PICTURES BY FAMOUS STARS NEVER RELEASED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20104, 24 March 1928, Page 15 (Supplement)

PICTURES BY FAMOUS STARS NEVER RELEASED

CENSORS REFUSE TO LICENSE “DAWN.” The refusal of the London Board of Censors to license “Dawn,” which pictures the death of Nurse CavelL again illustrates the risk associated with the production of motion pictures. Valentino, Nuvarro, Chaplin Pola Negri. Denny and many other “stars” have played in big films that ultimately were never screened —resulting in losses of hundreds of thousands of pounds to the film producers. One of these was “Captain FearL ;s” (Reginald Denny), comments a writer in the Sydney Guardian. A dream sequence, necessary to the plot, held up the Mexican Army to ridicule. Just at this time the Mexican Government announced a twofold decision —(1) that any picture showing its ci tizens in an unfavourable light would be banned from the country, and (2) that all future productions by the same company would suffer a similar fate. Film Shelved For the sake of friendly relations with Mexico, “Captain Fearless” was shelved —never to be publicly shown. After thousands of dollars had been spent on it, ‘‘The Hooded Falcon’’ (Rudolph Valentino) wa.s abandoned, because of a difference between the star’s wife (Natacha Rambova) and the writer of the script, June Mathis. “Charlie Chaplin.” it is related, “intended ‘The Woman from the Sea’ to bring back Edna Purviance. The e-in of unseen film on the studio shelves is her professional tombstone.” Ramon Nuvarro was never seen in •‘A Certain Young Man,” for the reason that Willard Louis, playing an important role, died unexpectedly, and so made any re-takes impossible. Later, the story was done as “A Gentleman of Paris” (Adolphe Menjou). In the making of “The Mysterious Island,’’ in the West Indies, 200.000 dollars’ worth of equipment was destroyed by a hurricane in five minutes. The risk was too great to be repeated. Caruso and Negri. Caruso appeared in two pictures- Be cause the box office sales of the first showed, unmistakably, that the public did not want him as a film star, the second picture—“My Cousin Caruso” — was killed without a showing. The Pola Negri Continental-made •‘Montmartre’’ had to be discarded by its American buyers because the only effect of the emotional .cones was to produce roars of laughter.

Historic among other fated pictures that might be cited are the Arbuckle comedies —those released, and others still in the studio. One moment they were worth millions of dollars. The next they were merely spoiled strips or celluloid.

Gloria Swanson (writes an American critic) has never done a better piece of acting than as Sadie Thompson in the tropic melodrama of that name. Ilrr role, that of a tawdry siren of the underworld, is not an easy one. In spite of several changes thrown as sops to the movie Grundys, “Sadie Thompson” retains the vividness and logic of Somerset Maugham’s story on which it and also the stage play, “Rain,” were based. Its realism is almost entirely due to Miss Swanson- She makes Sadie a pitiful and understandable figure, enlisting much sympathy in her defensive war against organised virtue. Sadie’s sins overtake her in Pago Pago. She is forced into the company of a reformer, who insists that she repent. A constant rainfrfll prevents Sadie from running away. When the idea has been presented often and insistently enough, she does repent. The reformation involves her facing an old prison sentence. From this dreary evidence of salvation. Sadie is saved by an odd and egly turn of circumstances- Lionel Barrymore as Sadie’s spiritual monitor and Raoul Walsh as a genial sergeant of marines form the chief support.