SCREEN & STARS

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20277, 11 April 1934, Page 3

SCREEN & STARS

TITYRNA LOY has returned to Holly* wood from Honolulu. ss . ATAE WEST’S effect on insurance 1 A companies in Canada is amazing Wherever her films play, the theatres increase their burglary premiums on their box-office receipts. The Capitol Theatre, in Montreal, raised its insurance policy from 4500 dollars to 10,000 dollars, when the Paramount picture, “ I’m No Angel,” starring Mae West, was shown. \YIIO ARE the six greatest living actors and actresses? Mr James Agate, an influential critic, and the best known dramatic writer in England, discussed the question in the February issue of “ John o’ London's Wesklv,” and finally answered it as follows: “In my view, they are: Emil Jannings, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne. Ludmilla Pitoeff, Katharine Hepburn. “ I know that this list will be re garded as a jumble of screen and stage,” writes Mr Agate. “ But the jumble is intentional, since to keep the two apart is as absurd as to pretend that Euclid, algebra and trigonometry are not all a part of mathematics.” Christchurch theatregoers have seeron the screen at least five of those named. Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt are appearing this week ;n “ The Guardsman.” Their genius is unmistakable. The inclusion of Chaplin’sname may be challenged. But think back. Forget for the moment his walking stick and his funny feet and ask yourself: How many in the theatre on the night of a Chaplin film —staid and frivolous, old and young —were not lifted out of themselves at one stage or another and moved strangely from laughter to something akin to tears by the artistry of the actor. And that is the point that Mr Agate insists on • “ Sitting in the theatre watching a great actor, you must feel that you nad not believed it to be in your nature to be so much moved or stirred or even terrified : that up to that moment you had not thought there existed in nature an actor who could so move, stir, terrify you.”

TT IS REPORTED that George Raft A has been offered 60,000 dollars to make a picture for Twentieth Century. THE Danish actor, Carl Brisson, has 1 a bar in his motor-car. His first Hollywood picture will be “ Murder in the Vanities.” PITTS has revealed that she was secretly married last Octouer at Minden, Nevada, to Edward Woodall, a broker. She was married previously to Tom Gallery, whom she divorced. T?UTH CIIATTERTON has disclosed that she has agreed to a separation from her husband, George Brent. “I find that a separation is necessary,” she said. “ There are no plans for an immediate divorce.” Brent has verified the announcement of the separation. :: in Hollywood: John Barrymore is “ Winkie ” to his wife; A 1 Jolson calls his wife, Ruby Keeler, “Nubbins”; Edward G. Robinson is “ Maney ” to his mother; Barbara Stanwyck is called just plain “ Stanwyck ” by husband Frank Fay; Joan Blondell is “ Rosebud ” to her family and “ Joanv ” to George Barnes, who married her; Warren William was known as “ Skinny ” Krech in his old home town, though some folks call him “ Ilighpockets ”; “Mike” is none other than Ruth Chatterton: Lyle Talbot is “ Biff ”; Richard Barthelmess becomes annoyed when people call him by his middle name, “ Semler.” TVCAE WEST’S “I’m No Angel,’’ ac■lTA cording to a survey just completed by the “ Motion Picture Herald,” was the most profitable picture produced in the 1933 season. Under the heading “ Box Office Champions for 1933,” twelve other films, based on returns from 157 of the chief cities throughout the United States, are given honourable mention. These runners-up are “ Cavalcade,” “ Gold Diggers of 1933.” “ Little Women,” “42nd Street,” “Tugboat Annie,” “Tell Me To-night.” “ State Fair.” “Maedchen in Uniform ” (Dorothea Wieck’s German film), “ Rasputin and the Empress,” “The Animal Kingdom” (“The Woman in His House”), “The Kid From Spain.” and “ The Private Life of Henry VIII.”