The SCREEN and its STARS

Southland Times, Issue 21730, 16 June 1932, Page 10

The SCREEN and its STARS

(By

“Columbine ”)

THE REGENT. Now Showing: “The Age for Love” (United Artists —Billie Dove, Lois Wilson, Charles Starrett, Edward Everett Horton). Saturday: “One Hour With You” (Paramount —Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Genevieve Tobin, Charles Ruggles, Roland Young) and Vaudeville (Paula and Pauline, tight-wire artistes and dancers). Coming Attractions: Abdy’s Animal Circus—Vaudeville; “His Woman” (Gary Cooper, Claudette Colbert); “Touchdown” (Richard Arlen, Peggy Shannon, Jack Oakie, Regis Toomey, Charles Starrett); “Man of Mayfair” (Jack Buchanan, Joan Barry, Warwick Ward, Nora Swinburne); “The Ruling Voice” (Walter Huston, Loretta Young, Doris Kenyon); “Splinters in the Navy”; “Frankenstein”; “Shanghai Express.” * • • « Billie Dove, reputed to be the most beautiful girl in America, and the winner of more “most beautiful film star” contests than any other film actress, makes her return to the screen after an absence of two years in the Howard Hughes’ domestic drama, “The Age for Love.” Although she was starred in about half a dozen of the very early audible film dramas, Miss Dove was considered to have actually made her “talking picture debut” in the present film; because in the two years of her retirement she has been studying voice production and stage technique for the purpose of acquiring a deeper tone and a new screen personality. In “The Age for Love” she emerges as a United Artists star, beautifullj' gowned, with a good dramatic sense, and much of her American origin polished away from her voice. A United Artists star, of course, comes to the screen with a tremendous advantage, joining the ranks of Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Gloria Swanson, Charlie Chaplin and a few other of the chosen. Frank Capra directed this film, especially written for her return, and she is surrounded by a fine cast headed by Edward Everett Horton (that excellent comedian who made the memorable “Once a Gentleman”), Charles Starrett, Lois Wilson, Mary Duncan, Joan Standing, Jed Prouty, Andre Beranger and Adrian Morris. * * ♦ #

_ It is always with a spurt of satisfaction that I sit up to record the fact when Invercargill is given the distinction of holding the New Zealand premiere of any notable film, and of late this has happened very infrequently. But on Saturday at the Regent Maurice Chevalier’s latest film for Paramount, made since his very successful return to the stage for a limited season this year, is to be given its first New Zealand screening, almost simultaneously, I notice, with its Australian premiere in Sydney. When I call “One Hour With You,” Chevalier’s film, I mean that he is the star of the film; but from the other distinguished names in the cast it appears he has to share the honour of the production. Actually, my favourite American reviewer hands the whole picture to one of my favourite actors—Roland Young—whose “Am I boring you?,” he says, is the highlight of the whole production. But I will quote my reviewer further: “One of the classic comedies of the late and frequently lamented silent cinema has been made into a screen musical comedy by the man who produced it originally and it is gay, high-spirited and debonairly charming. In other words, Ernst Lubitsch’s pantomimic sex trifle, “The Marriage Circle,” in which Monte Blue, Adolphe Menjou, Miss Florence Vidor, Miss Marie Prevost and Creighton Hale once frolicked, has been transformed by Mr Lubitsch into a delightful musical photoplay, with the same roles played, in order given, by Maurice Chevalier, Roland Young, Miss Jeannette MacDonald, Miss Genevieve Tobin and Charles Ruggles. In the leading role Maurice Chevalier plays with all of that celebrated charm which is attached to his reputation, but with a deft expertness which reveals him as a far shrewder actor than most of us had realized that he was. It is, I think, his best American performance. It is a shame that Roland Young, as the flirtatious friend’s husband, has so little to do, but he manages his few episodes with his customary brilliance. Please believe me when I tell you that he says, ‘Am I boring you?’ and makes it sound like the wittiest of lines.” “One Hour With You” is a screen comedy with musical interludes, each song having some part in the plot. The music was written by Oscar Straus (who wrote the music of “The Chocolate Soldier”) and Richard Whiting (who wrote “Louise”). The songs are:—“We Will Always Be Sweethearts” (Chevalier and MacDonald), “One Hour With You” (introduced by Bing Crosby and his band, and sung later by Chevalier and MacDonald), “What Would You Do?” (comedy number, sung by Chevalier), “What a Little Thing Like a Wedding Ring Can Do” (Chevalier and MacDonald), “It Was Only a Dream Kiss” (Jeanette MacDonald), “Oh! That Mitzi” (Maurice Chevalier) and “Three Times a Day” (Chevalier and Genevieve Tobin). And on the same programme is the second of the J.C.W. Celebrity Vaudeville Acts, to round off the fare. This series is being instituted as a trial to test public reaction to this type of entertainment, and if successful, a vaudeville act will become part of each weekly programme. Judging by the excellence and the reception of the very fine trapeze act showing this week, this seems a move in the right direction.

The next picture feature at the Regent is to be “His Woman,” the Paramount film mentioned in these columns some time ago as the picture which hardened reviewers say is “stolen” from the stars, Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper, by a marvellous nine-months-old male baby, Richard Spiro.

Norma Talmadge has gone to New York from Hollywood and will sail for Paris for a vacation.

John M. Stahl has completed “Back Street,” from Fannie Hurst’s novel. The cast includes Irene Dunne, Jack Boles, Zazu Pitts, Robert McQuade and Gloria Stuart.

“After All,” the John van Druten play, which is being made into a talking picture by M.G.M. will be released as “New Morals for Old.” Charles Brabin is directing it, and the cast includes Margaret Perry, Robert Young, Laura Hope Crews, Lewis Stone, Donald Cook, Jean Hersholt, Katheryn Crawford, Mitchell Lewis and Myrna Loy.

Robert Young and Maureen O’Sullivan have been added to the cast of the film version of Eugene O’Neill’s remarkable play, “Strange Interlude,” in which Norma Shearer and Alexander Kirkland (loaned by Fox to M.G.M.) have the leading roles. Robert Z. Leonard is directing. Clark Gable was to have had the male lead, for which he would have been quite inadequate.

Loretta Young will play the lead in First National’s “Woman’s Day.” Others will include Aline MacMahon, Frank McHugh, Vivienne Osborne and Sheila Terry.

Douglas Fairbanks jr. has just sola a short story to “Liberty Magazine,” entitled “Gay Love,” and is now at work on another story during his spare moments at the First National studios in California.

Lysle Talbot is playing in “Competition” (Warners) under direction of Erl Kenton. Others in the cast include Chic Sale, Ann Dvorak, David Manners, Noah Beery, Raymond Hatton and Maude Eburne.

Jack Holt will be next starred in “The Thirteenth Man,” which Howard Higgin will direct for Columbia. Tire story is one of adventure in the South Seas and was written by Howard Higgin and Elliott Clawson especially for Holt.

Mack Sennett, the pioneer shortcomedy producer, armounc is that hereafter all of his pictures will be released by the Paramount and he adds that they will be of greater length. He now expects to make “Featurettes,” film of three or four reels instead of two, and among the stars for them will be Bing Crosby, Andy Clyde, Charlie Murray, Babe Kane and Dorothy Granger.

“The Devil and the Deep” will be Tallulah Bankhead's next starring vehicle for Paramount. The film will introduce Charles Laughton, the English actor, to the screen and will be directed by Marion Gering, who made “Ladies of the Big House.” Harry Hervey is preparing the screen play with Benn W. Levy. The picture will team Miss Bankhead and Gary Cooper for the first time.

“The Last of the Mohicans," by James Fenimore Cooper, is to be filmed as a talking picture serial, with Harry Carey and Edwina Booth in the leading roles (Mascot Pictures). B. Reeves Eason is the director and others in the cast include Hobart Bosworth, Lucille Brown, Junior Coghlan, Nelson McDowell, Walter Miller, and Walter McGrail. The screen adaptation for this twelve chapter release was made by Wyndham Gittens, Ford Beebe and Colbert Clark, Mascot staff writers. A Wonder Film. | (From a New York Correspondent). M.G.M’s magnificent production of Vicki Baum’s successful play, “Grand Hotel,” was shown on Broadway in mid-April with theatrical, as well as movie, critics attending the sensational first night, over which there was as much fuss made as if it had been a flesh and blood, instead of a shadow show. Everyone must know by now that the photoplay is a vast success and that the congress of stars appearing in it, including Greta Garbo, John and Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt and a half dozen or so other prominent names, has provided the best cinema circus in history. You should remember, though, that the triumph of the film has not been merely the result of the extravagance of the casting. Mr Irving Thalberg’s showmanship has gone deeper than that. It was arranged that the players should not merely give a series of sideshows, in which each one would attempt in grim determination to steal the picture from his rivals. As it is produced “Grand Hotel” not only offers the greatest collection of stars seen under one roof, but shows them working amiably together and providing a carefully orchestrated performance worthy of the Theatre Guild or the Moscow Art Theatre. For this bringing of a wild and erratic group of actors into a docile orchestra without losing any of the individual styles of the performers, the director, Edmund Goulding, deserves the credit. In his cinema past many sins of bad taste and clumsy manipulation must be charged to Mr Goulding, but at least he has always been able to handle actors. In “Grand Hotel” he reveals the combined talents of peacemaker, diplomat and film director. All of this distribution of the proper credit has kept me too long from the really important topic, which is, of course, the triumph of Miss Garbo. In “Grand Hotel” she faces what must have been her most difficult assignment since, in “Anna Christie,” she first encountered the hostile microphone. It is not that the role in the new photoplay was too difficult. The trouble was that it was not difficult enough. The part of the dancer in “Grand Hotel” is nominally the lead, but if you will inquire carefully you will discover that it is chiefly important not because it is the most active part in the film but because it is the most passive. The plot and the movement may centre about her, but that is because she motivates so much of the action, not because she dominates it. In the past Miss Garbo has been provided with what were strictly and definitely starring vehicles. In “Grand Hotel” several of the other parts were, in footage and activity, more obviously striking than hers. Rumours of that had managed to circulate, and a reasonably large share of the public was ready to cry out proudly and happily over the discovery that, for once, Greta Garbo hadn’t dominated a picture. To the consternation of her detractors, however, the power of her beauty, her allure and her by-now-inescapable dramatic ability were great enough to result in her finest triumph. I am not sure, come to think of it, that her portrayal is better than her performance in “Susan Lenox,” but certainly it is the most vivacious of her characterizations, as well as the one scored over the greatest handicaps. Although there is something of the tour-de-force about Lionel Barrymore’s work as the invalid Kringelein, a quality which extracts something from its effectiveness, his is assuredly one of the most touching portrayals of the recent cinema; one of this actor’s most definite achievements. Next to Miss Garbo’s work, however, my favourite performance is that of John Barrymore, who, in the conventional role of the robber baron, manages to be so gay and charming and distinctive. I am convinced, too—that Miss Joan Crawford is many times superior to her stage predecessor, as the tractable stenographer. I liked Mr Beery’s characterization, but he seemed to me inferior to Siegfried Rumann, of the earlier cast