HERE AND THERE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 291, 8 December 1928, Page 15 (Supplement)

HERE AND THERE

Sam/. De Grasse has been cast in the role of the district attorney in the Paul Fejos Conrad Veidt-Afary Philbin picture, “Erik the Great,” now being made at Universal City. Anders Randolph plays the judge, George Irving the defence attorney, and Charles Clary the assistant district attorney.

Universal last week purchased “When the Devil Was Sick.” by F. J. Rath, author of the play, “The Nervous Wreck,’’ adopted by Owien Davis. “When the Devil was Sick” appeared serially in one of the Atunsey magazines and was published last year by G. Howard Watt. It is intended for the use of Reginald Denny.

“Captain Lash,” starring Vied or McLaglcn, has been put into production at the Fox West Coast Studios rnder the direction of J. G. Blystone, who directed “AFother Knows Best.” The supporting cast for this picture includes Claire Windsor, Earle Foxc, Albert Conti and Clyde Cook. # # * «

Two of the foremost Fox Filin directors praising the same girl! The girl is Alary Dunean and the two directors F. W. Alurnau and Frank Borzage. It was with AFurnau that Miss Duncan created her first film role in “The Four Devils” and with Borzage that she brought to life the vivid character of Rosalee, the girl whose moods were like the river, in his dramatic story, “The River.” This picture is based on the widely-read novel of the same name by Tristram Tupper. Charles Farrell plays the ’■ole of Allan John, the young engineer. Both Alurnau and Borzage admit that Aliss Duncan is a true artist, who besides her ability, has youth, beauty and a wealth of appealing personality.

One of the supoprting cast of “The Four Flusher,” the Universal Picture, is Wilfred North, former general manager and highest paid executive of the old Vitagraph Company. The cast includes George Lewis, AFarian Nixon, Churchill Ross, Eddie Phillips, Jimmy Aye, Burr Mclntosh, Hayden Stevenson and Patricia Garon. Wesley ißuggles directed.

Rex Bell, starred in “Girl Shy CowBoy,” directed by R. Lee Hugh, went back to his old stamping-ground for many of the exterior scenes in this new drama of the West. Fox Films sent the entire troupe, with stock and equipment, to the fertile meadow lands of the High Sierras, in California, for the camping shots which stand out so picturesquely in this unusuaj picture. Bell, who prior to his entry in pictures, spent many months of each year on the trails of the vast range. It is said that the scenic quality of the picture rarely has been equalled. • • • •

Lia Tora, one of the most beautiful girls ever to invade Hollywood, has launched her motion picture career with a small part in “AFaking the Grade,” a Fox Film production starring Lois Aloran and Edmund Lowe. Aliss Tora hails from Brazil, where she was selected from hundreds of other Brazalian girls in a screen contest conducted by the Fox organisation. She is gifted with dramatic ’nsight and was considered the best dancer in South America. Also she was educated abroad and has had extensive dramatic training in Paris, Vienna, AFunich and Berlin. Frank Borzage, director of such recent successes as “7th Heaven” and “The Street Angel,” has just been signed to another long term contract by Winfield Sheehan, vice-president and general manager of Fox Film Corporation. Air Borzage’s first picture under his new contract will be “True Heaven,” from a novel by Tristram Tupper. In this picture however. AFr Borzage will not have Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, the two young screen lovers whom he so successfully directed in “The Street Angel.” In their place ho has selected Helen Twelvetrees, a newcomer to pictures, and Nick Stuart, who is now in Europe filming scenes for “Chasing Through Europe,” to play the leading roles. * * * * After a long vacation Janet Gaynor has started work on “Street Fair.” Tristram Tupper’s story of life in Holland written especially for her. William K. Howard will direct this Fox production and Charles Alorton will play the load opposite Aliss Gaynor. Rudolph Schildkraut and Harry (fbrd- : ing have been assigned character roles. • • • • i Two miles of frankfurters! Believe it or not. that quantity of the good old Irish dish wa s used in banquet scenes in “Love AFe and the World is Aline,” the Universal production. They were used in scenes supposedly showing the Bosman-Herzegovinian army being fed. It was rather expensive, but. there is nothing in the world that looks like a frankfurter except a frankfurter, so the real article was used. “Love Me and the World is Aline” was directed by E. A. Dupont, with a largo cast, including Norman Kerry, Mary Philbin, Betty Compson, Henry B. Walthall, George Siegmann, Albert Conti, AFartha AFattox, Emil Fitzroy, Charles Sellon, Charles Puffy and others.

Pennies to the number of 800,000,009 are collected every year in London from the slot gas meters of consumers served by the Gas Light and Coke Company.

LioJani Deas, otherwise known as “Miss Honolulu,” has been signed by Fox Films for a part in “Husbands are Liars.” She came to Hollywood three years ago after winning a beauty contest held for native girls in the Hawaiian Islands. Aside from the physical charms attributed to South Sea Islanders, Liolani is an actress of merit.

In making “AFoulin Rouge,” the latest British International picture, shortly to be seen in this country through the agency of Cinema Art Films, E. A. Dupont, the celebrated producer, kept in view not merely British audience but film goers through the world. “AFoulin Rouge” has all the ingredients that makes for popular entertainment. Its location is known, at least by repute, by countless millions in a score of countries. It deals with human emotions, which are pretty much the same the world over, in a story which is true to life. The photograph is superb, the acting throughout perfect and through it all one cannot help but detect the master-mind of E. A. Dupont. In a sentence “Aloulin Rouge” is as good as anything yet produced in Hollywood, or the Continent. ♦ * * * “Poppies of Flanders.” If there arc still some who ref se to believe that Great Britain can produce films equal to, and in many cases better than the best of foreign producers, “Poppies of Flanders,” the British International picture which will be released early in the new year by Cinema Art Films, provides another and a very striking answer. Air Jameson Thomas, the celebrated English screen actor, has never had such a wonderful opportunity to show his gifts, and his skilful and imaginative interpretation in a part which presented him difficulties, whilst the rest of the cast, an all British one, is all that could be desired. “Kitty.” “Aly work has been picturised with unusual respect to its author’s feelings and no trouble or expense has been spared by the director in his efforts to bring the story to the screen in it’s correct atmosphere.” This refreshing review was expressed by AFr Warrick Deeping, the famous author of “Sorrell and Son,” whose book, “Kitty,” has now been filmed at British International Studios, London. It is almost a screen tradition that when a book is adapted to the screen, the story is hacked until it is unrecognisable, and then it is given a different name. Indeed, a popular joke with more than a grain of truth, that is circulating around, is to the effect that “a well known writer got the plot of his second novel from the film version of his first.” It is a refreshing sign, therefore, of the vitality of the British film revival that such pains are taken to insure perfection in a point that America has for so long neglected. “Kitty” will be released during 1929 by Cinema Art Films. * * * #

According to the London Daily News, “Adam’s Apple,” the first IUO per cent, comedy made by British International Pictures, and starring the eminent comedian AFonty Banks, received more applause at its trade screening at the London Hippodrome than any other picture yjet made in England. Monty Banks, an Italian by : birth, and who once appeared at the ■ London “halls” in a troupe of aero- | bats, i s probably the most agile com- | edian on the screen. Without challenging Harold Lloyd he exercises his sleek i activities and pantomimic resources so ; cleverly in this picture that the laughter is not only loud but frequent. The story deals with the misadventures of a bridegroom whose mother-in-law accompanies the young couple on their i honeymoon. Cinema Art Films will re- I lease this picture during the coming i season. # * # *

“Pay as You Enter” is the name of the Unique Warner Bros, farce soon to be released throughout the Dominion. Louise Fazenda. Ulyde Cook, William Demarest and Alyrna Loy are featured in “Pay as You Enter.” The two male players spend their days running a street car and their nights in courting Louise, who is a romantic hash-slinger in a quick-lunch place. AFyrna enters to “spill the beans’’ as a good-looking gold-digger. Lloyd Bacon directed this uproarious laugh film from a scenario by Fred Stanley. * * * *

Paulette Paquet has been added to the cast of “The Veiled Woman.” which Emmett Flynn is directing for Fox Films, thereby giving the French nation a little the best of it. Up to the time she joined the company, no na tion had more than one representative. In the cast were Lia Tora. Portugues< and Spanish; Paul Vincenti, Hun garian; Ivan Lebedeff, Russian; Amin Cheron, French; Walter AlcGrail. rish; Alaude George, English: Josef Swickard, Austrian, Kenneth Thompson, American.

“The Adorable Cheat,” shortly to b» released by Master Pictures, has much to recommend it to the favour of every picture-goer. It is a story of delightful deception wherein the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer goes to work in her father’s factory under an assumed name. The. denounient is quite dramatic, and what was originally conceived as an innocent deception almost turns into a tragedy. The production has beim staged lavishly and under the direction of Burton King a most representative screen cast has been assembled. Lila Lee plays the lead, and supporting her are Cornelius Keefe, Burr Alclntosh, Reginald Sheffield, Gladden James and Virginia Lee. * * V * The Warner Bros. Al aster Picture, ‘‘Aly Official Wife,” is a melodrama that rushes headlong at a giddy paco through a whirlwind of intrigue. It is a story of Russia and old Vienna in the days when Czars and Emperors rode the storm (if swirling intrigue with elaborate elegance. Irene Rich, as a Countess, i s more alluringly beautiful, more emotionally thrilling than evgr before, ami the acting of Conway 1 ear.le, who plays tke masculine lead, has seldom been displayed to better advantage. These two head a cast that registers melodramatic perfection. Paul Stein directed and the story was adapted to the screen by Graham Baker. Included in the supporting cast are Stuart Holmes, Jan’c Winton, John Aliljan, Gustav von Seyffertitz and Emile Chautard. A picturisation of the Zane Grey story, “Lightning,” a Tiffany-Master Picture, is shortly to be released in Now Zealand. It is a fast moving, highly dramatic picture of the live s of a couple of girls from the East, and a i couple of boys from the open spaces of the. West, with a remarkable horse, whose portrayal of a wild king of a herd of outlaws, was as clever a pieco of equine acting as has been done in some time. The cast of players include Jobyna Ralston and AFargar'et Livingston as the cabaret performers, Robert Frazer and Guinn Williams as the cowboy brothers, Pat Harmon as one of the cabaret players, and “Bull” AFontana as a prize-fighter. The scenic locations are beautiful and the photography a

Syd Chaplin, star of “Thg Fortune Hunter,” the Warner AFaster Picturo Special soon to be released throughout New Zealand, was born in Cape '..’own, South Africa, of theatrical parents, nd was educated in London. At twelve he was producing and managing plays at school, at sixteen he made his first public appearance in a military dram; and at seventeen he went off to sea. Ho was engaged by a theatrical manager who saw him entertaining at a ship concert, and rapidly became popular at London, where he and his brother, Charlie, appeared in “Sherlock Holmes,” with the opening performance played before royalty. Then both Chaplin boys joined Fred Kamo’s company of pantomimists, and Syd turned to writing sketches. For six vears without a stop Syd appeared in London in that famous sketch, “A Night in an English Music Hall.” Charlie’s picture success kept Syd busy as a manager, and then ho, too, began acting in films. His outstanding scrqen successes are “Charley’s Aunt,” “The Man on the Box,” “Oh! What a Nurse,” “The Better ’Ole,” and “The Aliasing Link.” A Russian scientist claims Hint bv using certain chemicals he can make, the inanimate bodies of men and animals transparent and invisible.