WAR OVER SALARIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 14, 17 January 1936, Page 10

WAR OVER SALARIES

FILM STUDIOS’ TROUBLE ! “BIG MONEY” STARS. War is threatening in the . n between producers and some of the i higher-paid contract player.-. In the h last, two or three years several young i actors and actresses have achieved t stardom with startling rapidilx and < now find that although their value is | enormously enhanced their salaries ( I have not been increased in proportion. t They feel that, the group of “big ; money” stars like Greta Garbo, Mar- ; lene Dietrich, Eddie Cantor, George ] Arliss, and Joan Crawford, who earn ; huge sums for every picture they ( make, is growing smaller and smaller, and think it is time room was made i for the new generation now rapidly , growing up. At present they are tied } I up under old contracts. , Myrna Loy really stalled the battle j when a few weeks ago she announced - she had left Mctro-Goldwj n-Meyer ; and allied herself with a new group at a largely-increased figure. Many others. ] such as Sylvia Sindey, James Dunn, j Warren William, Pat ()’Brien, and Kay < Francis, have, it is reported, recently < started an agitation for wages more | commensurate wit th their box-oftice < attraction. « Miss Sidney is reported recently to have demanded that her salary of £5OO weekly be increased to £BOO, while Pat O’Brien is stated to have secured an increase of £l5O weekly. Kay Francis’s now contract with Warners is believed to give an addition of £2OO weekly. KREISLER COMES BACK ; OUTSPOKEN CRITICISMS ‘‘ WASTING HIS UNIQUE GIFTS,’’ ; Was there ever such an exasperating artist as Fitz Kreisler? asks an Eng- * lish critic. His truest, sincerest adiiiir ers, not the Sunday afternoon ; “celebrity’’ fans, but his harshest critics. They are harsh because, in an inexcurably wanton fashion, he waste.his unique gifts upon worthless music, ' because latterly his programmes have shown a sad lack of enterprise. How else can one explain his touring one programme up and down the country’ Finally, they condemn him because it is hard to believe that an artist of his i standing should deliberately and «*o often descent into the depths of banal music. Look at his long list of recordings and a>k yourself whether indeed, it can be that the Fritz Kreisler, who is credited in the catalogue with “Swanee River,” the Indian Love Call from “Rose Marie’’ and Irving Barlin V “Blue Skies,” is the same Kreisler to whom Elgar dedicated his violin concerto, and with whom RachmaniolT recorded the “Krcutzer” sonata. ISuch i is the duality of Kreisler’s nature that j, the interpreter of Friml and Berlin is i also recognised, by those same harsh J critics, as the supreme interpreter of i Beethoven and Mendelssohn. As a I violinist Kreisler’s position is unique | and undisputed. It would be pointless) to call him the “greatest,’’ for there are things that Heifetz, Thibaud, I Szigeti and Elman play better than Kreisler, and vice versa, but. his name is honoured among violinists aPadcrcwski’s is among pianists. Now after four year.', Kreisler returns to the gramophone studio to show us, his critics, just where we get off. Twice in the past eighteen months, he has played a programme of concertos. The result, however, then, as now, was rather an opportunity to say to everybody, Fitz Kreisler included, “We told you so!” No- gems from musical conrcdy and Tin Pan Alley this time, but all len Beethoven violin sonatas with a fine ■ pianist accompanying him. They play- : ing is “authoritative.” I have heard ■ some of the duller Teutonic violinists ’ play “authoritative” Beethoven, but > Kreisler has something the others haven’t, got—the ability to play like Kreisler. Paramount have offered Ken May- > nard a contract to make six Zane Grey • Westerns next year. Mae West’s “Klondyke Lou” is 27 • days behind schedule. It looks as if it ’ will cost £300.000 before it is fiu- • ished. Carole Lombard and George Raft are to play together in another dancing ! picture. It will be called “Concertina. ’ ’