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(Conducted by "Aristophanes '.).
THE KINEMA.
This Culture. '
Charles (ex-Buddy) Rogers thought he
would test his popularity with the flap
pettes during a recent stay in Now York.
Going into the stage door of the Para-
mount Theatre, besieged, as usual, by
mobs of youngsters, he dropped Iiis hankis.
A score of the kids hurlee! themselves at
it and piled up like a' football scrimmage
When the mess was uutangled, a 6inal),
soiled girl was found at the bottom of the
heap. But she was bugging the hankie
to her buzzim.
Isn't life wonderful? The human race
CHARLES ROGERS : "Buddy" no longer. WR. G. B. SHAW : Hit play "How he Lied-to ¡Her Hutband" ft being made into a talkie "on< extremely unorthodox lines. Help
CHARLES ROGERS : "Buddy" no longer.
I--I
has struggled up from the amoeba, through
millions of years, to so-called civilisation.
And children exquisitely moulded in the
image of their Maker fight over the hand-
kerchief of a movie boy. Any wonder we
all despair, now and again? . \
Chevalier Hosted and Booed.
Maurice Chevalier, the famous comedian,
was hooted and booed when singing at a
Nice music-ball recently.
Tie suddenly stopped in the middle of
a song and stepped from the stage inti
the auditorium. There he began to abuse
a man whose laugh, Chevalier said, "an-
noyed" him.
The audience at first thought it was,a
pre-arranged joke, but they soon discover-
ed it was nothing of the sort. The man
whose laugh bad offended Chevalier de-
clared he was a wounded ex-serviceman,
and the audience took sides with him and
booted and hissed Chevalier.
Amusement Tax Increase Resented.
A protest against the proposed doubling
of the amusement tax by the State,Go-
vernment was made last week by Mr. D.
Cross, superintending manager of Union
Theatres, Ltd., Western Australia.
"The picture film industry wishes to as-
sist the Government to secure as much
revenue as possible," said Mr. Cross, "and
feels that the best way to do that would
to be to increase the taxation on the
higher-priced seats and leave alone the
cheaper seats, under half a crown. Such
a plan, if adopted, would ensure more
revenue and less hardship, and would per-
mit the theatres to continue to exist. At
the moment, the industry is losing £8,000
weekly in Australia. The proposed added
impost to the cheaper-priced, seats would
mean that the working classes would be;
prohibited from attending the .theatres,,
with a consequent loss of business to the
industry, the shutting up of the theatres
and the throwing of more people out of ¡
employment. Such a deplorable result, the ;
industry feels the Government is anxious
to avoid.
Hollywood Joins London.
An important association between Lon-
don and Hollywood, which should give
added impetus to the distribution of Bri-
tish films in the United Stataes and other
countries, is indicated by an agreement
just made hetween the United Artists'
Corporation and Mr. William Hutter:
Mr. Hutter is chairman of the com-
panies that, own the Duke - of York's
Theatre, London, and the head lease of
the London Pavilion, at which United
Artists are showing their sensational air
picture, "Hell's Angels."
Under the new arrangement Mr, Hutter'
will organise"the production in or near
London of pictures to be made in British
French, and Spanish versions. The first
will be Mr. Walter Hackett's successful
comedy "77 Park Lane/'
French and Spanish screen actors and
actresses are to be brought to England
for this picture. The English cast has
not yet been settled. .
Appreciative, but -
The saddest man in Hollywood, strangely
enough, has the keenest sense of humour.
He has no connection with the picture
industry, but he loves to go to the.movies,
particularly, the comedy off eringe, and
thereby hangs our little sob story.
He bas the loudest and most raucous
laughter of almost anything human, and
he is so easily moved to laughter. He
throws a theatre into turmoil when he
even chuckles. A carnival spirit prevails,
and the rest of the audience begins to
make catcalls, and throw things. In no
lime at all an usher trips down the aisle,
and firmly asks him to leave. By this time
things have reached such a pass that nene
of the boulevard movie palaces wul sell
him a ticket.
He did get into a showing of "Caught
Short," and the theatre rocked with lu's
laughter. When the usher asked him io
leave he^was rather firm 'about refusing.
He finally accepted a compromise. He
left, but the theatre had, to give him three
times what he paid for' bis ticket.
Shaw and His Picture.
Mr. George Bernard Shaw is not allow-
ing British International Pictures to deal
ns they elect with the talk-film of his
play "How He Lied To Her Husband."
The actors in the film are all being se-
lected by Mr. Shaw himself. Mr. Edmund
Gweun was chosen some time ago for the
principal male part. Every kinema actress
in the country aspired to play the leading
lady, and dozen of tests were made at El-
stree; but none of them satisfied Mr. Shaw.
.He has now made his selection from
outside the orthodox ranks. It is said
that Miss Vera Lennox, of whom Mr.
Shaw thinks very highly and who is play-
ing in "Frederica" at the Palace Theatre,
has been chosen.
Elstree already recognises that this film
is to be made on extremely unorthodox!
Unes. Â technique has been evolved in
talk-films known as "waiting for the"
laugh." Each line which the director hopes '
will make his audience chuckle is followed
by a hiatus in the dialogue, for the director ;
does not want his next line drowned in
a gust of wholesale laughter.
CHARLES ROGERS : "Buddy" no longer. WR. G. B. SHAW : Hit play "How he Lied-to ¡Her Hutband" ft being made into a talkie "on< extremely unorthodox lines. Help
WR. G. B. SHAW : Hit play "How he Lied-to
¡Her Hutband" ft being made into a talkie "on<
extremely unorthodox lines.
But Mr. Shaw will not wait for hie
laughs. Shakespeare and Shaw, he told the.
studio people on Saturday, demand to be1
played as tbey are written; he will not
have his action held -op for guffaws.
Britain in Hollywood. ' \
Hollywood has been left to discover for
the screen the romance of Victorian Eng-
land (writes Peter Buruup in the London ;
"Baily Mail.") -
A few years ago we all laughed easily
at our fathers and grandfather who swore
by Mr. G. or who followed -Lord B. But
secretly those exciting years which im
I mediately preceded the Boer war have had
their own particular thrill. Now those
who remember Victorian London are be-
coming fewer. To an increasing number it
is not something just gone out of date,
at which to gibe indulgently, but a alice,
of history. And history which is packed
with interest for every Englishman.
Mr. George Arliss re-created those 3ays
in his talk film .'¿Disraeli." X imagined then
that the success of that film would have
set a new fashion among the producers of
English films. But I was entirely wrong.
It has been left to Mr. Arliss-and Mr.
Arliss again in the employment of an
American firm-to make another film of
those daj's.
The new picture is called "Old English."
It is an adaptation of Mr. Galsworthy's'
play. Mr. Arliss, of course, plays Sylva
nús Hcythorp, the gallant sinner and the
charming gentleman of-the play.
The furn may be vulnerable to criticlsii,
but the immediate point 2$ that vhen
everyone agrees that' England should bc
put upon the screen it is left to an Ame-
rican company to do it. Elstree, it seems, ¡
has stilHi deal to learn from Hollywood.
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