ACROSS THE FOOTLIGHTS

Taranaki Daily News, 31 March 1934, Page 20 (Supplement)

ACROSS THE FOOTLIGHTS

STARS AT WORK AND PLAY LATEST NEWS FROM EVERYWHERE Herbert Mundin’s Jobs. Herbert Mundin once installed tele® phones for a living. An Expensive Cat. Heather Angel’s pet kitten, “Penny,” had to have its claws clipped because it insisted on sharpening them on the legs of expensive tables. Not Marlene’s Present. Raquel Torres wears cream flannel trousers when she is not working on th® set at the 8.1. P. studio, Elstree, and she says they were not a present from Marlene Dietrich either. Norman Foster’s First Job. Norman Foster spent eight months attempting to get work as a reporter, and finally, discovering himself broke, took a job with an itinerant stock company. George O’Brien as Shark. George O’Brien’s first appearance on the screen was as a double for a shark. He wore a black covering with a fin fastened to his back and swam under water with only the fin exposed. He earned 15 dollars for it Nightmare Comes True. John Barrymore appeared on the “Reunion in Vienna” set clad only in shirttails for a comedy scene. “If you’re embarrassed I’ll have a screen put round the set,” offered Director Sidney Franklin. “Nonsense,” replied Barrymore. “I’m perfectly at home—l’ve dreamed this scene a thousand times.” New in Autographs. John Barrymore, “Re-union in Vienna” star, is going after photograph collecting in a large way. With a stock of autographed pictures already at hand, he Is now busy rounding up Sets of stills of pictures in which, he has been starred. He is going to bind them in volumes. “I have to have something to leave to my children,” Barrymore explains. First Horn Rimmer. The first actor to wear horn rimmed glasses was not Harold Lloyd. The honour belongs to Walter Catleft, former Ziegfeld star, who is now in the movie*, However, Catlett wore glasses, not just for the effect, as did Lloyd, but because his eyesight was not, and is not, as good as might be. The horn-rimmed spectacles have come to be almost as much of a Catlett trade-mark as they are a Lloyd label. Catlett is in “Olsen’s Big Moment,” now at the Regent. Warner Baxter for England. Madeleine Carroll and Jessie Matthews will go to Hollywood soon, but they will not be lost to British films. They are the first two stars to be selected by Gaumont British for exchange with Fox Films. Miss Carroll, whose £10,900 a year contract with Gaumont British is being renewed, will probably be featured by Fox Films in a spectacular drama, “The World Moves On.” Miss Matthews will appear in a musical film being specially written for her. The first star to come to the Gaumont British studios at Shepherd’s Bush from the Fox studios in Hollywood will be Warner Baxter. None of these exchanges will be permanent. Fredric March as Cellini. Fredric March, famous motion picture star, has signed a long term contract with 20th Century Pictures. His first picture will be “The Affairs of Cellini,” based on a combination of Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography and Edwin Justus Mayer’s play, “The Firebrand.” Bess Meredyth is preparing the script and Gregory La Sava is slated to direct Although March has been besieged with offers from all the major producers in Hollywood, following completion of his contract with Paramount, he preferred io sign with the Schenck-Zanuck organisation because of that company’s policy of making pictures of the big “special” type. Last season March won the motion picture academy’s award for the best performance of the year with his portrayal in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Some of his other successes have been In “Manslaughter,” “The Sign of the Cross,” “Smilin’ Through” and “Design for Living.”

Ronald Colman Joins 20th Century. “Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back" SB announced as the first story in which Ronald Colman is to be starred by 20th Century Pictures. The author, H. S. McNeile, terms this book the most exciting adventure of them alh This, according to Darryl Zanuck, is to be a picture recounting the further exploits .cf the delightful adventurer. “Bulldog Drummond,” adapted from the novel.of the same name, was Ronald Colman's first and greatest talking picture, and »et the standard by which spoken films wero measured. In this screen reincarnation, Colman will take the beloved Drummond through a new maize of hair-raising adventures. Naturally Johnson has been assigned .to make the adaptation. Colman will arrive at Hollywood soon from Java, thus completing a long absence during which he will have circled the globe. During this absence negotiations were completed whereby his contract was transferred from Samuel Goldwyn to 20th Century Pictures. Typical Shavian Humour.

The two best scenes in Mr. G. H» Shaw’s political fantasy “On the Rocks’* at London Winter Garden are the con« versations between the Prime Minister and Mr. Hipney, the old Socialist Leader from the Isle of Cats. Mr. Hipney is re» presented as predicting that a statue of Guy Fawkes would be erected in Westminster, on the site of the present Hous* of Commons; as saying that Cabinet I* full of Labour men who started as redhot Socialists; that the Labcur movement is rotten with book learning; and that democracy was a great thing when he was young and had no vote. “You can’t frighten me with a word like dictator,” he is made to say. “Me. and my like have been dictated to all our lives by swine that have nothing but a snout for money”; and “the Jews did not elect Moses: he just told them what to do and they did it. Look at the way they went wrong the minute his back was turned.” Sir Broadfoot Basham is Chief Commissioner of Police in the Shaw fantasy, and he is made to say, “An English crowd will never do anything, mischievous or the reverse, while it is listening >to speeches. It seems easy to buy a lot of black shirts, or brown shirts, or red shirts, and give one to every hooligan who is out for any sort of mischief and every suburban out-of-work who fancies himself a patriot. But don’t forget that the coloured shirt is a uniform.” There is an outstanding scene between the Prime Minister and the woman healer, who tells him that he is suffering from a “very common English complaint— an underworked brain.” Other quotation! are: “Games are for people who can neither read nor think. Men trifle with their business and their politics; but they never trifle with their games. Golf gives them at least a week-end of earnest concentration. It brings truth home to them.” “The Englishman is at h!» best on the links, and at his worst tfi the Cabinet.” “Curious how idle peopl* are always clamouring to be braced! ’.ike trousers.”