The World of Motion Pictures

Southland Times, Issue 22192, 7 December 1933, Page 5

The World of Motion Pictures

THE MAJESTIC Now Showing: “Counsel’s Opinion” (Cyril Maude, Henry Kendall, Binnie Barnes, Lawrence Grossmith). Saturday: “The White Sister” (Helen Hayes, Clark Gable, Lewis Stone, Louise Closser Hale, May Robson). Coming: “Woman in his House” (Ann Harding. Leslie Howard, Myrna Loy, William Gargan). “The Warrior’s Husband” (Elissa Landi, Ernest Truex, David Manners, Marjorie Rambeau, Helene Madison). “International House” (Peggy Joyce Hopkins, W. C. Fields, Rudy Vallee, Sari Maritza, Stuart Erwin, Bela Lugosi). “It’s Great to be Alive” (Herbert Mundin, Paul Roulien, Edna May Oliver, Joan Marsh, Gloria Stuart).

Heralded as one of M-G-M.’s most ambitious productions of the year, “The White Sister,” co-starring Helen Hayes and Clark Gable, comes to the Majestic on Saturday. F. Marion Crawford's story of the girl who enters a convent when she believes her lover to be dead only’ to meet him attain after she has taken her holy vows, is too well known to need repetition, but the talkie version is said to bring out the most forceful moments, in describing the experiences of the romantic Italian girl and her soldier-lover. The always dependable Lewis Stone adds another fine portrayal to his long list of character roles as the aristocratic father who forbids his daughter’s love; the picture is given humorous touches in the dry wit of the inimitable Louise Closser Hale who plays the family servant; and the cast includes May Robson, Edward Arnold and Alan Edwards. Victor Fleming directed.

Jesse L. Lasky’s second production for Fox Film, “The Warrior’s Husband,” comes to the Majestic soon. It is the adaptation by Ralph Spence and Sonya Levien of the successful stage play by Julian Thompson. Elissa Landi, Marjorie Rambeau and Ernest Truex have the featured roles, which depicts the hilarious comedy of a period when women ruled and men had all they could do to remain clinging vines. The supporting cast includes David Manners, Helen Ware, Maude Eburne, Claudia Coleman, Ferdinand Gottschalk, John Sheehan, Lionel Belmore, and Helene Madison. The direction is by Walter Lang.

"International House,” Paramount's musical comedy’ which comes to the Majestic soon, has an enormous cast of American stage, screen and radio favourites, among whom are Peggy Hopkins Joyce, W. C. Fields, Rudy Vallee, Stuart Erwin, George Burns, Grade Allen, Sari Maritza, Colonel Stoopnagle and Budd, Cab Calloway and his orchestra, Baby Rose Marie, Bela Lugosi, Lona Andre, Franklin Pangborn, Edmund Breese, and Lumsden Hare. “International House” has a genuine plot in addition to its musical and spectacular qualities. Its action takes place at a hotel in a Chinese city, where representatives of big business from all over the world are assembled to see and bid upon a marvellous new invention, a device which can see and hear anything everywhere.

“Hindle Wakes,” the picture I told you about some months ago, with Dame Sybil Thorndike, Norman MeKinnel, John Stuart, Belle Chrystal, and Edmund Gwenn in the cast, has now reached New Zealand. “Hindle Wakes” derives its title from a very ancient anglo-Saxon custom, essentially religious in its origin. The “wake” of old time was an annual celebration to commemorate the completion or consecration of a parish church. Stanley Houghton’s perenially popular play of Lancashire life cannot fail to be interesting, for in it is the first lady of the stage.

Tire following biography tells something of Katharine Hepburn, whose father is Dr. Thomas N. Hepburn of West Hartford, Connecticut; aristocrat, intellectual, specialist, honoured, rich. Katharine (“Katie” en famille) is a college graduate (Bryn Mawr), reads every free minute she has; in fact, she likes so well to read that she never learned to play cards. And—now for a shock—she never goes to the movies unless it is because of something about her work, or in the nature of duty, when she goes grumbling and mumbling.

In Hollywood, she drives a car as big as the Tennessee, but when she gets home she has to park it next to the chicken house, for she lives on a farm and raises her own eggs. She lives alone, except for a wealthy girl friend from the East. Something most people do not know: she is married; husband is a life-insurance salesman. Her married name is Mrs Ludlow Smith. He is wealthy, dashing, devoted. Katharine’s middle name is Houghton, and she got is from her mother who is a cousin of Alanson B. Houghton, who, in turn, was America’s Ambassador to England. Her mother has a feather of her own, for she was president of the women suffragists of Connecticut, and led them to Washington where she picketed the White House. Back to Katherine: she has two brothers, two sisters. Her eyes are green, her hair reddish, and on her left hand is a long scar which she got when, as a child, she fell through a French window. She can speak French and German; likes to talk, and indulges in it freely. _ Cares not a whit what Hollywood thinks of her; has Hollywood eating out of her hand; retaliates by throwing her eggshells at it.

A questionnaire filled in by 3,440 exhibitors in the United States, who were asked to name the stars they

found most popular, has given the following result: Women —Marie Dressier, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford. Men—Wallace Beery, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore. It will be noted that those rising young players, Miss Garbo and Miss Dietrich, are not mentioned. But obviously such lists mean very little. How much of the drawing power of say, “Min and Bill” is due to Miss Dressier and how much to Mr Beery?, Are they both to have full marks for a success to which each probably contributed 50 per cent? The value of team work has been strikingly shown by the partnership of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. Together they are said to be the biggest box-office draw in the world, believe it or not. Alone Miss Gaynor’s pull is reduced perhaps 40 per cent and Mr Farrell is just another juvenile. Producers are no fools. If Miss Shearer and Miss Crawford are bigger draws than Greta Garbo, why does the company that employs all three pay Miss Garbo about twice as much as one and three times as much as the other?

One of the most. Important types of film to be made this season will be the biographical photoplay. Greta Garbo will be presented as the odd and wilful daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christina of Sweden, in a biographical drama about that strange lady. Norma Shearer is to appear as Marie Antoinette in a picture based on the recent Zweig account of the unfortunate queen. Edward G. Robinson, whose screen work has identified him with gangster roles, will play Bonaparte in “Napoleon—His Life and Loves.” Others are: Claudette Colbert in “Cleopatra”; Charles Laughton in Henry VIII; Paul Robeson in Eugene O’Neill’s “The Emperor Jones”; and there is a report that a film is to be based upon the life of Hitler, called “The Mad Dog of Europe.” It seems, however, that so far no actor .has been willing, for one reason or another, to accept the part of the Nazi chieftain.