ACTORS' VERSATILITY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21876, 11 August 1934, Page 12 (Supplement)

ACTORS' VERSATILITY

FILMS IN TWO LANGUAGES SOME UNEXPECTED TALENTS Not many people realise that tlie projected talkie of " Tho Merry Widow " will not bo the first occasion on which •Teanette Macdonald has played the leading part on the screen. She has already made a French version for Paramount. Miss Macdonald also found her French useful for the foreign versions of "The Love Parade" and "One Hour With You." In the latter film, Lili Damita took Genevieve Tobin's part. Claudetto Colbert, who is, of course, a countrywoman of Chevalier, acted with him in the French sound version of " Tho Big Pond." She also played in " The Smiling Lieutenant," in French; Miriam Hopkins and George Barbier played their original parts in this version. The French version of " Playboy of Paris " had Vyonne Vallee, then Chevalier's wife, in Frances Dee's role. When "Slightly Scarlet" was mado in French, Claudetto Colbert and Adolphe Menjou filled the parts taken by Evelyn Brent and Clive Brook in the American version. In the Spanish version of the same film, Barry Norton was featured. He is a native of Buenos Aires, and the coming of sound at first made it imppssible for him to get work in films with English, dialogue. However, he acted in many Spanish

versions, including those of "Grumpy," /in which he substituted for Phillips Holmes, and " The Benson Murder Case."

George Lewis, who made such a successful hero in " The Collegians" series, was handicapped by his Mexican accent when talking films came. He, too, turned to Spanish versions, one of his best known being " Common Clay," which English and American filmgoers saw with Constance Bennett and Lew Ayres in the leading parts. The most famous Mexican film star, Ramon Novarro, makes French, Spanish and English versions of many of his pictures. The Spanish version of " Call of the Flesh," which he made in these three languages, had Conchita Montenegro in Dorothy Jordan's part, and was directed by Novarro himself. Lilian Harvey, who speaks three languages, played the lead in the German version of " Congress Dances" with Willy Fritsch, and in the French and English versions with Henry Garat. Willy Fritsch and Lilian Harvey are the most popular team in German films; in the German version of "The Love Waltz," Fritsch took John Batten's part, and in that of " Happy Ever After" he substituted for Jack Hulbert. Before he learned to speak English, Conrad Veidt's only connection with British films was that he occasionally made German versions of them. At Elstree he made, with Tala Birrell, " Men in a Cage," known, in its British version, as " Cape Forlorn." Haddon Mason returned the compliment when his voice was used for Conrad Yeidt's part in the " dubbed" English version of the Ufa film, " The Last Company."