STAGE AND CINEMA.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14783, 13 October 1921, Page 3

STAGE AND CINEMA.

• The management of the King’s Theatre will screen the following programme next week: —. Tuesday and Wednesday, 18 and 19, <r Why Trust your Husband,” and Firebrand Revision,” in which Buck Jones plays a prominent part. Thursday and Friday, October 20 and 21, “Man’s Desire,” featuring Lewis Stone and Jane Novak. •Saturday and Monday, October 22 and 24, “Country Fair,” with an allstar cast. ' At the Strand on Saturday 22, Frank Keenan in “Brothers Divided.” , NOTES. : “The Four Horsemen of / the Apocalypse” is to' be sent on tour in South America, where the Argentine scenes are expected to make a special appeal. William S. Hart has been invited to travel all the way to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to preside over a rodeo. • r Agnes Ayres, while waiting for a story which will introduce her as a star, decided not to be idle, so she is playing the feminine role opposite Rudolph Valentino, in “The Sheik.” Jackie Saunders, once a star for Universal hnd recently leading woman for William Farnum, has been engaged as a member of the cast supporting Alice Lake in her Metro special, “The Infamous Miss Revell.” 1 , .

The old-fashioned hero who used the heroine in the last few feet of film is denied this privilege in several Arderiean States where the censor is very strict. So while he may still enjoy' her warm kisses in New York, the farthest the censor will let him get with her in Pennsylvania is to hold her hand.

Constance Talmadge is taking a vacation in Canada. She has just finished work on her latest picture, “Gpod for Nothing,” by John, Emerson and Anita Loos. Kenneth' Harlan will be seen in support of Miss Talmadge, and others in the east are Frank Lalor, George Faueett,\ Nita Naldi and Theresa Maxwell Conover.

Phyllis Haver, the Mack Sennett beauty, is not to leave that company. She has signed a contract with Mr Sennett which will keep her busy for the next two years. It is probable that the announcement that Mabel Normand would return to Mr Sennett is what gave rise to the rumour. Miss Normand, however, is to play the lead in “Molly O,” which is Mr Sennett’s initial dramatic offering. Mr Sennett’s entrance into the dramatic field, however, will not in any way curtail his output of slapstick comedies.

In “Little Italy” Alice Brady has a role far different from most she has appeared in on the screen. The story is laid in an Italian colony near New York, where Rosa, Miss Brady’s role, is the belle. The colony is torn by a feud which has been carried to America from abroad, and Rosa has been taught that she must, marry a youth from her own faction. Not content with the. man her father selected for her, she. vows to marry the •first man she meets, never suspectting that a youth from the enemy faction would dare to enter the neighbourhood. Blit Antonio, one of the bated clan, is in love with Rosa, and it is he she meets.

Dr. John J. Tigert, United States Commissioner of Education, has shown at Lexington, Kentucky, a new translucent motion picture screen invented by Thomas A. Edison and a number of other men working together, by means of which motion pictures can be shown without darkening a room. By means of the screen the commissioner hopes to introduce visual education in the public schools.

’ Eleven London theatres closed last week-end as a result of the theatrical slump, says a London correspondent, writing on June 28. Some of them had not been taking £2O a night. With rentals running up to £SOO £6OO a week, it was impossible to go on. One theatre was making a loss of £9OO a week, apart from production expenses. Another play, which, ran three nights, took at the box office £2O, £24, and £ll. The manager decided that he had had enough.

A well-known actress, living in the London Adelphi, who keeps her voice flexible by practising singing exercises every morning, was much annoyed by a rude individual who mimicked her notes with great accuracy, and when not quite able to sustain them, ended in an ear-splitting groan. The adjoining streets were searched for the “rude small boy,” and in the end the culprit was discovered. The owner of a parrot had put the bird’s cage outside the window!

“Hands Across the Sea,”/ a onetime popular melodrama, by George R. Sims, has been reproduced at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne. When originally produced it was held in high favour, more especially as the final scene is given in an Australian setting. The principal characters in the reproduction are sustained by Austen Milroy, Victor Fitzherberte, Nellie Bramley, J. H. Nunn, Nellie Ferguson and Helen Fergus.

Al. Christie, the well-known American comedy producer, says the bathing girl has had her day' in comedies. “The best recipe for laughs in pictures,” he said, “is this: Take a boy and make them love him. Take a girl and make them love her. Then make them fall in love with one another and then try to keep them apart. The rest will take care of itself. Love is the biggest thing in the world, after all. It is a thing in which we are all interested. Therefore, a young married couple wildly in love offer the best chance for good ; comedy. Without ridicule or any objectionable treatment, they can be made to afford an endless number of mirthless situations.”

A recent canvass of moving-pic-ture playhouses in the United States shoved 19,966 film theatres. These have seating capacity of 5,400,000, and many of them hold from four to six shpws a day. The records of the commissioner of internal revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1920, show a ten per cent, admission tax amounting to 76.733,647 dollars, which would indicate that last year’s box office receipts must have totalled over 767,000,000 dollars. After all American demands had been filled, more than 47,000 miles of film were exported in 1920. The total import in 1920 amounted to 106 million feet of film, or about 60 per cent, of the export.

The fuss being made of Charlie Chaplin in his native London brings sharply before that section of humanity which uses its brain the agelong question of disproportionate rewards. Here is a gentleman whose claim to fame is a funny smile, slack trousers, and feet which turn out at angle of 180 degrees, during business hours. He is paid more for each year, for these gifts than Foch made for saving Europe, and in all the years he lived before he did so. Mozart was buried in a pauper’s grave, Shakespeare, though he retired to a comfortable country life, received less money during his years of toil than Chaplin makes each month; Milton sold his great epic for £5. The greatest artists, musicians and poets struggled all their lives on pittances which would hardly pay the ear-fares of a little vulgarian who plays the ,fool befpre the world.

Already preparations are well in hand for the J. C. Williamson pantomime of “The Babes in the Wood,” to be staged at Melbqurne Her Majesty’s at Christmas time. There will be an exceptionally strong cast this year, including Miss Nora Delaney, “London’s lovliest principal boy,” Miss Minnie Everett, who has been in London, Paris, and New York for some time gathering material for the pantomime, writes that “Australians Avill take Nora Delaney to their hearts and will want to keep her there.”

German film producers are working on a series of spectacular productions on historical topics. Frederick the Great and Nicholas .of Russia will soon be presented in pictures on the large scale of earlier productions. Cameras are grinding on a picture drama entitled “Pharaoh’s Wife,” directed by Ernest Lublitsch, who made “Passion” and “Deception.” The director has in preparation another big film version of Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor,” with Emil Jannings, who played Henry VHI in “Deception,” in the role of Falstaff. Another feature picture will present a period of the life of Lord Nelson. Ten years ago Marshall Neilan, who has just reached his thirtieth birthday, was earning £3 a week. To-day he is at the head of a company which turns out a product reaching over 2,000,000 dollars a year. Before achieving the position of director he played opposite Mary Pickford, Blanche Sweet, Ruth Roland and others. Neilson is constantly introducing new methods in modern picture production. For instance, he is the first director to use a “blimp” as a camera platform to “shoot” big scenes. He is the first person to use an aeroplane in seaching for “locations.” Recently he introduced the use of sailors to wigwag his directions to distant camera men in filming battle scenes. At present he is working on “Bits of Life,” a story offering the combined efforts of four noted authors. SCANDAL. So great is the success of “Scandal,” at the King’s Theatre, Melbourne, that seven performances/per week have not been sufficient to accommodate the crowds. Messrs J. and N. Tait have therefore had to give two matinees of this much-writ-teri-about and much-discussed play, making eight performances weekly. While the opinion of newspaper critics shows a wide diversity, the public generally appear to be unanimous on the point that “Scandal” is a play well worth going to se.e. * * * THE 2238TH OCCASION. \ —: A distinguished gathering was present at His Majesty’s Theatre, London, on July 23, on the occasion of the final performance of “Chu Chin Chow.” When, o'n the 2238th occasion Miss Lily Brayton once again plunged the dagger into the breast of Mr Oscar Asche, something like a sigh of relief rose from the audience (says a London paper). It was a wonderful evening. A run of something like five years builds a bridge between auditorium and stage, and a note of intimate personal feeling was in the cheers that passed across the footlights at this last performance. SPANISH DANCERS. As a change frJm Russian dancers, London has been introduced to a troupe from Spain. The work of these Andalusians is quite unlike ordinary ballet dancing. “The foot hardly leaves the floor, and it is the swaying body which does most of - the work. The tapping of the heels on the floor plays an important part, ■ too, and also the clapping of the hands by the spectators. Accompanied only by a couple of guitars, they do astonishing things with their feet in the way of rythmic tapping and stamping, while the rest of the troupe clap continuously in time with the music, and incite them to further efforts by shouts and cries.”