KISSES THAT COST FORTUNES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18430, 14 March 1922, Page 2

KISSES THAT COST FORTUNES

LARGE SUMS LOST BY FUNNY FILM MISTAKES. A tense and gripping scene is sa for “shooting.” The big-hearted heii and the sinister villain, are at deathgrips. Such is the intensity of the acting that one feels inclined to dash in and help the hero, for he is in a bad way; the hefty villain is choking the life out of him. He sways unsteadily, his end is near, and the bad man grins with ghoulish glee. It is the exact moment when a serial film breaks off and announces the next instalment. At a signal from the director, a faithful hound—a big boar-hound, to be exact; one ot the sort that is almost as large as a small donkeybounds in through the open window. It has been trained to go for the villain'like a canine Dempsey, but the hissing arc lamps disconcert the poor animal. He stops, blinks, sniffs and then walks round the struggling men as if he was expecting one of them to give him a pat of encouragement! AN INTERRUPTED EMBRACE. The camera is stopped. What the director says to the dog does not matter, but the effect is screamingly funny. It is really high-class burlesque on the part of the dog, but those who have to act the scene all over again fail to appreciate the joke; and the same can be said of those who are paying for the production.

It cost money when a big scene has to be shot again, especially if the struggling pair have smashed the ration of furniture and ornaments usually sacrificed to realism on such occasions. Hundreds of pounds were lost when an incident of this kind happened in a well-known studio not long ago. The scene changes. Love, passionate and pulsating, is set for depiction. The manly-hero, having chased his adored one through about five thousand feet of film, is about to declare his love. Attired in even dress, they are sitting out a dance in a cosy nook adorned with palms and masses of flowers. They seem a little shy at first, and it looks as if he might be asking her to tell him something about her ping-pong handicap. Suddenly their eyes meet. His strong arms encircle her shapely waist with a facility born of long practice. At first she pretends to resist, but soon she nestles so close to him that the camera reveals no daylight between them. A pause, and then they kiss with a soulful intensity. A case, it is declared, is on record where, simply because a kiss lasted too long, a large part of the film had to be scrapped, involving a big loss. THE FILM EDITOR STEPS IN. Just as the impassioned osculation is at its height the lady breaks away from his font! embrace with a disconcerting jerk. What has happened? Nothing much—only a drop of rain that chanced to trickle through the glass roof of the studio and fall smack between the fair shoulders of the dearest girl In the world. The camera records everything before the operator realizes what has happened, and the result is another studio comedy which the movie audiences will never see. Once again the scene changes. We are in Dickensland. The rich young squire .lavish to a fault, feels in the pockets of a coat of the period, and tosses a handsome tip to a pampered menial. With correct deportment in every gesture, this little scene, taken rather close up, would have been excellent but for the fact that the generous gratuity happened to be a very obvious Treasury note. This tiny error might have tickled observant patrons of the cinema if the eagle eye of a film editor had not detected) it.