The Moving Row of Magic Shadow Shapes

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18536, 5 April 1930, Page 15 (Supplement)

The Moving Row of Magic Shadow Shapes

Miss Billie Dove’s next First National picture, “Other Men’s Wives,” from a play by Walter Hackett, will be placed in production early this year. The two leading male roles will be played by Clive Brook and Sidney Blackmer. Clarence Badger will direct.

Neil Hamilton, Paramount player, has the reputation of being one of the finest amateur yachtsmen on the West Coast of America. His home between pictures is generally “somewhere on the Pacific,” aboard his boat.

George Bancroft is married to Octavis Broske, formerly a well-known stage actress. They have one child, a girl, eight years old.

The first talking picture team of its kind is announced by Fox Films, composed of El Brendel and tiny Marjorie White. Primarily due to the fact of their sensational success in “Sunny Side Up,” Brendel and Miss White have been .teamed in a modern musical comedy romance, “Rambling Rose,” to be directed by David Butler.

William Austin, the eccentric English comedian of the screen, was born in South America, educated in England, in business for a time in China, and made his stage and screen debut in the United States.

Many of the scenes for “The Big Pond,” Maurice Chevalier’s current alltalking picture for Paramount, depict the beautiful canals of Venice, Italy. A big tank of water is being used| at the Long Island studios to float the gondolas that appear in the scenes. Hobart Henley is directing the picture.

“Pointed Heels,” a Paramount alltalking production, featuring William Powell and Miss Fay Wray, will be released shortly. It is a highly dramatic play, dealing with the love of a wealthy stage producer for a chorus girl. A. Edward Sutherland directed. Miss Helen Kane, Skeets Gallagher and Eugene Pallette are in the cast.

Katherine Brush, the author of “Young Man of Manhattan,” which Paramount will produce as an alltalking picture, is conferring with Robert Presnell on the screen story and adaption. Production will start next month at the Long Island studios. Richard Arlen, Miss Claudette Colbert and Charles Ruggles will be featured, and Monta Bell will direct.

The difficulty of selecting a title for the Henry La Cossitt story founded on a famous Cleveland murder mystery, will be apparent to all those who see this second Joseph Schildkraut starring vehicle under Universal auspices. Universal has decided to release it under the title of the “Night Ride.” With Schildkraut appear E. G. Robinson and Barbara Kent.

Hamilton MacFladden has been assigned to direct for Fox Films, “The Mad Singer,” with A. Rockett acting as assistant producer. Mr MacFladden’s first effort for Fox was the recently completed “Harmony at Home,” which includes in its cast William Collier, Charlotte Henry, Dixie Lee, Marguerite Churchill, Elixabeth Patterson, and Rex Bell.

“The Cohens and Kellys in Scotland,” featuring the original Cohens and Kellys cast—George Sidney, Charlie Murray, Vera Gordon and Kate Price, has been completed at Universal City. William J. Craft, who directed, is putting the finishing touches on some of the Scotch jokes.

As one of the features of “The King of Jazz,” John Murray Anderson is adapting the scene of Asa’s Death, much as it was done in the Theatre Guild production. Joseph Schildkraut will play the number, which was the high spot of his performance in “Peer Gynt ”

Helen Grace Carlisle, the brilliant young novelist, whom Universal put under contract this year, is working on the adaptation of “Sincerity” by John Erskine. “Sincerity” is Prof. Erskine’s current novel, dealing with modem marriage in a small town.

Norma Shearer actually had to go to gaol when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer filmed “The Trial of Mary Dugan,” Bayard Veiller’s all—talking picture. Playing the role of Mary Dugan, Miss Shearer had to have her fingerprints taken for

the Courtroom scenes. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office obliged and sent her up to the gaol, where the fingerprinting was done in the regulation manner. Bayard Veiller directed the filmisation of his famous play with an all-star cast. Lewis Stone, H. B. Warner and Raymond Hackett are featured with Miss Shearer.

Two Warner Bros.’ Vitaphone specials, “The Aviator” and “So Long Letty,” have been selected for commendation in the National Board of Review’s Photoplay Guide of Popular Entertainment.

The next all-Technicolour production to be released by Warners will be “Song of the West,” starring John Boles, of “Desert Song” fame, and Vivienne Seegal.

Most screen celebrities have hobbies, but Donald Gallagher, Fox Movietone director, probably has one of the most expensive ones. An ardent student of decoration and landscaping, Gallagher’s chief delight is to buy a house, furnish and decorate it completely, lose interest as soon as the job is done, and then sell it to the first bidder—often at a real loss—simply so that he can buy another place and start all over again.

The biggest piano ever built is part of the unique setting used by John Murray Anderson for the ’’Rhapsody in Blue” number of “Universal’s “King of Jazz.” The piano was built to contain the Whiteman band—including Paul himself was forty feet long, seven feet high with the lid closed, and thirty feet on the keyboard. Each of the notes, on which the Russell Market Ballet danced the music, is over a foot wide and five feet long.

Bradley King, one of the talking screen’s outstanding women scenario writers, has been signed to a longterm contract by Fox Films and given as her first assignment the preparation of the script and dialogue of “Road House,” from the story by Philip Hurn. Miss King, who has been writing stories ever since she left the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Albany, New York, recently has done dialogue and scenarios for “Anna Christie,” “Weary River,” “Drag,” “Young Nowheres,” and “Son of the Gods.”

Tom Reed has completed the continuity for “Losca” by Frank Desprez. Universal made this production once before, with Frank Mayo and Edith Roberts. The cast for the new talking production has not as yet been announced.

The art of camouflage, forerunner of the modern futuristic painting, has been revived in all its multi-coloured weirdness in Hollywood. The fantastic patterns, so familiar during the war, were used on the settings and equipment for “Young Eagles,” Charles (Buddy) Rogers’ current all-talking picture for Paramount. “Young “Eagles” Is a dramatic spectacle of combat in the air and every effort was expended to accurately produce the equipment used in the Great War.

Three former directors donned the greasepaint for roles in Radio Pictures’ lavish musical comedy “Hit the Deck,” just completed. Dell Henderson was formerly director for Universal Biograph, Triangle and Fox. He plays the part of an admiral. Harry Sweet once directed the antics of Ben Turpin, Harry Lankdon, and Clark and McCullough. He is “Bunny” in “Hit the Deck.” Wallace MacDonald, who wielded a megaphone at Educational and First Division, has a leading romantic role in this picture.

Of recent years it is difficult to recall any overseas theatrical star making a more overwhelming success than Leo Carrillo—who has just concluded a prolonged visit to these shores. This famous American actor’s wonderful personality and abilities have been much in evidence at the Criterion Theatre, Sydney, in the famous play “Lombardi Ltd.,” where he scored a triumphant success, placing his fame on everybody’s lips. Now the management of Kinema Art Films, through the medium of the speaking screen, announces this star in his first talking picture, “Mr. Antonio.” Carrillo is supported by Virginia Valli, and a host of famous artistes. In the picture Carrillo depicts—with his wonderful

flair for dialect —an Italian hurdy-gur-dy man, who is a philosopher, to wit. It is a comedy drama of the highest order, and patrons will have an opportunity of seeing and hearing him for the first time.

Will Roger’s first Fox Movietone comedy, “They Had to See Paris,” was

an international triumph and is one of the outstanding hits of the current season. His second for Fox Movietone is entitled “So This is London,” from

George M. Cohen’s international stage success. It was directed by John Blystone, with Jullian Sands, English beauty and stage star, playing the leading role. “So This is London,” will be one of the big hits on Fox 1930 programme.

The “Unknown Beauty,” is the new title of “The Golden Calf,” which is being directed by Millard Webb. Jack Mulhall and Sue Carol are featured in this production which is really a gem and EL. Brendel, Marjorie White, Richard Keen, and Paul Page, have eclipsed anything they have yet done.

George O’Brien, the Fox featured star, arrived in Hollywood on February 12 after nearly one month’s absence travelling in Upper Washington and Oregon States, where he and his company filmed the bigger portion of a new out-of-doors drama, “The Girl Who Wasn't Married.” In the company with O’Brien were A. F. Erickson, the director, Antonio Mereno, who essayed the heavy role, and Helen Chandler, the star’s leading lady.

It has just been announced that the Red Star Music Company, the Fox Music Publishing and distributing corporation, will bring to the United States, Ronald Genes and Arthur Winpress rated as the foremost musical comedy songwriters in Great Britain. According to the British Press this team is an unbeatable combination and

has to its credit the outstanding musical comedy hits of London during the past three seasons.

Heredity Is probably largely responsible for the notable performance given by Kenneth Mac Kenna in the leading role of “Men Without Women.” Critics have hailed Mac Kenna’s work as the

mysterious petty officer of the submarine as one of the finest portrayals yet given to the speaking screen. But

Mac Kenna himself believes that the sea going realism of his characterisation is partly inherited. For the past 200 years or so the men of his mother’s family have been see captains, and the actor, as he expresses it, “has salt in liis blood.” Songs are an abundant feature of “Men Without Women,” the tunes all old old-time favourites and are carolled by the sailors in Shanghai resorts during the opening sequences of the picture. Shirley Mason, film player, until recently was the wife of an author, but now she is the matrimonial partner of a movie director. It is not the case of divorce and re-marrlage, but it is a way of saying that Shirley’s husband* Sidney Lanfield, who went to Hollywood to write gags, has been promoted fa# Fox Films to the directorial ranks. Lanfield’s new assignment came upon his completion of the story and dialogue for “Happy Days.” The first picture he will direct will be “If J Was Alone With You,” from a popular magazine story by Richard Connell. “How charmingly naive and oldfashioned of you to believe in the bonds of marriage,” George Barraud says to Mae Murray in an early scene of “Peacock Alley," the Tiffany all-talking production recorded by RCA Photophone and to be released by Cinema Art Films. To which Miss Murray, in the role of a dancer who thinks marriage is a harbour and a protection for a woman, declares that “the ring, the minister and the wedding march are important—and any woman who says she doesn’t is lying.” Miss Murray makes her talking debut in this new production of “Peacock Alley,” which also has a new story by Carey Wilson. I She sings, “In Dreams You’ll Still Belong to Me” to her own piano accompaniment and performs some characteristic Murray dances in Technicolour.

Mr Carl Brisson, the idol of women theatre-goers and film-lovers, was injured in a duel with Mr Cecil Barry in a lonely wood at Burnham Beeches, five miles from Windsor. Mr Carl Brisson and Mr Barry were rehearsing the duel scene for a film, “The American Prisoner,” when the accident occurred, Mr Barry “pinking” Mr Brisson in the left side with his rapier. Both actors are accomplished swordsmen, and possibly entered into the duel in a spirit of more enthusiasm than would have been attempted by those less skilled. The wood at Burnham Beeches is an old-world spot where many a real duel was fought in the days when men defended their honour with the naked blade. “The American Prisoner” is a Cinema Art Films’ release.

The only way to play dialect roles is to study foreign languages. That is the contention of Leo Carrillo, who is one of the stage’s most successful dialect actors. “How can you know what a Frenchman will do with English,” Carrillo asks, “if you don’t know what the vowel and consonant sounds are in his native tongue, or what peculiar twists there are, compared with your own language, in his grammar? You can’t understand the Frenchman’s difficulties with the English letter “r” until you know that he doesn’t pronounce an “r”, but breathes it through the sound of the vowel that follows it.” Carrillo, consequently, has made a study of five languages French, Spanish, Russian and German. Leo Carrillo brings his famous Italian dialect to the title role of “Mister Antonio,” the Booth Tarkington play to be released by Cinema Art Films, Virginia Valli is co-starred with Leo Carrillo in this Tiffany-Stahl all-dia-logue production, synchronised by RCA Photophone.