STUDIO "GHOST"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21758, 24 March 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

STUDIO "GHOST"

FILM SCENES MARRED UNCANNY HAPPENINGS AN AMAZING PHOTOGRAPH Everyone in London film circles is trying to explain a series of uncanny happenings which have been puzzling the experts in one of the largest studios, says a London paper. Technicians have been mystified by a succession of photographic faults for which they have been unable to find a solution. Many carefully planned " shots " which should have turned out successfully were discovered on developing to have gone suddenly dim. Again', and again these particular scenes were retaken, but .in each case the attempts to picturp the sequences proved to be futile, and in the end the incidents had to be cut out altogether. The technician dealing with the sound was also bothered by strange happenings. Good sound was obtained until certain sequences were due to be taken. Then the sound failed. It would blur or fade away entirely. When an examination was made it was discovered that the faulty recording always coincided with those parts of the film which had been photographically a failure. Then came a surprising climax. The " ghost " which had been haunting the studio was actually photographed. Mr. Herbert Hughes, the " stills " photographer at the studio, described how he came to take this extraordinary picture. "In an interval in the shooting of the film," he said, " I took a ' still ' of one of the most dramatic moments

in the story where a woman thinks she has killed her maid. I saw no one else on the set at the time, nor did my assistants. Yet, when I came to take a print of the scene I was amazed to find the figure and features of an unknown man clearly outlined on it. I am absolutely at a loss to account for it. Experts who have seen it say that it could not have been made by any known process of faking." The heroine, in the foreground, was wearing a ring which has a curious history. Every time she wore it these strange disturbances took place. At last she discarded it while working on the set. Strangely enough no further hitch occurred.