FILM TOPICS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18484, 24 August 1934, Page 11

FILM TOPICS

pTIARLES Dickens’ “David Copperfield” and “'Pickwick Papers” are being adapted for the talkies and there is also a proposal to film “The Talc of Two Cities.” * # * * THE world wide success of recent pictures made by London Film Productions, such as “Henry VIII” and “Catherine the Great,” has made it necessary for the company fo have its own studios. Hitherto it lias been renting studios from the British and Dominions Company at Elstrcc. The London Film Productions company has now acquired a 40-acre site at Elstrcc. * * * LIUGH Walpole has been engaged to f collaborate -on the filming of “David Coppcrficld” at M.G.M. studios. This arrangement was entered into during ,a visit to England of David Sclznick, producer, George Zukor, director, and scenario writer, Howard Estabrook, for the purpose of collecting data and studying backgrounds for the picture. * * , .* * , * ]\JB. Paul Robeson, who recently made 1 his first appearance on the screen in “Emperor Jones,” has been engaged to play the part of a native chief in “.Sanders of the River,” the British film version of Mr Edgar Wallace’s novel. Miss Nina Mae Mackinney, another colored artist, who appeared in “Hallelujah,” is also to net in tho film, which is being made by the London Film Productions, Limited.

* * * * THERE is far too little attention paid A by producers to this partisan spirit in on audience. We want to take sides in the cinema. We want to identify ourselves with this character and’ the other, to outwit these enemies, outlive their troubles, and share their raptures. For nine out: of 10 of us, the cinema is just an hour of life enjoyed by proxy, and the pictures we appreciate most are those in which our inhibitions are most fully released and our 'hopes most completely satisfied. —London Observer. * * * * ANOTHER interesting item of news is that the Universal Company, of Hollywood, are to make Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold Bug” Arid “The Raven” into a single picture. Karloff and Bela Lugosi will he the stars. We are told that “a particularly interesting point in connection with tho screening of ‘The Raven’ is that it will reveal for the first tithe the mystery behind the great love drama in the famous poem.” When this thriller is finished the same players will appear in “The Were Wolf of London.” -X- -K- * * pLTVE Brook is to star in the first picture of Toeplitz Productions, Limited, at the head rif which .is Mr L. Toeplitz dp Grand Ry, the Italian producer, wild whs foriri'priy a director of London Filip Productions. The first will he called * ‘The Dictator,” from a play by the Gerriian dramatist, Lristig, cßtaliug with tap Danish Court between tlje years 1770 and 1772. Clive Bfpok will play Slruenscc, the coribtfy doctor lifted to power by the fayQr of the Englishborn Queen of Denmark, Caroline, Mathilde. It is statpd ‘a worldknown actress” will play opposite Mr Brook.

MISS Greta Garbo has begun work on a film based on Mr Somerset Maugham’s novel, “The Painted Veil,” with Mr Herbert Marshall in tho male load. *• * * * A ROOM 'out of historic Chesterfield n House, until recently the homo of the Earl of Harewood and his wife, the Princess Royal, will be bought by an American motion picture firm and transported intact to the United States as a setting for stately scenes of English life, the Daily Telegraph reported. * * * * THE Daily Herald, says: “F. J. Perry 1 is going to Hollywood to play the part of himself in a film entitled ‘At Your Service,’ starring with Miss Suzanne Lenglen. Perry will he paid no salary, as money would mean forfeiting his amateur status. Mile. Suzanne Lenglen also has a part, in Cicely Courtneidge’s new film ‘Schooldays,’ in which Mile. Lenglen appears in a sports.ground episode.”

.***•* UOX Moviotoue news production centres have recently been established in Tokio and Madrid, in addition to those already maintained in Sydney, London, Paris, Berlin, and Delhi, as well as in South America and South Africa. Camera .and sound units are maintained in tho principal centres in their respective territories, ready to dash wherever exciting events take place. Aeroplanes are chartered, ocean liners delayed, and every possible means of speedy transportation is used to . hurry the precious reels of film to the distributing [centres, with some astonishing results, as, for instance, when the coronation of Henry Pu-Yi in Manchuria was shown in New York in .10 days.