrs. Laurel and Mrs, Hardy. “It makes

“WILD CARGO.” WORTHY SUCCESSOR TO “BRING ’EM BACK ALIVE.” “Frank Buck has made a picture of real entertainment value out of his latest trek into the underbrush of Malaya. “Wild Cargo” Is interesting and well done. “Pursuing his practice of capturing alive denizens of the Jungle, Buck talks as his pictures show his methods of corailing elephants, Jaguars, tigers, pythons and cobras and the adventures that befell him while on the Job. ‘Wild Cargo’ struck this reviewer certainly as interesting as ‘Bring ’Em Back Alive,’ while the impression persists that this latest in the Buck series has an edge to the good on its predecessor. For one thing, Buck is shown in closer contact with the dangers of hunting down with beasts and uncontrollable reptiles, a dose shave with a python attempting to chew off his arm and a thrilling short sequence wherein the hunter personally captures another of the same species, emphasising the point. “Thrills include a fight—a good one —between a python and a Jaguar, and a set-to with an escaped cobra. In ‘Wild Cargo' Buck actually shows his ingenious methods of snaring his prey, the highlight being the capture of one of the animals from the branches of a lofty Jungle tree by shooting down the limb on which the prize has temporarily housed itself.

FRED ASTAIRE DANCING ‘ PARTNER FOR JOAN! Fred Astaire, noted Broadway musical revue star who, for a number of years, starred .with his sister, Adele, as a dancing team .makes his screen debut in “Dancing Lady" the new Metro - Goldwyn - Mayer production, which opens at the Regent Theatre next week, with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable co-starred. Astaire, who, last appeared on the stage in “The Band Waggon,” dissolved the famous/ partnership with his sister when sha. married Lord Charles Cavendish last year. Miss Crawford becomes his new dancing partner in “Dancing Lady.”

cause of realism 8.1. P. would have liked to film this grand sequence inside a real church, but for obvious reasons this was impossible, so they arranged instead that the organ music and choral singing should be relayed by land line from St. Joseph’s Church in Highgate, direct to the film.

our performance more natural and also lenus a certain intimacy to the roles we portray,” explains Laurel, who suggested the departure. “Further, this procedure insures against confusion of the characters.” Stan Laurel, himself, is largely responsible for the various gags in “Sons ox the Desert.’’ Coauthor of the story which gives the funster team the greatest ■'•chicle they have yet appeared in, Laurel poured into the script a wealth of comedy gags and funny situations which he has noted during his long career behind the footlights and on the screen.

“LOOKING FORWARD” DRAMA OF FAMILY LOYALTY. This picture, in which the spirit of courage and enthusiasm finds dramatic expression, deals with the lives of two business men, and is unique in respect to its handling of two stories in one. The life of the millionaire department store owner whose wife deserts him ■when he faces financial ruin is counterbalanced with the story of the humble employee who likewise is baffled by his inability to meet his payments and keep his home together, but whose family prove their loyalty when he most needs it. Barrymore, who played the bookkeeper in “Grand Hotel” has another intensely human role in “Looking Forward” in which he again plays a bookkeeper, this time in the great London department store of which Lewis Stone is the owner. Miss Benita Hume is seen as Slone’s faithless .second wife, and Elizabeth Allan plays his daughter and Phillip Holmes is the sou. The story shows how the woman in the life of each man affects that maff’s destiny. The old bookkeeper’s wife regenerates him when his world comes crashing about his ears; the millionaire’s wife tears him down. In the stirring climax it is the old bookkeeper who proves himself a figure of power and saves a tottering mercantile machine. “Looking Forward” was directed by Clarence Brown, who produced most of the Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo successes.

“Half a Sinner, ” one of the most hilarious and successful comedydramas of the year, with Berton Churchill, Joel MeCrea and Sallie Blahe in the principal roles, comes to the Regent theatre to-morrow. Thoroughly wholesome, laughable, dramatic, it is one of the most delightful films to be shown in some time and is devoted to the entertainment needs of the entire family. It is based on the play, “Alias the Deacon,” by John B. Hymer and Leroy Clemens in which Churchill was starred. The story, thrilling in spots, rollicking in others and clean throughout, records the activities of a sanctimonious rascal who poses as a deacon and who is a card-sharp, as well as two young lovers who have known him before but who know it would be fatal to their happiness to have such a fact become public. The plot turns and twists at every angle, the suspense of each situation being maintained until its consummation. There is an exciting wrestling match, a robbery in which Joel is suspected and thrown in gaol and apparently deserted by his girl, a widow who places too much faith in a pair of Jacks, and through it all saunters the saintly appearing churchman with his kindly, double meaning, philosophy. In the end, though a crook, the deacon solves everyone’s troubles in the most surprising fashion. Besides the two romantic lovers, MeCrea and 'Miss Blane, who contribute much to the enjoyment of the picture, virtually an all-star cast fills the other roles. Alexandra Carlisle makes her movie debut in this one. Mickey Rooney is the freckled faced “assist-ant-solver-of-all-troubles, ” Gay Seabrook, the Dumb Dora of the radio serials “Growin’ Up” and “Girl Friend” is the town’s gigling wonder, Russell Hopton is the manager of Guinn Williams, the wrestler, and a dozen others contribute to the enjoyment of the play. “THE MERRY WIDOW.” Period of 1885 to be Reproduced for New Film. With the arrival of Jeanette MacDonald from New York, preparations for Irving G. Thalberg’s production of “The Merry Widow” have taken on active form. Research experts are at work on sketches, and shortly the details of the settings, to be spectacular in scope, are to be decided. Fittings for the heroine are to follow. Ali Hubert, technical expert, working with Ernst Lubitsch, the director, is study ing uniforms of Europe, with a view to fitting Maurice Chevalier, who plays Prince Danilo, with a series of especially dashing outfits.