FILM TOPICS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21900, 8 September 1934, Page 12 (Supplement)

FILM TOPICS

Leontine Sagan, woman director of " Madchen in Uniform," has signed a contract with M.G.M.

It is possible that Noel Coward may shortly be seen as a film actor. Warners are trying to persuade him to play in " Invitation to a Murder."

Sylvia Sidney will appear as a North American squaw in " Red Woman." John Lodge will play opposite her as the well-born Canadian whom she marries.

" A Present from Margate," the play by lan Hay and A. E. W. Mason, is being prepared at Warners for Kay Francis' next film, when she returns from her European holiday.

Statistics show that filmgoers in Buenos Ayres are completely indifferent to the varied charms of Mae West, George Arliss and Katherine Hepburn. Laurel and Hardy, on the other hand, are local heroes.

Owing to the agitation 'for cleaner films, Sam Goldwyn has indefinitely postponed "Barbary Coast," the projected Anna Sten film. The £20,000 already expended on the picture has been written off as a loss.

Cecil B. do Mille announces that his next picture will have the Crusades for its background. Henry Wilcoxon will probably play Richard the Lion Hearted. Do Mille ;s also considering basing a film on the Book of Esther.

Ginger Rogers is preparing for a " one-girl " show. She intends to write the music, design the costumes and th? scenery and create the dances for a musical piny called " Three to Get Ready." She hopes to have it filmed after its stage run.

Ernst Lubitsch is making four separate versions of "The Merry Widow." They arc American, English, French and Belgian.

Sacha Guitry, famous French author-actor-manager and husband of Yvonne Printemps, is considering an offer_ to go to Hollywood to write film stories.

Madeleine Carroll will play opposite Clive Brook as Queen Caroline Mathilde in " The Dictator," the first picture of the new British company, Toeplitz Productions.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer are trying to buv the screen rights of " Pygmalion " from Bernard Shaw. If they are successful, Jean Harlow will be given the leading role. «

Cecil B- De Mille has signed a new contract with Paramount to make two pictures a year, each of them costing ever £IOO,OOO Do Mille will receive a percentage of the takings, in addition to a fixed salary.

Beaumont Smith's new Australian production, " Splendid Fellows," has just been completed at Cinesound Studios, Rushcutters Bay. The picture has been written around the Centenary Air Race, and there are some very fine aeroplane sequences in some of which Sir Chajles Kingsford Smith, who plays a small part in the picture, appears.

Colin Tapley, who was the successful entrant from New Zealand, with Joyce Nielsen, in the recent " Search for Beauty" contest conducted by Paramount Pictures, will next be seen in "Double Door," with Evelyn Venable and Kent Taylor. Tapley made his debut with the other winners of the contest in the picture entitled "Search for.Beatuy."