Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

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51 T T . .1 T >1 ■ ■ « * f m/ ■ ■ J m « ■ » ■ m ■«. # * t * ■ ■ j m ■*. • « ■ • ■ J^at^m^iulza \JcAa//ert opposite Jack Gilbert. We saw Eleanor in "She Goes to War," a silent film, and liked her portrayal very much. Gloria Would Demonstrate. How can a star prove that he or she really has a singing voice? The answer to this perplexing question has been solved by Gloria Swanson. Lest you should not realize why it is a perplexing question, we might mention that stars' voices are so frequently doubled in songs that nobody believes they do any vocalizing themselves. Gloria really can sing, however, and just to give an adequate demonstration of it, she may appear in a recital this fall. She has been studying most industriously with a teacher in Los Angeles, and her progress in the vocal art is rated remarkable. Colleen with a Brogue. Colleen Moore also is among the students of song. Not that she expects to enter on a career as a concert artist, but simply to pave the way for her venture into talkies. Colleen has made her first dialogue picture, and has perhaps very wisely chosen a role with an Irish accent. We saw her the very day of her baptism in the new medium, and she had managed to survive the agonies of microphone fright. It is difficult to realize the pangs that the experienced silent-film player goes through in making the transition to the vocal form of expression. Cases of nerves were never so numerous as to-day in the studio world. Oft in the Stilly Night. Night is no longer turned into day, and vice versa, at the Paramount studio. The company's sound-proof stages, replacing those destroyed by fire early in the year, have been rebuilt, and the actors are working again on regular schedule. It was a romantic period, nevertheless — that period of night work there — as we had occasion on several visits to find out. The lunch room of the studio, virtually empty at noonday, was replete with glittering personalities at the midnight hour. The stages and the lot were fantastically illuminated, while the wheels of industry ground on. One of the most attractive sets under this nocturnal spell was an exterior for the opening scenes of "The Wheel of Life," adapted from the Elsie Ferguson stage play. It represented London Bridge. In the background was the phantom shape of a huge ocean liner used as a setting in many productions. It had no part in "The Wheel of Life," except as a gallery for the electric arcs which were turned on Richard Dix and Esther Ralston, principals in that feature. However, it added immeasurably to the atmosphere of the scene. Dix a Sizzler. Dix in a gay mood told us blithely of his first efforts to register on the microphone. It seems that he wasn't aware of the peculiarities of the apparatus during its Photo by Ball Winifred Bryson has added a new string of pearls to her jewels — surely a modest way to celebrate the increased fame the talkies have given her husband, Warner Baxter. earlier stages of development, and picked a sentence that was full of "s's." "They must have been having fun at my expense, because they let me go ahead and speak the lines with every belief on my part that I was doing a good job of it," he said. "When they played back the test for me, picture my amazement, if you will. I sounded exactly like a seltzer siphon !" Stature and Repartee. Singer's Midgets grew rather punnish during their recent visit to the film colony, according to all report-. They denied that they were going to appear in short subjects. The impresarios of Our Gang comedies, not to be behind in the race, announced that the first audible film done by the youngsters would be called "Small Talk." "Dream Castle" Changes Hands. The Fred Thomson estate lias been sold for $540,000. Perhaps the most beautiful of all estates in Beverly Hills, it may no longer be pointed out as a cherished exemplification of the filmland home. The new owner is not of picture-. In conjunction with Marie Dressier, the character actress, Frances .Marion, the widow of Thomson, gave a garden party on the property shortly before bidding it farewell. Many people who were present viewed with a tinge of regret the passing of the beautiful mansion as a picture world "castle of dreams." Miss Marion, however, found the responsibility of maintenance too great, following Thomson's death, to undertake the burden alone. It was I Iedda Hopper, the actress, who assisted her in disposing of the place, for she acted as agent in the deal. Miss Hopper, while not so active in films at present. ha had remarkable success in the real-estate business, proving that versatility evidences itself in more v.