IN FILMLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17459, 1 May 1920, Page 2 (Supplement)

IN FILMLAND.

A company of film artists' has left London to take pictures in Russia. They are making for Warsaw first, and in due course they propose making a trip through the more unsettled parts of Russia, choosing realistic scenes anid the locations of the story.

Darkest Africa is to be seen in England on the films. A remarkable expedition headed by a famous African explorer and big Fame hunter, was about to leave Lon don for Central Africa when the mail left. They will photograph some hitherto unex plored districts ir. Northern Rhodesia and the Congo.

After nearly tei years of continuous ap pearance before '.he camera, Mary Pick ford will, it is reported, shortly make a tour of the world, during which time she , will produce two or three plays for the screen, using the locale of the different countries she visits for the exterior set tings. It is stated that Miss Pickford )eccntly had a written request from school children of Australia to vis.it their country, | the invitation having been personally j signed by over 30,000 Australian girls and boys, neatly bound in a single volume.

The British Board of Agriculture is working i.i furtherance of the campaign against rats by the production of a film which will show why the pest must be de stroyed. Among the points emphasised will be the danger of tne rat as a germ carrier, for which purpose will be used an apparatus lor taking pictures through a microscope. The film will be taken at the docks of a ship after the cargo has been unloaded, showing the extermination of the rate which follows. A London paper states that an offer has been received from the New Zealand Government to buy a copy of the film.

Some idea of the gigantic sums of money involved in the film industry were giver, in an Ameri:an journal recently. It pre sents, among other things, the following interesting figures:—The gross takings of picture theatres of America in one year ; mounted to more than £160.000,000. This, it points cut, is 20,000,0(0 in excess of Ihe combined gross receipts of thirteen leading rubber companies. The 15,C0C picture theatres attracted 8,003.000 people t. day. 1200 new theatres are being built bt a coat of £14,400,000, and it is estimated that it costs £60 a seat to build a <-.od theatre. At the conservative figure of £20 per seat as t'le present value o : the theatres it is found that the investment in picture houses total* about £10u,000.0C0. Consumption of positive film now averages 10.000.000 feet a week as against 3,000,000 feet in 1913. Amer' ican film producers alone are estimated 0 have a combined income of £18,000,000. Scotland Yard is watering with a keen eye the development of secret cinemas which are beginning to spring up, particularly in Soho and Bloomsbury, with remarkable speed in certain private" houses. the films exhibited are those which have not passed the British Board of Film Censors, and which the producers would not dare show in any public cinema anvwhere in the country. The individuals who are responsible for the introduction of these vicious concerns are foreigners says a London paper. The films they exhibit are rmuggled from abroad— pally from France and th o Argentine—and having been shown in one house are immediately passed on to another. Exactly where these entertainments are situated is, of course, tept as secret as possible No tickets are issued, and unless the person seeking admission is known and recognised at the door no entrance is possible. As one may well imagine, the prices of admission do not range from 9d to 2s 6d. For introduction to the house itself 10s is charged, the door keeper, who is more often than not a man of colour, and, incidentally, a very useful person 0! -' bis retainer to have if there happens to be any trouble, experts at least 5: S whilst admission to the room where the screen is costs anything from one to throe guineas,