CAVALRY OFFICER TO MOVIE DIRECTOR

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 196, 8 November 1927, Page 12

CAVALRY OFFICER TO MOVIE DIRECTOR

COUNT GRONICKA OF U.F.A. FILMS VISITS AUCKLAND

To step from a crack Rusai* o cavalry regiment into the busine** side cf the German film industry has been the experience of Count Edward Gronicka, who arrived Auckland yesterday by thf Niagara. After spending some time at Rotorua and motoring through the North Island Count Gronicka will proceed to Sydney to take over the control of the Cinema Art Films, in which U.F.A., the German organisation whose interests n« has been watching in Warsaw, na§ * big interest. The Count, who has the tall, figure of the typical cavalry officer, ha** to thank the Soviet for his introduction to the film business. Forced to fly “J® Riga, where brutalities unparalleled even in Russia were systematically carried out. Count Gronicka set to work to learn the film business 1,1 Germany. PICTURES IN POLAND So successful was his study of organisation that prior to his appointment. in Australia, he was stationed at Warsaw with the whole of Polan--with its population of 30.000,000 under his direction, on behalf of U.F.A. Count Gronicka comes from the ol Baltic aristocracy, a caste which suffered a loss of a third as a result oBolshevik tyranny. Consequently, has little sympathy for the Marxia doctrines. He recalled how extensively the •-"* viet Government is now engaging m film propaganda. “No one can disagrse with the artistry of such a picture as ‘Count Propotkin/ for the Russian actor is always an artist, but as for it* sentiments—oh, that is a very different matter*' This film, he explained, had been prohibited in Poland, Italy and Frani • and was only permitted in c ? r ~i‘ areas in Germany. While the P ir *' was screened in Berlin, for instan * Munich would have none of it. AUCKLAND’S THEATRES Count Gronicka was amazed at the comfort and size of both the Majesu and Regent Theatres in Auckian Warsaw, with its million inhabitant he declared, had no theatre to co pare with either of them.