ARCADIA PICTURES.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 20 December 1926, Page 8

ARCADIA PICTURES.

TO-NIGHT and TUESDAY. “ARIZONA SWEEPSTAKES.” HOOT GIBSON. Hoot Gibson comes to the front again, in “The Arizona. Sweepstakes,” a Universal-Jewel to be shown in the Arcadia theatre commencing Monday. There is a new angle to this latest Gibson picture which the- bard-riding Hoot is first seen caught in the labyrinths of .i great city’s underworld before ho finally gets back to his native stamping—the free and unbound plains of the West. Romance runs rampant. It is a thrilling story of an unsophisticated cowpuncher’s adventures in a city’s gang life and of hibattle of wits and nerve, with an unscrupulous millionaire rancher from the East. Of the many excit ing scenes that feature “The Arizona* Sweepstakes” the great crosscountry race participated in by Hoot, the villain and a score or more of real cowpunchers is the most exciting. It is one of the best races that has been seen on the screen in a long time.

The. supporting cast is a notable one. Playing opposite Hoot in the leading feminine role is pretty Helen Lynch with Philo McCullough, one of the screen’s best villains, cast in one of his favourite parts.' Some excellent comedy work is contributed by two old favorites, Kate Price and George Ovey, aided and abett ed by Billy Schaeffer, Jackie Morgan and Turner Savage, three very precocious youngsters. Others in the cast include Emmett King and Tod Brown. WEDNESDAY and THURSDAY. ZANE GREY’S “WILD HORSE MESA.” Hail the movie cameramen! Unhonoured, unsung heroes of filnidom I The average picture-goer, who sits midst ease and comfort in a wellventilated, luxuriously-appointed theatre and watches the silent shadows flit across the silver sheet, little dreams of the dangers and hardships that fall to the lot ot “the men who turn the crank.” Yet, quite often, the cinema photographers experience greater thrills and have more narrow escapes than were ever flashed upon the screen.

“Wild Horse Mesa” is a case in point. This spectacular Zane Grey melodrama, which opens next Wednesday at the Arcadia Theatre, was filmed almost entirely in the mugged Red Lake section of the Arizona desert. When you see this production you will be amazed at the staggering climax, which shows a tremendous stampede of 5,000 wild horses, charging at break-neck speed towards a treacherous barbed wire trap, but you wiR hardly realise the difficulties and hazards connected with the photographing of such a breath-taking scene. Twelve cameramen were required to film the stampede. Bert Glennon, chief cameraman, stationed his assistants in shallow natural gullies, which gave some protection, and yet within range cf the charging steeds. Glennon himself took th< most dangerous and exposed position. He located his camera in a small ravine “shooting” upwards with the entire herd racing high over his head. At times thundering horses swerved within three feet of his camera, and Glennon was momentarily afraid that some jost hng io! confusion among the spirited steeds would force one of them off the edge and on top of him. But he never stopped grinding!

Fortunately, no. casualties resulted. and one of the mightiest episodes ever caught by a camera was successfully screened in all its thrilling realism.