The Moving Row of Magic Shadow Shapes OMAR RHAYAM

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18832, 21 March 1931, Page 15 (Supplement)

The Moving Row of Magic Shadow Shapes OMAR RHAYAM

"Confessions of a Debutante,” the -intents of a society girl’s anonymou Govel soon to be published, is to b< iroduced by Paramount as a talking Picture. Mary Brian and Phillips Holmes will have the featured roles, and Max Marcian and Slavko Vorka“Dich will direct. "Confessions of a Debutante” will precede in ip,roducsU>n the recently-announced "Confessions of a Co-ed.” Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell will begin work shortly in the most dramatic roles of their careers on the films, in "The Man Who Came Back,” Jules Eckert Goodman’s powerful story of regeneration, which has gone into production with Raoul Walsh directing. Farrell has the part of the rich man’s son who sinks to the lowest depth, with Janet Gaynor as the girl who lifts him again to the heaven of romance and spiritual rebirth. Kenneth Mac Kenna, Peter Gawthorne, UlriCj Haupt, William Holden, and Mary Forbes are in the cast.

Dolores Costello is returning to the screen. The beautiful young star, who retired temporarily from public appearance after her marriage to John Barrymore two years ago, has just signed a new contract with Warner Brothers, and her first picture will go into production in the spring. Several stories are now under consideration for use as her first starring vehicle under the new contract. Miss Costello visited the Warner Studio in Hollywood recently with Mr. Barrymore, bringing with her thefr infant daughter, Dolores Ethel Mae Barrymore, and the contract was signed a few days later.

It’s strange the power the film great hold over their not-so great neighbours. . . . Customers in a Hollywood boulevard butcher shop were curiously moved recently by one of those unexpected things that so often happen in this town. A shop assistant, answering the telephone, shouted from the rear of the shop to his boss, who was at the next counter, "Hey, what happened to Ruth Chatterton’s lamb roast?” . . All buying and selling stopped. . . . There was an awed silence. . It was as though a Presence had passed. . . Then some woman giggled and the hum of trade resumed.

"We are passing through a grey time,” said Sir Oswald Stoll at the general meeting of the Stoll Theatres Corporation, Ltd., held at the London Coliseum in January. He stated that the expense of having to employ human labour, including first-class artists, was too great a handicap on the human theatre in opposition to picture theatre, whose profits were made with photographs. "It is said,” continued Sir Oswald, "that if a rebate of the Entertainment Duty were made in favour of the stage this would be discrimination against the screen. But, as a matter of fact, the present practice amounts to a serious discrimination against the stage. This rebate in favour of the stage would do no more than equallise the effects of the Duty, and so avoid discrimination against either stage or screen.” Sir Oswald considered the wartime import as now indefensible. "The growing unemployment of stage-people/’ he added, “expresses the gradual decline of the stage. Hence the return in Entertainment Duty from the stage is a diminishing one. But the handicap to the stage, in unduly favouring the screen, is causing screen entertainment to be overdone.”

With his long-term contract signed nd filed. Willim K. Howard has begun preparation for the filming of his next Fox Movietone picture, "All Women are Bad,” William Anthony M'Guire's story of sophisticated society. Robert Montgomery’s ascension to screen popularity has been recognised by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with the signing of a new long-term contract. The erstwhile New York stage juvenile came into pictures more than a year and a half ago. Adolphe Menjou has been assigned the chief male role in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s production of “Among the Married,” the adaptation of Vincent Lawrence’s successful stage comedy of the same name. This photoplay will be directed by Edgar Selwyn, whose last production was "War Nurse.”

Noah Beery, who plays the villainous Luke in "Tol’able David,” which was adapted to the talking screen by Columbia Picfffres from Joseph Hergensheimer’s "Saturday Evening Post” story of the same name, had his theatrical start in a circus. However, his principal job was watering the elephants.

"New York Lady,” the tentative title for an original screen play by Donald Ogden Stewart, will be the first costarring Paramount picture for Tallulah Bank head, the London stage favourite, and Clive Brook. This choice replaced "Her Past,” previously announced for Miss Bankhead’s first appearance on the screen. Filming is scheduled for the New York studios this month.

Madeline Carroll, the English actress, has signed a new talkie contract with Reginald Fogwell Productions, Ltd. The English actress has appeared in more British films lately than any other contemporary. She recently completed a starring role in the British Dominion Flms' release, "French Leave.” After that film’s completion she was considering several Hollywood offers, when Reginald Fogwell persuaded her to remain in England to make four films for his company, for which the star received the sum of £IO,OOO. The first film is a romance of the French Revolution, "Madame Guillotine,” in which Brian Aherne, the young English juvenile lead, co-stars.

"Tell England” is now being finally "polished” by Anthony Asquith prior to its preview by the British Instructional directorate. The cast is headed by Tony Bruce, Carl Harbord, and Fay Compton, and over 9000 extras appear in the war scenes. The whole of the British Mediterranean Fleet was incorporated in the scenes depicting the Colonial and Imperial forces landing at Gallipoli, and the famous troopship "River Clyde” was specially reconstructed for use in this film. A. P. Herbert has written the dialogue for an early scene which depicts a parade of "rookies” undergoing bayonet instruction. No less than 25,000 feet of film was exposed for the Gallipoli scenes alone. The footage of the completed film will be about 10,000 feet.

Hollywood is said to be on the lookout for a new "story trend.” The diligent observer may, or may not,, have remarked that the plots that emanate from Hollywood follow definite, even obvious, and sustained fashions. One producer will make a success of a "crook” picture, and for months after his industrious colleagues in the industry will follow suit, sometimes with questionable success. The "crook ’ film, mind you, has been more lasting than the average fashion in film plots. The much-worn “cabaret night club theme, on the other hand, has only continued because the directors have lately been more than ordinarily barren. But With American Iflms suffering a serious slump at the box office (according to Mr. Tamar Lane in the New York "Herald Tribune”), Hollywood producers are once more frantically searching for a new "story trend.” This, of course, is merely Hollywood running true to type. Whenever anything goes wrong with the cinema, American film producers immediately start looking for new "story trends.” Having used up every cinema cycle thought of in the last 25 years, the producers are as usual somewhat baffled as to the next type of material with which cin-ema-goers should be bombarded. One producer, after much thought, told Mr. Lane that he was quite certain that the next "film era” would be one of "sophisticated sex stories.” Considering the films of nature that the cin-ema-goers have waded through for the last few years, it is difficult to understand how this can be regarded as a new departure. To add to the worries of the American studios, there has recently been the European companies. One theatre in Hollywood has been showing several British and German productions, which, while far from perfect, according to Mr. Lane, were nevertheless more interesting than most of the films then being made in the American studios. Not only have the European producers shown marked

improvement in their treatment of the story, in acting and direction, but photographically and technically. If European studios can continue to show this rapid progress, Mr. Lane concludes, there is little doubt but that the Ameri-

can producers will soon be meeting with serious competition.

Clara Bow has Ueen taken out of the cast of “City Streets.” She is to be replaced by Sylvia Sidney. The official reason for this change of star is that Clara Bow needed a month’s rest after the strain of the Devoe trial.

The ultimate in the subtle directorial touch was reached by Frank Tuttle, director of Clara Bow’s new picture, "No Limit” .... Prior to the filming of an important scene he said, "Now Clara, in this scene I want you to give us the very slightest suggestion of an internal wink.”

"A Lady’s Morals’* starring Grac« Moore, opera star, the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production, based on the life of Jenny Lind, famous Swedish opera star of the past, is a vivid romance of love versus duty, and besides being a charming love story and interesting drama, affords the singer some great opportunities in song.

was added to the cast of "No Limit,” Clara Bow’s latest starring picture for Paramount, to appear in those sequences made in Hollywood. It is Miss Todd's first part for Paramount since "Follow Through.” Others in featured roles are Norman Foster, Harry Green, Stuart Erwin, and Dixie Lee. Fran Tuttle directed from an original story by Viola Brothers Shore.

Mary Duncan, stage and screen actress, has been signed by Carl Laemmle, jun., for a featured role in "The Boudoir Diplomat,” which Malcolm St. Clair will direct as one of Universal’s twenty big specials for the new season. Among Miss Duncan’s best-known stage appearances were "The Great Lover” and ~The Shanghai Gesture.” It was while playing in the latter that she entered pictures, her outstanding film roles being in "The Four Devils,” “The River,” "Through Different Eyes,” and "Romance of the Rio Grande.”

The Marx Brothers have arrived in England, where they are to head Mr. C. B. Cochran’s variety programme at

the Palace Theatre. There was a missing brother, Harpo Marx, who arrived in another liner after the others, says the "Sunday News.” I found the three entertainers tn children’s dining-room of the S.S. Paris, surrounded by their families. Groucho is the father of two—a boy and a girl. Chico, the pseudo-Italian pianist, and Zeppo, the juvenile, were also accompanied by their wives. But the Groucho was a widely different man from his screen personality. Robbed of his moustache, and wearing octoganalshaped spectacles, he looked in his bowler hat like a rather unhappy tourist whose only desire was to go straight home. Chico, on the other hand, in his green suit and with a cigar sticking out of his pocket, was exactly what one would expect. The story of the Marx families’ rise to fame was, as he told it to me, a romantic one. Their grandfather, who dided at the age of 101. was a conjuror, and his wife was a harpist. It was upon her instrument that Harpo. the absent brother, whose real name is Arthur, taught himself to play. Although amazingly proficient on the harp, he has never had a lesson in his life. Groucho was once billed as "The Singing Nightingale,” and Harpo owes his reputation of being dumb to the fact that he was accidentally given nothing to say in an early sketch. Their father, who is a Frenchman, is going to London to see them at the Palace. There is a fifth brother, known as Gummo, from his habit of wearing gum boot all the year round, but he has now retired.

In September, 1910, an English cattleboat docked at one of the piers of New York City and unloaded a passenger cargo of fourteen young Britons. The date was an historic one in the romance of the picture, for one of these "Fred Karno’s London Comedians” was Charlie Chaplin and another Stan Laurel. Charlie was chief comedian at £l2 a week, and Stan had £4 a week as his foil and understudy. It ook Laurel many more years than Charlie to achieve celebrity, but since he joined the portly Oliver Hardy in the making of comic films he has become one of the best-known figures in the world. Everyone laughs at Laurel and Hardy. The thin and wistful Laurel, with his vexed expression of fatuous wonderment, provides fhe funniest of contrasts to the fat and energetic Hardy, whose howl of anguish is one of the most amusing sounds the talkies have given us. Hardy is an American. Chaplin and Laurel used to share "diggings,” and often cooked their poor dinner over the gasfire in their room. "While I fried the chops,” says Laurel, "Charlie sat close to the door and played his mandoline so that the landlady couldn’t hear the sizzling of the meat. But Chaplin always buoyed me up by an overwhelming belief in himself and hie future, which might have seemed egotistical if it had not been so patently sincere. On the moring we saw America for the first time, in the awful chill of an early dawn, we were all standing on the deck of the cargo boat, trying to be cheerful when Chaplin swung his arm towards the distant shore and cried dramatically: ’America, I have come to conquer. Soon upon the lips of every man, woman and child will be the words "Charles Chaplin”.’ Whether he meant it seriously or not, we laughed at him. It was funny, in view of what has happened since, wasn’t it?” Charlie was popular with his colleagues, though they thought him eccentric, and there was genuine concern when he decided to leave the music-halls and risk his future with the then despised movies. Laurel’s first hit as a variety performer was an imitation of Charlie, and it was on Chaplin’s advice (reinforced by a threat to hit him over the head with the ’cello Charlie was learning to play) that he also decided, in 1917. to risk a film career. Years later he met Oliver Hardy, and their enormous success as ' a laughter-making team lias echoed I all over the world.