The Moving Row of Magic Shadow Shapes

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18629, 26 July 1930, Page 10

The Moving Row of Magic Shadow Shapes

OMAR KHAYAM

Three new songs by Vincent Youvnans, “Love Is Like a Song.” “Say Oui. i Cherie” and "The Only One” are sung j by Gloria Swanson in her laest picture “What a Widow!” “And now that the result has been •shown, the film people there —as always—have been most generous in their admission that they were wrong. The triumph which has greeted our flouting of the accepted conventions j lias been so decided that it has left us gasping a little.” Mr Whale spent many years in London as a small-part actor and producer, his first stage engagement being as the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. Walter Huston who recently completed “Abraham Lincoln” for United Artists has been signed a long term starring contract with that company. The actor now stays in the studio of Mary Pickford, Norma Talmadge, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and others. “Condemned,” the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer drama which v/ill be seen in New Zealand shortly, is the second alltalking picture to be made by Ronald Colman the popular star of many silent pictures. The contrast between this picture and the star’s previous effort,

“Eulldog Drummond.” is striking. Colman is cast as a regenade who is serving a prison sentence on Devil’s Island, the French penal settlement which has borne such an unenviable reputation since the notorious Dreyfus case in the closing of last century. He meets and falls in love with the one and only woman under circumstances which imperil his life and her happiness, and though the picture is set in intensely dramatic surroundings, there are some very fine patches of comedy relief. There are many new features in the production of the picture. It was rehearsed after the manner of a stage play, in an especially prepared jungle setting, and was produced with the frank intention of demonstrationg the possibilities of the talking picture. Ann Harding, a noted player of the New York legitimate stage, is seen in the leading feminine role. Considered to be the most lavishly staged musical production ever screened, Universal’s “King of Jazz,” starring Paul Whiteman and his band, and featuring a host of celebrated stage and screen artists, has been playing to a continued succession of wonderful seasons in the principal theatres in America. Harold Franklin, head of the Fox West Coast theatres, through which extensive chain of cinemas the Universal production has been booked, has made the following official report: “We have rated it ‘magnificent.’ The picture’s percentage after review be- ( fore ninety officials of the studios, film exchanges and others, was 98. During the past five years, only four pictures have received such a high percentage rating. One actor quite frequently plays two parts in the same picture, but when it takes two actors to play one part—well, that's something else again. In Mary Pickford’s current picture, “Forever Yours,” the baby part in the dramatic ranchhouse episode is played by two babies. They are the Sanderson

twins, two years old, and not only their mother, but even the camera can’t tell them apart. So director Neilaii had the brilliant idea of signing them both. While one works, the other sleeps, and when the time limit is up for one, then the other takes his place.

With civic leaders, public officials and members of the motion picture professions in attendance, a memorial statue of Rudolph Valentino, the gift of the late screen idol’s admirers from all

over the world was unveiled in Hollywodd recently by Miss Dolores Del Rio. The famous artist voiced a tribute in three different languages that was recorded by newsreel for English, Spanish and French speaking countries.

Lloyd Hamilton, of the old Ham and Bud comedies, has signed to play one of the principal roles in “Are You There,” the picture in which Beatrice Lillie, English comedienne, will make her movietone debut. Hamilton, who was one of the most popular” laughmakers of the silent screen, has just finished a series of short-length talkie comedies. Also in the cast of “Are You There,” will be John Garrick, Olga Baclanova, and Jillian Sand.

Rose Hobart, the young Broadway actress who has been described as a combination of Greta Garbo and Lil- ! lian Gish, has gone to Hollywood to j playing the leading role of “Julia” in j “Liliom,” at the Fox Studios. An- j nouncement of the signing of Miss j Hobart for Frank Borzage’s next production was followed shortly by word j that she would leave for the coast im- j mediately following the completion of j the run of “Death Takes a Holiday,” ! now playing in New York. Miss Hobart has the leading role in that production. Charles Farrell of Seventh Heaven,”

“Sunny Side Up,” and High Society Blues” fame, will play the title role in this film. S. N. Behrman has written the dialogue from Franz Molnar’s play. Sonya Levien has prepared the adaptation and the continuity.

John Russell, noted author of South Sea stories, is preparing the story for

“The Painted Woman,” described as one of the important productions on the Fox Movietone schedule for 193031. It deals with the experience of the hard-boiled captain of a tramp freighter, in the South Seas, his equally tough mate and a lady of the world. Russell wrote “Where the Pavement Ends,” | Far Wandering Men,” and “In ; Dark Places.” He has just completed j a new volume of short stories, “Cops I *n’ Robbers.” P. G. Wodehouse. who doesn't sign his stories Polham Granville Wodehouse because he thinks those names are more suitable for a diplomat than a humorist, is now at the Metro-Gold-wyn-Mayer studios for his first try at motion picture work. He is accompanied by his daughter, Leonora, who has scenario ambitions herself. “Since motion picture work is absolutely new to me,” he said, "and I haven’t been told what my first assignment will be, I can’t say much about my activities in California. I should like to do something original rather than adapt one of my earlier books or stories to the screen. Just now my thoughts are so coloured by this neuritis complex that I am sure I should have my hero walking about with his arm in a sling. But perhaps I will feel differently when

I am ready to begin work. Marion Davies is the author’s favourite in the realm of light comedy, and while prais- j ing Miss Davies’ work in "Not So' Dumb.” he expressed the hope that he , might be able to do a story for this | star. Universal’s ‘“The King of Jazz.” has j ; been re-made for the foreign market j in nine separate languages—Spanish.' i Portuguese, Italian. French. German, i Hungarian. Japanese, Swedish and I Czecko-Slovakian. j Harold Lloyd, has assembled for his j , support in "Feet First,” his second I ; Paramount picture now in production, a group of Hollywood players in- j I eluding Barbara Kent, leading lady in j "Welcome Danger,” and Robert Me- j Wade, Lilliane Leighton, and Henry Hall. Filming has started on Cyril Maude’s first Paramount all-talking picture, "Grumpy,” under the direction of George Cukor and Cyril Gardner, who directed the dialogue in "All Quiet on the Western Front." Phillips Holmes and Frances Wade are playing the juvenile leads. Paul Cavanagh, an English actor, whose first appearance on the New York stage won him a film contract with Paramount, plays the villain in "Grumpy.” Cyril Maude, the creator of the original stage title role, is starred and Phillips Holmes and Frances Wade have the juvenile leads. Notable additions to the supporting cast of "Love Among the Millionaires,” Clara Bow's next all-talking Paramount picture, include Sheets Gallagher, Stuart Erwin and Mitzi Green. Stanley Smith is featured in the leadI ing male role. Production is in progress at the Hollywood studios, under the direction of Frank Tuttle. Not since his unforgettable "Broken Blossoms,” has Richard Barthelmess, the First National and Vitaphone star, appeared against the exotic and mystic background of Chinese philosophy and customs. In "Sons of the Gods.” his newest and most starring vehicle, he once again appears amid the surroundings of this ancient civilisation. The story is based on Rex Beach’s novel, and the scenes are laid in American Chinatowns and the French Riviera.

The palace of the late Russian tzar, and the luxurious castles of his royal followers are among the historic buildings duplicated in Hollywood by First National Studies, in filming their first all-colour operetta. “Song of the Flame.” Petrograd Square, the gathering place of the revolutionists, small Russian villages, Petrograd streets, the river bank with its shacks and palaces, and Kasanov Castle, are among the many structures built for the picture. “The Little Cafe.” has been selected as the title for Maurice Chevalier’s next Paramount all-talking picture, shortly to go into production in Hollywood. The new film is based on the musical comedy, which has played successfully in New York. Ludwig Berger, who made Paramount's “The Vagabond King." will direct “The Little Cafe,” in which the star will appear as a romantic Parisian, who is an inefficient waiter by day and a spendrift count by night.

Some interesting views on the question of the monopoly which the United States is regarded as jikely to exercise over the picture-going world, were expressed at a recent luncheon in London by Mr C. B. Cochran the famous English revue producer. Mr Cochran voiced his remarks after having seen a private presentation of Hollywood’s latest screen spectacle in colour, “The King of Jazz.” “Much as I admire American enterprise and resource,” he said, “I do not believe that s.ny great picture-producing organisation or any combination of such organisations can possibly turn out a sufficient number of pictures with the requisite universal appeal to humanity to give America anything like a monopoly. On the contrary, I am convinced that everyone will have an opportunity, and that only the best will survive. Nor do I believe that the talking pictures will prove a greater menace to the legitimate stage than any of the other competing forms of entertainment which |it has had to meet. A producer of a S talking picture, which is but another j form of the stage play, is confronted !by precisely the same difficulties, but on a far greater scale, as those which beset the professors of the older art from time immemorial. No one can say with any certainty in advance what will please even a section of the public, far less the public of the universe. The problems the picture producer has to solve is infinitely more complex. His appeal must be made ; not to a section of the public, not to , the public of one country, but to the public of the whole world. To succeed, moreover, he must make not six pictures but a thousand.” Speaking of the work of John Murray Anderson,

the well-known English stage producer, who was present at the luncheon and under whose direction “The King of Jazz” was made in Hollywood, Mr Cochran said that Mr Anderson and he were at one in believing that it was not necessary to be dull in order to be artistic; that what is good entertainment need not necessarily be bad art. Mr Anderson had gone to ! America determined, if possible, to ! raise popular entertainment to a I higher artistic plane, and he had sucj ceeded in doing so. Mr John Drink- | water, the dramatist, said that the 1 only criterion an author could safely 1 trust was his own judgment. He had to ask himself the question, not "Will : the public like this?” but "Do I like it i myself?” If the answer was in the af- | firmative he could go ahead with con--1 fidence. “All Quiet on the Western Front,'* the talking picture upon which the Universal Film Company has pinned such great hopes, has been banned from presentation in New Zealand. This Dominion, therefore, along with Italy and Germany, constitutes the small minority of countries which have refused to give further publication to Erich Remarque’s book. It docs not follow, however, that our censor is to be reproached for Kis decision that New Zealand would be just as well off without seeing this muehdiscussed picture. In Italy, Mussolini barred Italian translations of the book lest they should damp the militaristic ardour of the youth of his country. In Germany it would not be uncharitable to suggest that somewhat similar reasons created the wave of feeling which practically drove the author into exile. The New Zealand censor has banned the film presumably because he is of the opinion that the possible moral it conveys is not worth the rather unnecessary raking of the muck-heap which accompanies it. If such is the censor's considered opinion, one can only applaud his sincerity. American press reviews of the film have stressed the accuracy with which the picture keeps to its original. Some —to say nothing of the film publicity organisations have belaboured the canal incident to such an extent as to give the impression that it is one of the great pieces of the film. Even taking this with the requisite grain of salt, as one must, in lieu of personally viewing the picture, it still appears that the amorous diversions of three German soldiers, together with many other episodes which need not be quoted here, are hardly essential items of a campaign against war. A point which possible objectors to the ban may have overlooked is the question of public 1 psychology. There is quite a considerable difference between the reading of outspoken literature in one’s own home and collectively seeing a motion picture presentation of the same ideas. It is this very point which makes it unnesessary to indulge in these columns in an exposition of arguments for or against the book. Something has been made of the fact that "Sergeant "Grischa” was admitted into I New Zealand and barred in Australia < —more recent advice from Australia indicates that the film has been adj mitted with one or two slight cuts—j whereas "All Quiet” has been admitted j in the Commonwealth. Bound up as w r e are with Australia, yet surely our film censorship is entitled to the couri age of its convictions.