Motion Picture News

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10306, 15 January 1927, Page 4

Motion Picture News

By The Movie Fan

NEXT WEEK’S PROGRAMMES. PALACE THEATRE. Tliis Afternoon, To-night and Monday Night: “A Kiss for Cinderella Paramount, starring Betty Bronson, Tom Moore and Esther Ralston. Tuesday Afternoon and Night, and Wednesday Night: ‘The Best Bad Man”—Fox, starring Clara Bow, Cyril Chadwick aud Tom Wilson. Thursday Afternoon and Night and Friday Night: ‘‘The Great Divide”—Metro - Goldwyn, starring Alice Terry, Conway Tearle, Wallace Beery and Huntley Gordon.

EVERYBODY'S THEATRE. This Afternoon, To-night add Monday Night: “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp’’— First National, starring Harry Langdown. Tuesday Night, Wednesday Afternoon and Night: “I*ool and His Money”— Master Picture, starring Madge Bellamy. Thursday and Friday: . “The Set Up”—Universal, starring Art Accord.

OPERA HOUSE. To-night- Humphrey Bishop HighClass Vaudeville Company. January 25: “Charley’s Aunt’—■Paramount superfeature, starring Sydney Chaplin. SCREEN NEWS. With the completion of “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,” to be screened at Everybody’s to-day, Harry Langdon is now in the super comedy class of Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. This is his first feature-length comedy for First National under the terms of his recent contract with that organisation. The story is about a transcontinental hike.

Another big picture has been added to the list that Dolores Costello, the. new screen beauty, will seen in very soon. This time W arner Bros, have cast Miss Costello for the leading role in “The Heart of Maryland, ”°a charming story which is being adapted for the screen by Bess Mercdvth, and will ho directed by Millard Webb. “The Heart of Maryland” will be shown'at Everybody’s.

Throughout “Bustin’ Through,” a Universal Western attraction to be seen at Everybody’s soon, there are thrills aplenty, the climax coming when the star, Jack Hoxic, ropes a backboard drawn by a runaway team of horses and in which a girl is riding. The rope falls true just as the waggon is about to plunge over, the edge of a cliff. Hoxie drags the girl from the waggon and the frayed edges of the rope part and it plunges into space. * * * “The W T edding March,” directed bv and featuring Eric A’on Stroheim, will bring this star hack to the screen after an absence of some months. This picture is one of Paramount’s Fifteenth Birthday Group and had been produced on a lavish scale. All the splendour of European Cornt h’f« is depicted in this picture. The glittering pageantry of the Austrian Court at Vienna is shown m sharp contrast to the sordid life of ho peasants, for Von Stroheim has not altogether abandoned his penchant for stark realism. * * * Big Bear Lake, a famous tourist resort in northern California, provides a beautiful scenic background for many of the scenes in “The Man in the Saddle,” Hoot Gibson’s Western attraction for Universal, to bp screened at Everybody’s in the near future. Gibson’s troupe, including Director Clifford Smith and Fay Wray, Sally Long, Charles Mailes, Clark Comstock, Emmett’ King, Duke R. Lee and others, spent two weeks at the beautiful lake filming exterior scenes, and all hands enjoyed a pleasant vacation at the studio’s expense, without too much troublesome work to be done. x a jr The latest press exchanges from America show that the world’s supreme record has been won hv Metro-Goklwyn-Mnyer's illustrious screen epic “The Big Parade.” This worldboating motion picture production, showing in one theatre only—“ The Astor,” New York—in 013 weeks achieved in receipts 1,012,304,200d01., truly amazing figures, and in addition the picture is now in the eighth Week of its second year. There are ten “Big Parade” road shows operating at the same time throughout the United States. In London “The Big Parade” ran for over seven consecutive months at the Tivoli Theatre, a record never approached by any othermotion picture. * * *

John Barrymore, now starring in “The Sea Beast.” the "Warner Bros.’ Classic of the Screen, to be shown at Everybody's shortly, originally suggested that the novel “Moby Dick,”, written by Herman Melville, be adapted to the screen. This was Mr. Barrymore’s idea of the greatest story that America had produced for screen material; an epic of the days when the American sailing ships commanded the seas; a story of the tumultuous adventure that crowded the reckless lives of the sailors of 1840, a drama cf the courageous lives of heroic men. Incidentally the sailor hero of “Moby Dick,” afforded Barrymore the greatest role of his screen career.

LOll Chaney effects a startling and uncanny transposition in changing from one character to the other in his dual role in “The Blackbird,” his now Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer' picture. His parts in this thrilling drama of London and the limehouse underworld, are those of a notorious gangster and a crippled mission worker. Chaney’s representation of the dwarf Quasimodo, in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” was a triumph of grotesque portraiture, but his weird defiance of physical laws in “The Blackbird” •is an amazing revelation of what this brilliant actor can accomplish. His new production in which Owen Moore and Renee Adoree appear will he released in New Zealand shortly. , “Moarui,” Paramount’s wonderful film of Samoa, New Zealand’s mandate in the Southern Seas, was screened privately to a* number ot prominent persons in W ellington last week. The screening was held in the projection theatre of the Government Department of Internal Affairs, and there were present 1 Sir Maui Pomare, Minister in Charge of Cdok Islands ; the Hon. R. A: Wright, Minister of Education; the Hon. G. J.- Anderson, Minister in Charge of Publicity; Mr. J. D. Grey, Secretary of Internal Affairs, and representatives of the New Zealand Government Publicity Office, also. Ladv Pomare. The ‘Moana proved tb bo a moist interesting story of the' scenery, life and. customs- of the .Samoan; people. • The picture will be released throughout, New Zealand at -'an eariv date by Paramount' and will be seen at the Palace shortly.

PLAYS AND PLAYERS

Art Acord makes such amazing falls in his pictures that spectators are surprised when the player gets up uninjured. He explains this by remarking that his early career brought him untold falls until he mastered the art of bronco busting. This star will be seen in “The Set Up” at Everybody’s Theatre, commencing Thursdav next. % * a

What better evidence can be cited than the fact that to-day there is invested in the United States alone over £300,000,000 in the production end of our industry, and all of the big producers tb-day are putting more money into production costs than ever before? 'Not only is this true as far as'the United States is concerned, but. there is a wave ot production throughout the world. Great Britain is putting more money into production; Germany is doing the same thing, as is France and Italy, as well as other countries, not forgetting Japan. Even right here, Australasian Films are making ‘For the. Term of his Natural Life,’ which will cost, I should say, between £40,000 and £50,000, and you will see other high-class pictures made in Australia as time goes on. This means that not only is production 00 the increase, hut every producer is striving for quality, with the result that not only- is the quality alre:-".

improved, but it will continue to improve, and with stlcli keen competition on the part of the producers, the quality of good pictures will increase. If the public is tiring of pictures, why is it that to-day iirtthe United States alone, there is an average wfeekly attendance of just 130,000,000 of people, which is more than the population of the entire country? Why is it, if the public is tiring of pictures, that in the city of St. Louis. Missouri, alone a city of just on 1,000,000 people, a number equivalent tb the whole’ population of the city attend the picture theatres everv four days?

Why is it, if the public is tiring of pictures, that in the city of'Omaha, Nebraska, a city of approximately 250,000 one out of every six persons attend the pictures every day? I could go on citing numerous other examples, proving to you that not only is the public not tiring of pictures, but on the other hand the public is going to pictures more ofteh and in greater numbers than Why -i s :51,.ihlit 2b .the -public is firing of’rpictures' Jiigli-Ulass . theatres,' any - under:'Construction, to-day in the; .Tjnitod'.'States’; fas; well as in; other‘parts'of'tlie 'wdHar uimiTii the I history of pur industry? • ' 1

Proclaimed as one of the best pieces of work of Sir J. M. Barrie, “A Kiss for Cinderella,” will be shown at the Palace this afternoon, to-night and Monday night. Betty Bronson, in the title-role, puts in some of her best work on the screen, and a fea.ture of the film is the little slavey’s dream of the magnificent ball where she meets the Fairy Prince.

The cinema and photographic branch of the Commonwealth Immigration Department will attend to all matters of cinematography in connection with the Duke and Duchess of York’s visit including the opening of Parliament in May next. Special additional operators will bo employed for the occasion. The partment has just concluded the second quota of its ‘Know Your Own Country” series of 500-feet of films. Arrangements are now being made for a new series. ,It is the intention to concentrate more upon the dcvclopmental than the scenic side of Australia . « ♦ * A remarkable change in the cinema’s status-in England is reflected in the fact that within a week the Queens of Spain and Norway, three princesses, and the Duke and Duchesses of York attended at a London picture show, says the Brisbane “Courier.” Barely a week passes without a representative of royalty visiting one or other of the cinemas. Princess Mary and the Duke and Duchess of York frequently go to the pictures. A year or two ago the cinema was quite unfashionable, and it would then have been a bold person who predicted that people one day would wear evening dress at cinema shows.

In no other part of the world are the fogs so clinging and impenetrable as in London. In the narrow alleyways and side-streets of its Limehouse district, beneath which is London’s notorious underworld, the mistwraiths liide everything behind a ghastly, pallid cloak. To give an accurate screen representation of this fog-shroud in the new picture “The Blackbird,” the locale of which is in Limelieuse, a special lens and light filter were invented. The effect is startling and uncanny. “The Blackbird,” in which Lon Chaney is starred, is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer reproduction. ,In it the famous star portrays a dual role—a crippled mission worker and a mysterious outlaw of the London underworld. Featured roles are also played by Owen Moore and Renee Adoree.

Some queer menageries have been assembled at motion picture studios, but perhaps the most diversified ever gathered together for. one picture was mobilised by "Warner Bros, for i'lieir production of “The Sea Beast,” starring John Barrymore, to be presented at Everybody’s shortly. The largest animal was a whale which a San Francisco firm contracted to furnish. The smallest living things were a ease of carefully-guarded tropical insects used for real atmosphere in the close-ups. Several specie* of monkeys were used. One of these was a marmoset five inches long, the smallest monkey in the world. John Barrymore’s own pet, which originally belonged to Georges Carpentier, was given by him to Gladys 'Cooper, the distinguished English actress, and by her children to Mr. Barrymore. The rest of the animals were a man-eating shark, several water buffalo, small tropical pigs, goats, ponies, and fifty big fat rats with long, slippery tails. From the beginning to the end of the picture the property department was a medley of strange noises from morning to evening.

PICTURES MORE POPULAR THAN EVER. WORLD-WIDE ACTIVITY IN THE INDUSTRY. 111 spite of the fact that there maybe a feeling on the part of some that the public is tiring of pictures, writes “Discernment” hi “Film Weekly.” I want to say, that if you for one minute believe such a thing to be true, you are only kidding y-ourself. Pictures to-day as entertainment are more popular than they have ever been, and the popularity of picture entertainment is continually increasing just as sure ns you are born.