IN FILMLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19412, 21 August 1926, Page 8 (Supplement)

IN FILMLAND.

Music and the Oinenu. Everyone who goes to a picture show knows the importance that music plays in supplementing the purely visual side of tho entertainment. In Auckland, more and more attention is being paid to the picture theatre orchestras. which are being enlarged and improved every year. The latest move in this connection is the engagement of the Australian composer and conductor, Mr. Fred G. Mumford, to take over the direction of the Majestic Theatre. There is, perhaps, no higher authority in Australia or N<jw Zealand on, the preparation of music for use in cinemas. Discussing his work a few days ago, Mr. Mumford said too manv conductors were inclined to please thomselves in the matter of the music they played rather than select and make the music part and parcel of tho picture. " It. is not so long ago." he said 5 since drama on the stage was greatly aided by an orchestral accompaniment. It is on record that the melodrama played some years ago at one of tho celebrated London theatres suddenly lost its interest with the public and the cause was not discovered until Charles ! Reade, who, besides being a great author, . was a shrewd connoisseur of music pointed out that the trouble was caused through j the death of tho conductor and tho fact j that the musical accompaniment to tho drama had not been properly fitted in bv the musical director who had taken his place." j Judiciously employed, continued Mr. I Mumford, music was of the utmost value in helping to arouse tho sentiments of pathos and sympathy and to intensify excitement. There was no more powerful J tune ever written than Chopin's " Fun- ! oral March," for instance. No one in the world could resist the impulse to take off his hat when he heard the wonderful strains of that march. Mr. Mumford recalled the use he had made in Sydney of a certain well-known piece of music. The scene was one'in winch an old Irishman, separated from his daughter, waited expectantly at his cottage door for a word of his long-lost child. During the screening of that* scene, the conductor divided the strings of his orchestra ard played "Come Back to Erin," with astonishingly pathetic results.

The art of making music for pictures, Mr. Mumford maintains, is to insist on subordinating the music to the picture. Notes and Comments. It is said that Harold Lloyd's latest comedy, " College Days," surpasses anything that the popular comedian has produce in the past. It is due for an early release in Auckland. Charles Paddock, the American sprinter, is to marry the cinema star, Bebe Daniels. Miss D&niel/s has been a big favourite for several years, most of her work being done for Paramount. Paddock is the holder of several amateur records. " Thou shalt not be fonnd out" is " The Eleventh Commandment" on which the British film of the same title is based. Fay Compton, London's popular actress, plays the part of the modern daughter who feels compelled to fight her father's narrow-minded conservatism. Stewart Rome plays fche part of the lover.

The sister-in-law of Harold Lloyd I appears in the leading feminine role in " Blue Blazes," , Universal Western attraction, starring Pete Morrison. ' Her * screen name is Barbara Starr, and in private life she is the wife of Gaylord Lloyd, the famous comedian's brother, and who holds an important post in his big film company. A deft and skilful combination of melodrama, pathos, comedy and realism, " The Still Alarm," is said to be one of the most entertaining , photoplays of the season. The entire picture is a glorification of the fireman. He is shown at work, at homo, in the midst of smoke and falling timbers, and the picture brings homo vividly the dangers and hardships to which the fire-fighters are subjected." " Peter the Great," the clever police dog in' " Tho i Silent Accuser," will be seen again in Auckland shortly in " Wild Justice." This story was fihned in the high sierras of North America and revolves round a mysterious murder. "Peter the Great" appears in an almost human • role, and performs miracies of athletic prowess. Police dogs were called sheep dogs .until a few years ago, when they were discovered to be of great use in tracking criminals. " Something that looks and smells like a motor-car f " is a trade rival's contemptuous description of the %veird and wonderful Schenkmann Six, sold by the famous Potash and Perlmutter business pair,- in " Partners Again," a delightful screen comedy, featuring the well-known Jewish comedians. All motor-cars are more or less erratic, but for unexpected peculiarities the Schenkmann Six stands supreme. Abe Potash and Mawruss Perlmutter prove themselves the world's champion car demonstrators while endeavouring to sell one of these strange products.Le'atrice Joy, after twelve months of marriage, has been divorced from John Gilbert, her eccentric and temperamental husband, whose work on the screen has been as conspicuously successful as has that of the wife. On the occasion of her marriage, it was freely stated among the movie community that Gilbert would not long settle down in any spot or with any person, and so it proved to be. It is not such a lonp time ago since Gilbert, in writing his life story for a well-known monthly, did so on the understanding that everything he said would be printed. He tokl some amazing truths about himself, and these are nearly all substantiated in the light of the present action. There is a child of tho marriage.