Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 26 March 1931, page 4


SCREEN SHORTS.

"Call of the Flesh."

"Call of the Flesh," Ramon Novarro's newest starring vehicle, which will open at the Regent Theatre on Saturday will permit music lovers to bear Novarro's voice as an opera singer for the first time. Renee Adoree gives a fiery per-formance as Lola, the dancer, and she and Novarro do some clever dancing in the

cantina scene. Ernest Torrence has a de-lightful character to play aá the old opera star teaching the young singer to sing in his place. The second attraction is, "He Knew Women," an adaptation of the successful New York stage play "The Second Mau," by S. N. Behrman. Lowell Sherman enacts the part of the man. Frances Dade is the girl.

Featurettes include Fox Movietone and Australasian Newsreels. At the Wurlitzer organ, Mr. James Miller will render "Caliph of Bagdad," and "Myriad Dancer." Miss Mignon Jago will be heard at the Wurlitzer organ in the day sessions only. Not for Him.

There's an assistant director on the Metro-Goldwyu-Mayer lot named Eddie Brophy.

One day they needed a man to play a hard-boiled bit, and Eddie stepped in and did the part. He did it so well that they wanted to make an actor out of him right away. "No, sir,"' said Eddie, "I know this racket. I'd rather be an assistant director and eat three square meals a day."

So they have to trick him into acting. They hire him as an assistant and then give him a part to play.

He is one of the leading characters in Buster Keaton's "Forward March."

But the example has been a bad one.

Now all the prop men and assistants, and

even the carpenters, are begging for a

chance to act.

Australian Talkie.

Independent Films (A/sia) Pty., Ltd.,

distributors for the Commonwealth Go-vernment films, began production recent-ly of the first Victorian-produced alltalkie comedy-drama, "Out of the Shadows." For several months the com-pany has been testing Australian and foreign machines, and its experts have decided on the local product. An allAustralian cast has been engaged, and the producer, technicians, cameramen, sound recorders and directorate are Aus-tralians experienced in motion picture work.

The story is by Mr. J. Summers, a Victorian, who has had experience in scenario writing at Hollywood. The ac-tion takes place in Melbourne.

The producer, Mr. A. R. Harwood, man-aging director of Independent Films, is a young Melbourne man who has had a meteoric rise in motion picture or-ganisation. He gained experience in talkie production at Tahiti with American pro-ducers. He was co-director in many come-dies. On returning to Australia he pro-duced one of the first silent films in Mel-bourne. He also controls for the Com-monwealth Government the release of the Australian Review and many other scenic silent films.

Rogers - Polo Player.

Will Rogers plays polo, and plays to win. He's one of the wildest players on any polo field.

Fox officials are scared. They're sure that some day. right in the middle of a production, he'll get a broken somethingor other. So they ask him, regularly, notto to play polo during production. It's not in the contract.

So Will plays polo. An obliging chap!

Missing Things.

Being an opera and concert star, as well as a screen star, has its drawbacks. One of them is that sometimes you can't see the Hollywood premiere of your latest pic-

ture.

That's what happened to Grace Moore. Wires from New York called her back East to fulfil concert engagements, so she missed the thrill of attending her own opening

on the screen.

But after all, four figures with dollar marks in front of them do make up for things!