FILM AND STAGE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 117, 16 April 1938, Page 7

FILM AND STAGE

Exciting Story. Tlie exciting events of “His Affair,” commencing at the Meteor to-day, take place at the turn of the century, when the stability of the nation is threatened by an unprecedented series of sensational bank robberies in the Middle West. In a desperate move, President William McKinley calls upon a young Lieutenant, Robert Taylor, who has had a barrilliant record under Admiral Dewey. Sworn to secrecy, Taylor is instructed to disgrace himself in tlie Navy, to be discharged, and eventually to find his way to the bank robbers. In a mid-Western city known as a criminal centre, Taylor meets a cafe owner, Victor McLaglen; his righthand man, Brian Donlevy, and the singing and dancing star of the show, Barbara Stanwyck. Hearing that the men have come into large sums of money through mysterious channels. Taylor notes that their absence from the cafe coincides with a bank robbery in another city. Pressing his attentions on Barbara Stanwyck, to gain entree to the gang, Taylor falls deeply in love with her, but goes through with his plan. Events mount thrillingly to a dramatic climax which finds Taylor apparently doomed to hanging.

Spectacular Set. One of the largest single sets ever erected in Hollywood is seen in “Mad About Music,” Deanna Durbin’s current production, which is at the Regent Theatre with Herbert Marshall, Gail Patrick William Frawley, Arthur Treacher and others in important roles. The set, which occupied the entire floor space of Stage 12, the largest sound stage in the film city, represented an exclusive girls’ school in Switzerland, with dormitories, groundkeeper’s lodge, and flower gardens. In addition to its size, the set lays claim to another distinction. It is the first “360 degree” set ever erected in Hollywood. To the layman this means that through arrangements of lights and light platforms, it was possible for director Norman Taurog and cameraman Joseph Valentine to photograph from any angle from any spot on the stage. Usually such settings are made with a definite “front” which is left unfinished, and cameras are never trained from the back of the setting, toward this front. The 360 degree sets have 4 walls. Bright Musical Film. The identity of the unnamed actor in Jessie Matthews’ new and sparkling story-musical, “Sparkles,” which comes to the Kosy Theatre to-day, is not as mysterious as he sounds. When Robert Hale, father of Sonnie Hale who directed wife Jessie in this film, went with Mrs Robert Hale to visit his son at the studios during production, he

learned "that an extra who should have played the part of a Colonel in a comedy insert for the film was ill. Sonnie was lamenting the fact that the scene was postponed until tlie -part could be filled. So into the film, which has already featured Sonnie Hale’s car, chauffeur, and dog Psmith ; to say nothing of hi.s starring wife, Jessie Matthews, went Sonnie Hale’s father, Robert Hale. The scene takes place in the cocktail bar of the luxury liner Goliath. Also playing important roles in “Sparkles” are Barry Mackay, repeating his outstanding “Evergreen” association with Jessie Matthews, Nat Pendleton, Noel Madison, Olive Blakeney and Graham Moffatt.

Jack Muihnll gets his 1000th film part in “The Joy of Loving,” with Irene Dunne and Douglas Fairbanks, junr. Stephen Woolcott, the famous critic, wrote of “Cloistered”: —“‘Cloistered’ is as beautiful and dramatic a piece of theatre as could be found anywhere It is amazing, unusual and strangely beautiful. I came into the preview smoking my pipe but found myself unconsciously removing my pipe in the presence of such a minor miracle.”

Romantic Farce. New York, with all its maddening midday whirl, with its fiery blaze of neon by night along the ‘‘gay white way” that to-day is more red than white, with its night clubs, giant buildings, crowded tenements, penthouses —all the striking contrasts of human handiwork is now revealed to the world in its true colours. David 0. Selznick, who made the amusement world applaud with his technicolour production of Hollywood “A Star Is Born” has turned his showmanship talents to the east and “Nothing Sacred,” the comedy-satire of New York co-starring Carole Lombard and Fredric March showing at the State Theatre to-day will glorify Manhattan and eastern resorts in technicolour. “Nothing Sacred” is the first complete colour film of New York and combines all the pictorial values of colour plus a great story and brings to the screen a new romantic team in Carole Lombard and Fredric March. Walter Connolly, Charles Winninger and Maxie Rosenbloom are seen in important featured role-s.

Big City Life. “Big City,” an original story, opens at the Mayfair Theatre to-day, with

Luise Rainer and Spencer Tracy costarred. Here is no crude attempt to reveal the machinery of a metropolis as a whole. On the contrary, it is a cunning unique story of a single slice of life in a great city and the adventures of a taxi driver in a struggle to survive. Tracy, the good priest in “San Francisco,” and later the Portuguese fisherman in “Captains Courageous,” becomes the husky-voiced cynical haekman, bold to the point ol dare-deviltry, fair and square and a hard man in a battle. Miss Rainer, Academy Award winner as Anna Held in “The Great Ziegfeld,” later O-Lan, the Chinese farm wife in “The Good Earth,” is an immigrant girl who is his wife and soon to be the mother of his child. An excellent supporting cast includes Charley Grapewin, Janet Beecher. Eddie Quillan, Yictor \nrconi, Oscar O'Shea, Helen Troy, \\illiam Demarest, John Arledge, Irving Bacon, Guinn Williams „ and Regis Toorney. Romance and Comedy. The screen’s most exciting sweethearts—Monsieur Young and Tyrone Power—play love’s most exciting game while Monsieur Adolphe Menjou throws away the rule book, in “Cafe Metropole,” a dazzling comedy which comes soon to the Meteor Theatre. Continental romance of the gayest and lightest sort, “Cafe Metropole” winds its amusing way against the background of Gay Paree and the Con-

tinent’s most luxurious rendezvous, with Gregory Ratoff, Charles Winninger, and Helen Westley joining the three stars in tlie excitement. The lively course of “Cafe Metropole” begins, properly enough, in the swank spot of that name, where Adolphe Menjou, suave and sophisticated, presides deftly over the affairs of the restaurant and wonders how he can restore a borrowed 480,000 francs before' the auditors arrive. Events take one amusing and unexpected turn after another, mounting in hilarious procession to a surprise finale which provides a novel solution to the problems of Loretta Young, Tyrone Power and Adolphe Menjou.

Charlie Chaplin, after working for months by himself on a script for Paulette Goddard, has called in Tim Durant to help finish it. George Sanders, Reginald Denny, William Henry and David Niven are to be Loretta Young’s four leading men in “Four Men and a Prayer.” it is announced for immediate production. Alice Brady and Charlie Winn'inger will he teamed in “Good-bye Broadway.” This is a new version of “Shannons of Broadway” in which Lucille and James Gleason formerly appeared.

Young Soprano. Now that Deanna Durbin has passed her fifteenth birthday and her first year film milestone practically at one and the same time, it can be safely reported that the little soprano while in Hollywood is not of it. She has not “gone Hollywood.” While she has grown older and certainly wiser in the ways of the film mills she lias not acquired the cuteness and sophistication of the traditional young cinema hopeful. She gave ample evidence of this through the two months of makeup assignments, costume fittings, rehearsals, interviews and actual filming of

“Mad About Music,'’ her latest picture which is at the Regent Theatre to-day. Film acting is a nerve-racking job and even the calmest stars get a bit troubled, but Miss Durbin seems to have the faculty of knowing the human thing to do under the heaviest pressure. When they were making her first film, “Three Smart Girls,” there was some doubt about how to end the story. The director asked Deanna. “Let the mother have the father back again,” she said, striking the right human interest note instinctively, and it was shot that way. In “Mad About Music,” it was her suggestion again that changed the script so that Gail Patrick could publicly acknowledge her as her daughter. Two Years To Produce.

While it took Lloyd C. Douglas only a few months to write his best-selling novel, ‘Green Light,” it took the studios almost two years to turn it into a picture which comes to the Meteor Theatre on Tuesday. Part of the Douglas story deals with an epidemic of spotted fever which killed hundreds and drove many other hundreds away from their homes in Bitter Root Valley, Montana, a number of

years ago. The novel’s hero, Dr Newell Paige (played by Errol Flynn in the picture) is shown establishing a laboratory in an old farm house in the valley and there developing a serum that will immunise humans against the fever, caused by the bites of wood ticks. The entire story of “Green Light” is motivated from the death, in an operating room, of a wealthy woman, through a doctor’s blunder. This room, as it is shown, is the most modern of its kind. Weird Mystery. The director shocked the screen world with his hair-raising “Dracula” and kept audiences on the edges of their seats with the Lon Chaney thrillers; Guy Endore stunned lovers of shocking mystery with “Werewolf of Paris” and “Babouk”; Bela Lugosi has chilled audiences with many shivery scenes, and Lionel Barrymore has gripped the imaginations of millions with his amazing characterisations. They all come together in “Mark of the Vampire,” a detective mystery which each hopes is to “top” anything else in his career. Tlie picture Kills the tale of a ghastly, crime, laid in the midst of a vampire cult and commences at the Kosy Theatre on Tuesday. Lionel Barrymore, Bela Lugosi, Jean Hersholt, who scored in “Men in White”; Lionel A twill, of “Murders in the Wax Museum” ; Elizabeth Allan. of “David Copperfield,” Jessie Ralph, who played Peggotty in that production ; Henry Stephenson of “The Night is Young,” Leila Bennett, New York stage star; Ivan Simpson, Donald Meek, Michael Visaroff and many others are among its principals. The second feature is “One New York Night,” starring Franchot Tone and Una Merkel. Unique Spectacle. In all its splendour, “Credo,” the only official film of tlie Catholic Centenary Celebrations held at Auckland, between February 25 and March 5, comes to the State Theatre on Wednesday. There are many unforgettable scenes in this unique picture, which shows one, the Credo Play with 4000 players, choir of 200 and orchestra of 100; the famous Eucharistic Procession in which 30,000 people took part; the great Auckland Domain Rally, where 40,000 people were present; special Mass at Western Springs for men, women and children; the arrival of overseas delegates; the Civic Reception, Auckland Town Hall; the Totara Point Celebrations; the colourful Remuera Garden Party. One will also hear such distinguished speakers as Archbishop Panico and the Prune Minister of New Zealand; Archbishop Gilmartin of Ireland: Archbishop Duliig, of Brisbane; Archbishop Mannix, of Melbourne ; Archbishop O’Shea, of Wellington ; Archbishop Sinumds, of Hobart ; Archbishop Gilroy, of Sydney; Bishop Liston of Auckland; Dr Ryan, of Belfast; Father Owen Dudley, of England; and the special Mass ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Anita Louise is being borrowed to play the part of Madame de Lamballe in “Marie Antionette.” She replaces Maureen O’Sullivan, who was ill and could not finish “Madelon” in time. Archie Mayo, an ace director for eleven years, has been signed to an exclusive five-year contract. His first assignment is “The Adventures of Marco Polo,” starring Gary Cooper. To stimulate business, a German theatre manager advertised a special picture and offered 500 marks to any patron who didn’t like it. The house was packed but no one claimed the money. The picture was a film dealing with Adolph Hitler. Madeleine Carroll’s first picture when she gets back to Hollywood will be “The River is Blue.” That is the story by Clifford Odets which once had a Spanish background. Tyrone Power and Loretta Young will be co-starred for the fourth time in “Her Masterpiece.” That is the story about fake paintings, previously announced for Annabella. Two pictures, “The Clarion” and “Permit to Kill,” are being built round the recent American scandal of death by quack medicines. Dick Foran and Ann Sheridan will be in the former. Fred MacMurra.v will follow “Men With Wings” with “Vacation From Love.” it is the story of a saxophonist’s marriage, told in wedding anniversaries.

Novel Screen Hit. The idea of utilising a motorcade as the background for a motion picture occurred first, it appears, to Eleanore Griffin and William Rankin, who sat down and wrote an original story called “Time Out For Romance,” which comes to the Kosy Theatre to-day. In celluloid form, their cross-country narrative now turns up as a lively romantic comedy, featuring Claire Trevor and Michael Whalen, with Joan Davis, Douglas Fowley and Bennie Bartlett. The story of “Time Out For Romance” concerns itself with the changes wrought in the lives of nine persons making the trip from Detroit to the Pacific Coast in a caravan of new “Rocket Eights,” earning their transportation by driving the machines from the factory to the coast market. To supply part of the authentic roadside atmosphere for the film, a motor camp near Ventura, California, about seventy-five miles from Los Angeles, was leased for two weeks. To get the camp it was necessary not only to letthree tenants continue to live in their cottages, but also to pay them bonuses for the inconvenience caused them. Music And Drama. Designed specifically to exploit to the full tlie vocal talents and popular personality of Arthur Tracy “Command Performance,” coming to the State Theatre on Wednesday, presents tlie Street Singer in a role which offers him more dramatic scope than he has had heretofore and introduces the star in vagabond mood against a background of England’s lovely countryside. Arthur Tracy will be seen as an overworked star in danger of losing his voice through an impending breakdown. Despite important contracts lie runs away from the glamour of show life to seek health and peace

in the country. In his wanderings he encounters a gipsy girl and her baby sister. He joins their caravan, becomes firm friends with tlie little girl, while romance develops between him and her sister. Absorbing adventures and unhappy complications are brought to terrific climax, the star facing a tragic situation when tlie Command Performance demands his immediate appearance at the moment when his presence at the child’s bedside might save the life he loves. Lilli Palmer and Rae Collett support the Street Singer. Impressive Scene.

One of the most impressive church ceremonies in the world was reproduced with every detail authentic for one of the dramatic high-lights in “Big City,” which opens a season at the Mayfair Theatre to-da.y with Luise Rainer and Spencer Tracy co-starred. This was the high mass of the Roumanian church, sung with some of the oldest ecclesiastical music in existence. The scene was filmed for tho episode in which Luise Rainer, falsely accused of a crime and sought by the police, takes refuge in a Roumanian church in New York. The service was staged by the male choir and soloist of the Russian Orthodox Church of Las Angeles under the supervision of Rev. G. Prasor. The Roumanian service is similar to that of the Russian. A bass soloist and full male choir sing the service, the bass singing the service and the choir the responses. “Big City” is a dramatic story of a taxicab war in New York, with Spencer

Tracy as a taxi driver and Miss Rainer as his Roumanian wife. Thrills of pitched battles, a frame-up, a glimpse into the “inside” of taxicab racketeering, are backgrounds for the romance.

Now that Paul Muni has definitely decided not to play in “Panama Canal,” the leading role has been given to Claude Rains. He will play the character of General Gorgas, the American surgeon who conquered the outbreak of yellow fever during the construction of the canal. Grace Moore’s production of the duet sequence from “Madame Butterfly,” “I’ll Take Romance,” in which Melvyn Douglas is her leading man, will introduce a new feature in operatic staging in America with the use of a revolving stage. Jean Hersholt plays the father of five daughters in “Happy Ending.” Two sets of twins, Gloria and Barbara and the Brudie Sisters, have been enfiaged as sisters to Sonja Henie. Georges Rignud, an Argentinian from Paris, will make his American debut opposite Carole Lombard in “Midnight.” This goes into production as soon as she finishes “Food for Scandal.” Irene Dunne would live to reverse her whole screen career, and begin by playing comedy instead of emotion roles.