THE SHADOW WORLD.

Southland Times, Issue 19366, 25 October 1921, Page 7

THE SHADOW WORLD.

Latest Real News of Reel Folk.

(BY

THE RECORDER).

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

“Mac.”—May Allison, Metro Studios, Hollywood, California; Alice Lake, the same address, Clara Horton is sixteen years of age, she used to play child parts, Cullen Landis nlayed opposite Mabel Normand in “Pinto."" Charlie Chaplin is thirty-four years of age and Shirley Mason is twenty. The article on Sylvia Breamer will appear in a few weeks time. “J.C.”—Philo McCullough appeared m “The Lamplighter,” which starred Shirley Mason. He did not play in his usual role of a villain. . “May.”—Answer to your inquiry will appear next week. Wallace Reid is an accomplished musician, a writer of considerable ability, a cartoonist, expert motorist, and a dexterous sleight of hand performer. Reid is soon to be seen locally in “The Love Special.” ’Tis said that Goldwyn has virtually signed up Max Linder, the famous French comedian, and one of the pioneers of comedy films. Linder will release his pictures through Goldwyn and is to work at their Culver City studios. Dustin Farnum has just completed his first picture as a Fox star, whilst Barbara Bedford is starting her first vehicle for the same organisation. The work of both these artists will be seen shortly in New Zealand. Miss Bedford was seen here in the leading feminine role of the great Maurice Tourneur production, “The Last of the Mohicans.”

Etehel Clayton has very capable support in her next Paramount production “Sham” which is due for local release soon. Clyde Fillimore played opposite her, with fat Walter Hiers, who is inimitable as a comedian, and the incomparable Theodore Roberts in congenial roles.

Another stirring mystery drama is to be screened locally this week-end. This is a Goldwyn production starring Pauline Frederick, and calls for all the histrionic powers of which the star is capable. The title, “The Woman in Room 13,” gives a slight idea of the mystery in this drama. John Bowers gives an excellent performance as Pauline Frederick’s screen husband.

The woman’s point of view is always emphasised in pictures produced by Lois Weber. For this reason if for no other the pictures are always attractive. In “Too Wise Wives,” to be shown locally soon she tackles an ordinary everyday sort of subject which could very well be incidents out of the lives of any of us. It chiefly shows most women what most men —their husbands included—really like.

Rudolph Valentino, who created a sensation by his work as Julio in “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” has been engaged to play the title role in George Melford’s Paramount picture, “The Shiek.” Valentino recently appeared here opposite Alice Lake in “Unchartered Seas.”

Lois Weber, American film star, with her husband, Phillip Smalley, will go for a year’s tour of Europe, so the exchanges tell us. The principal reason for the trip is in order that both may study .the muchdiscussed German film production. It is said that advances are being already made by producers in Der Faderland to secure the service of leading American players for their productions. Some of the German productions which have recently been released in America have caused a sensation. They have done much to make the American producers realise that they must work on different lines if they are going to compete successfully with what some of them call “the foreign invasion.”

According to his publicity agent Mr Beaumont Smith, one of the most successful Australian producers, who ranks among his productions “The Man from Snowy River,” “The Betrayer,” and “While the Billy Boils,” is now on location filming a thrilling story of the Australian bush-ranging days entitled “The Bush Vagabond.” Miss Dot McConville, the champion horsewoman of Australasia, does some daring riding stunts in this picture. A feminine Tom Mix?

Norma Talmadge, with Mary Pickford probably the most popular actress on the screen to-day, will be seen here in the First National production “The Passion Flower” in the course of the next few weeks. It is reported to be a daring picture to put on the screen, but the producer, Herbert Brenon, has worked out the story in broad and sweeping lines and the screen version is said to be even a more powerful thing than-that of the stage. Norma Talmadge is quite startling in the portrayal of the Passion Flower. She gives a performance full of fire, colour and life, and the American critics report that few actresses could have retained the sympathy of the spectators as Miss Talmadge did. The supporting cast includes Harrison Ford as the hero—he is also appearing once again as Connie Talmadge’s leading man in some of her recent pictures—Courtenay Foote, as the hated usurper, Eulalie Jensen (who appeared as the adventurous actress in Sylvia Breamer’s latest to be shown here “Respectable By Proxy”) and Natalie, the youngest of the three Talmadge sisters, who is now Mrs Buster Keaton.

The name of Billie Burke on a day-bill is always a guarantee of good entertainment. The delightful Billie does not disappoint in her latest picture, “Away Goes Prudence,” which will be showing here to-morrow. The story is most unusual and in the picture Miss Burke is seen in many roles from a spoilt society girl to a member of a band of crooks. “Over!” Gasps came from the directors and cameramen of “Prairie Trails” as Tom Mix dived headlong down a cliff-face. But the camera’s all-seeing eye “took it in.” There is action from start to finish of “Prairie Traills” to be seen here this weekend and Mix as Benton is always the centre of it. Cullen Landis (who will be remembered as the “Curly Kid” in the “Girl from Outside” and as the leading man opposite to Mabel Normand in “Pinto”) was chosen to play the leading role in Alice Duer Miller’s first screen story for Goldwyn, “The Man With Two Mothers.” He will be seen in the Rupert Hughes picture “The Old Nest,” a picture similar to “Humoresque,” and one in which, a smentioned some time ago, Mary Alden creates a mother almost as great as Vera Gordon’s.

“The Leopard Woman,” starring Louise Glaum, is booked for local screening, commencing on Friday. Louise Glaum was one of the first screen “vamps” and in this picture she “vamps” some more. However, she is not nearly as black-hearted as in some of her previous pictures, and she makes quite an attractive heroine. As “the leopard woman” she is reported to be excellent and does some difficult emotional work well. House Peters makes a very good hero but his “blindness” was too obviously assumed. The directing in this picture is said to be excellent and the film scenes are, it is said, completely deceptive. One could almost go in the box and say that the picture was made in Africa when the beaches of California were the locale of

the majority of the scenes. “The Leopard Woman” is set wholly in Africa, sometimes in Egypt and, for the rest, in the darkest parts of the Dark Continent. Some of the scenery is magnificent and the correct atmosphere has been caught right through. Frank Mayo, starring in “The Marriage Pit,” at a local picture house shows that he is a star because he is an actor and not because he is a type. Instead of portraying the same sort of a role in every picture as is done by so many cinema stars, Mayo has an entirely different character in every feature. In “The Marriage Pit’ he plays the part of a self-made man of the world. This picture throws a strong side-light on the methods of “big business” in America. The greatest Roman chariot race ever staged for the screen is shown in “Queen of Sheba,’ the big spectacular William Fox production which should be released in New Zealand shortly. For this scene J. Gordon Edwards, the director, whose productions have been seen in Invercargill quite frequently, used 3,500 persons and 30 horses. Ten chariots take part in the big race, and six weeks were required to build the . huge ampitheatre in which the race and games take place. ’ .Two weeks were consumed in filming this one episode. All stages of the race are shown and the climax is a big two-chariot contest in which Betty Blyths, as the Queen, drives the four white horses of King Solomon against four blacks handled by the Princess Vashti.

The natives of India are. becoming quite acquainted with American products that are being advertised by motion picture films- Views of road-making machinery at work have been of special interest, alhough machinery of all types take on well. It is unlikely that the British producer will lag behind in such enterprise, particularly when the the Americans have achieved is taken into consideration.

«Coming attractions to Massey’s Pictures, Bluff, include the following: Tuesday, “The Jucklins,” a fine drama, released by Paramount which Invercargill fans will remember as the film that introduce 1 Monte Blue to local favour; Thursday, “Colorado Pluck,” starring William Russell and “The Mother Heart,” starring Shirley Mason, both Fox ; Friday, “Rudd’s New Selection”; Saturday, “The Midnight Bride,” featuring Gladys Leslie.

“The Sentimental Bloke” and “On Our Selection” were both Carroll pictures; both won an international reputation. Now comes “Rudd’s New Selection,” produced under the same directorship. Dad comes back with his extensive family all just a wee bit older but all happily endowed with the good nature and delightful characteristics that wife, them a place in picturegoers’ hearts in the first Selection picture. Lottie Lyell, the delightful Doreen of ‘The Sentimental Bloke,” has the principal feminine role. Mr Tad Ordell, famous throughout Australasia for his inimitable creation of the character of Dave in “.On Our Selection,” is said to be even better in “Rudd’s New Selection.” The film commences its local screening to-night.

George K. Arthur, called the English Charles Ray, who appears as Kipps in the film adapted from H. G. Well’s novel, rejoices in one of the largest salaries ever paid to an English star, an honour that was forced by lively bidding between a prominent American company and that presided over by Sir Oswald . Stoll. Arthur is only 20 years of age and in “Kipps” he is said to give a great performance.

Persistent rumours that William Farnum has retired from the screen are denied at the New York office of William Fox. Plans concerning Farnum are indefinite, due to the fact that he has set no time for his returi from Europe, but it is stated authoritatively that he will continue to appear on the screen..

“The Golem,” the German production released through Famous Players-Lasky, has broken the record established by “Humoresque” at the New York Criterion last year. Recently “The Golem” ended its thirteenth week at that theatre, the longest consecutive run ever enjoyed by a motion picture in a “continuous”—six shows a, day—theatre.

The Stoll Picture Company, one of the leading British producing units, has released a film called “The Tragedy of a Comic Song,” which broke new ground by providing' a neat and witty little ten-minutes comedy. It received almost unanimous praise from the Press and is certain to please any intelligent audience,

STARS OF THE SCREEN. ‘No. 7. VIOLA DANA. > Viola Dana, one of the daintiest little maids on the screen and often described as the “Peter Pan of the Silver Sheet,” first made her debut on the stage as a dancer with Peter F Daly in “The Newport Girl” at the age of five years. For three years after that she played with Thomas Jefferson in “Rip Van Winkle,” in which she had the role of Little Hendrick, and Ibsen’s “When We Dead Awaken.” That great actor saw the talent possessed by the little actress and gave her the benefit of his intelligent criticism and advice. Miss Dana always loved anything connected with motion pictures and she tells of how she used to slip into the picture theatres when she was only a little girl and how 1 she used to dream of seeing herse'Zt’ in pictures some day. The time arrived quicker than she expected, for at the age of eleven her mother took her on a visit to the Edison Studio in New York where she became so fascinated that she was signed to appear in Edison pictures. However, the stage claimed her again and at the age of sixteen years she appeared as the star in Eleanor Gates’s play “The Poor Little Rich Girl,” and it was th.en that Mr Jefferson’s high opinion of her ability was borne out. She was a great success in “The Poor Little Rich Girl,” in which Mary Pickford appeared on the screen, the title of the picturised version being “The Good Little Devil,” and not the same as that of the stage version (as was wrongly stated when Mary Pickford appeared in “Stars of the Screen”/. After her appearance in “The Poor Littl? Rich GM” Miss Dana returned to Edison, her first picture, “Molly the Drummer Boy, 1 ’ winning for her a long term contract. She then joined Metro and played in a long series of successes. S'me of her recent productions for Metro have been “Please Get Married,” a screen version of the Morosco farce by James Cullen and Lewis Allen Browne and “The Willow Tree,” a Cohan and Harris play by Benrimo and Rhodes, wherein she scored a great artistic triumph for her impersonation of the wistfully poetic little Japanese girl. Miss Dana enjoyed this role more than any other she has played to date. .. Miss Dana is the daughter of Mr and Mrs Emil Flugarth and she was bom it} Brooklyn (New York) twenty-two years ago. She took the name by which she is now known when she. appeared in “The Poor Little Rich Girl.” Miss Dana is small but full of vim and energy, and is fond of athletics. She is a little over five feet in height and turns the scale at 96 pounds. Both her sisters are well known in movies. Shirley Mason, a year younger than Viola, is little less famous than her sister, while the other sister Edna

Flugarth, is also a bright light in the movies. The parents of this talented trio, vytve. strange to say, not connected with he stage at all but were farmers. Viola tells of how she and her little sisters used to work on the home farm at vacation time. One reason for the popular little star’s success is her motto, “Play the Game.” She believes in playing the game at work and play and is one of those stars who believe n a home life rather than that of the cabarets and ballrooms. Miss Dana was married but her husband died some time ago. Miss Dana has appeared in Invercargill this year in “Dangerous to Men,” “A Chorus Girl’s Romance,” “Blackmail,” Cinderella’s Twin,” “An Offshore Pirate” and “Puppets of Fate.” She has been seen most in comedy-drama but that she can sustain a dramatic role was amply proven when she appeared in “Puppets of Fate” as the little Italian wife deserted by her husband. In that role she showed emotional ability hitherto unsuspected in her. Miss Dana’s future appears very bright and it is a certainty that the versatile ■ little actress will go on increasing in favour the world over. “Everybody’s Girl,” as some call her, is very popular in New Zealand and locally she is a great favourite. She should be seen again soon in “Home Stuff” and “Life’s Darned Funny.”