SCREEN & STARS

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20283, 18 April 1934, Page 3

SCREEN & STARS

JOSEF VOX STERNBERG directs , Marlene Dietrich in German. RETT A YOUNG played in “ Laugh, Clown, Laugh,” with the ate Lon Chaney. HOLLY WOOD correspondent 'states that Greta Garbo will appear in a New Y'ork stage play next vinter. t’HE COMEDIENNE** Alison Skipworth, recently received a letter rom a girl who wished to be adopted, ■'he wrote: Y'ou have no idea howmuch pleasure you would have in a daughter. Besides, I’d just love to play tennis with Joan Crawford! ” lir r HE BIRTH OF A NATION” is the one big box-office “ hit ” of all time. It has already brought in ncre than £2,000,000 and in some parts of the world is still going strong. “ The Covered Wagon ” and “ The Big Parade ” are both well over the £1,000,000 mark and still playing. More recently Mae West’s picture, “ She Done Him Wrong.” has grossed more than £400,000. PLAY r ING for ten years at the Aldwych Theatre. London, in a series of successful farces, Ralph Lynn gave up the stage about twelve months ago in order to devote his time to films. He now states that he is T-e----turning to the theatre this month. He is going into management with Major Charles Steel, who was arsociated with him at the Aldwych, and Harry Foster. Their‘first venture will be ‘‘Good-Bye Again,” by Allen Scott and George Haight, a farcical comedy which had a long run in New Y*ork last year. Ralph Lynn will have the part of a literarv lecturer on tour who meets an old “ flame ” from his college days. Incidentally. the talking film version of “ Good-bye Again ” will be released here on Saturday. screen audiences are far more critical of their entertainment than any stage audience ever ■was, and for this reason motion picture actors and actresses have to “ w atch their step ” to a greater extent than they did in the theatre, according to Fredric March, of Paramount, who has played for years in both mediums. March declares that the average film “fan” has a far more observant eye and detects flaws and incongruities more quickly than the sophisticated stage lover. “ The reason seems to lie in the fact that motion pictures are essentially intimate,” March points out. The ability of the camera to pry into life with its all-revealing close-ups, which unmask every facial expression, has made its public unusually discriminating. The stage audience is forced to depend more or less on suggestion. If we depict a waterfall on the stage, we do it by means of an eff-stage sound of running water, and a reference to the waterfall’s proximity in the dialogue. Picturegoers, howwill not stand for this deception. If the action or background of the story calls for a waterfall, they want to see and hear it. The same applies to other objects which are shown every day on the screen, but which can only be suggested on the stage. Thus it is that the films have constantly set new standards of entertainment.”

JJAMOX NOYARRO will visit New Y'ork in the near future.

LAST MONTH Leslie Howard and his wife celebrated eighteen years of married life with a Hollywood dinner to which many of the screen famous were invited. JT IS SAID that Greta Garbo, +ne Swedish enigma, is slowly “ coming to life.” A correspondent writes teat she is seen about Hollywood these ‘avs —lunching, dining, 'playing tennis and going to the theatre—thus breaking habits of 3-ears' standing. 25 25 2*i A HOLLYWOOD MESSAGE state-: that Jackie Cooper and Wallace Beery will appear in a talking semen version of “Treasure Island” for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The Robert Louis Stevenson classic should be an ideal vehicle for the nine-vear-old Jackie Cooper and his team-mate. SCENE from the film “ Dinner at Eight” (not vet shown here) was severely criticised by a London coroner at an inquest recently on a costumier, who was found gassed at his home. His wife said that on the night before his death her husband went to see the picture, in which a character stood before a gas fire, turned on the tTp and gassed himself. The audience could hear a sound like that of gas escaping. A doctor said that the victim, who was found with his head • sting on a gas-ring, was formerly a prominent amateur actor and singer, and was of a dramatic turn of mind. What he saw at the pictures might have had an effect upon him. “I do feel that a man who contemplates doing that and yet feared it, seeing that it was so easy and with such dramatic effect, might do it.” Returning a verdict of “ Suicide while of unsound mind,” the coroner said: “I cannot understand any censor, with any common sense at all, allowing a picture where a man gasses himself in front of the audience.” RUMOURED ROMANCE which had kept film “ fans ” guessing was confirmed when Lilian Harvey,, the famous European star, admitted that she would marry Willy Fritsch. Fritsch, a handsome Austrian, 1? the best-liked film actor in Central Europe. His smile is famous in Budapest, Berlin, Prague and Vienna. Asked point blank: “Are 3-ou in love? If so, with whom?” Lilian Harvey, »vko is now in Hollywood, replied: “1 am in love with Wilhelm Fritsch. He is a screen and stage star of German/. Perhaps I shall marry him.” Further questions followed, and the “ perhaps ” which has satisfied Berlin and Yicn nese interviewers for three years, became “ I shall marry him.” Lilian Harvey is the Muswell Hill, London, girl who became world famous for her brilliant performance m “ Congress Dances.” Half English and half German, she speaks English, French and German fluentl}-, and was the only member of the cast of that film to take part in all three versions. At the height of her fame, she accepted a Hollywood contract at £BOO a week, though her European earnings had been little less. Willy Fritsch has not renewed his contract with the Ufa Film Compan>% and Lilian Harvey says that she expects him to follow her to Hollywood.