AMUSEMENTS, MEETINGS, ETC

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19050, 1 July 1924, Page 2

AMUSEMENTS, MEETINGS, ETC

HIS MAJESTY’S The final screening of "The Wanters” and "Woman’s Hate" takes place to-night at His Majesty’s. Louise Fazenda, Hank Mann and Lydia Teamans Titus, three comedy favourites of old, are delighting audiences as funny boarding housel characters in John M. Stahl’s photodramatic achievement "The Wanters’’ It is from the boarding-house that the heroine, Myra Hastings, portrayed by Marie Prevost, sallies forth into the world as a chronic "wanter’’ and obtains a job as a servant in the household of a millionaire. And though her romantic adventures eventually carry her to a high place in the social scale, Myra Hastings learns that there are worse places than the old boardinghouse, that there are meaner people than its boarders, and that the problem of a "wanter’’ is one of the hardest in the world to solve. "Woman’s Hate,’’ a Metro picture, gives Alice Lake and Conrad Nagel ample scope to display their abilities in acting. "THE VIRGINIAN.” Actors, risking life and limb and even death in the taking of realistic scenes in a big picture, pass through exciting moments registered by the' camera but never shown to the public, according to Tom Forman, who filmed the Preferred Picture, "The Virginian,” coming to His Majesty’s Theatre. Hazardous feats mean numerous failures before they arc performed in a manner suitable for the public eye and it is in the failures that the actors have the narrow escapes. Here are a few “exciting moments” in the making of "The Virginian” that proved a. trifle more than exciting to the participants: Kenneth Harlan shot himself accidentally during the street duel scene, in which, as the Virginian, he kills "Trampas.” a cattle rustler. Production was halted for a week pending his recovery. Harlan also received a ducking in a rushing mountain torrent when his horse stumbled and fell. Florence Vidor narowdy missed death, when as "Molly Wood’’ she took the ride in the old stage coach driven by a "drunken” cowboy. One of the wheel horses fell in a dash to a dangerous ford, injuring the horse and nearly upsetting the vehicle. Director Forman would not allow her to ride in a second trial trip and this time the coach did overturn. Tom Forman passed through all the perils unscathed only to fall a victim to a small thorn, which penetrated his arm and caused blood poison. Russell Simpson, miscalculating the time of his horse’s fall in a scene which shows him escaping from a posse, was thrown headlong, luckily escaping with whole bones. Pat O’Malley and Bertram Hadley, while rehearsing a scene in which a posse administers justice to two cattle rustlers via the hangman is noose, were almost strangled when their horses unexpectedly jumped. 1 Cowboys caught the men swinging in the air in time to prevent a real tragedy. The 1924 Grand National will be shown on this programme. "Babies W’elcome,” a screamingly funny Christie comedy. a Pathe Gazette and Topical Budget complete what promises to be one of the finest programme ever shown at His Majesty’s.