The Bioscope (Jul-Sep 1931)

August 12, 1931 THE BIOSCOPE 23 In Hollywood Now Making Education Pay E.R.P.I. Starting Boom in Instructional (By Our Hollywood Correspondent, John Dee) Atlantic will join me in expressions of sympathy and regret. “The Great Gay Road ” Going Strong Sinclair Hill has a happy knack of enlisting the co-operation of his artists, and his current Butcher production, “ The Great Gay Road,” is amazingly close to schedule. Interiors may finish this week, but a burst of settled weather would send the company back to the road to complete this romance of the British countryside. Stewart Rome and Frank Stanmore are playing the gentleman tramp and his Cockney protege. Hakim and De Mille Quite an air of mystery seems to have surrounded recent negotiations between Eric Hakim and Cecil B. de Mille, who were said to be planning a ^100;000 British super film. Mr. Hakim is very silent, and in some quarters it is even said that he and de Mille never have planned to work together. This, I am sure, is definitely wrong, for when I was at Joinville .Studios, Paris, a little over a week ago, de Mille was also a very interested visitor there, and was being escorted over the lot by Robert J. Kane. Mr. de Mille had definitely visited Paris to make tests of Harold Huth, who was to have had a big part in his new Hakim picture. As to what has happened since, there is a complete air of mystery, but I have sufficient confidence in Eric Hakim to know that when he has any news worth imparting he will not hesitate to let me publish it. Hakim, as a matter of fact, always elects first to do something and then to ask the Press to tell the world what he has done, rather than plan something and ask the Press to tell the world what he is going to do. Short Shots John “ Paddy ” Carstairs has been resigned by Associated Radio (Basil Dean) till February next to write and assist on the production side generally. Carstairs returned from an experience in Hollywood, where he worked with A1 Christy, Columbia and Paramount, to join Radio here. He has since collaborated in the adaptation of " Footsteps in the Night,” just concluded by the Basil Dean unit, " Sally in Our Alley,” and as continuity writer in “ Water Gypsies,” the current Associated Radio subject. * * * " Four Winds ” has taken the floor at Welwyn Studios under the direction of Norman Lee, the cast including J ack Morrison , Molly Lamont, Moira Lvnd and Carol Coombe, daughter of Sir Wm. Coombe, a director of Union Theatres of Australia. * * * B.I.P. have acquired " No. 17,” another Jefferson Farjeon play, for early production. They have also signed up Leon M. Lion, who will be remembered as the original Ben in this stage play. * ” * * Congratulations to P. C. Stapleton on his formal appointment as General Manager of British International. Mr. Stapleton is one of the most unassuming as well as a most able executive among British studios personnel, and his appointment follows a lengthy period of service as Assistant General Manager under J. H. Thorpe. Formerly Mr. .Stapleton was in charge of the Accounts Department of the Gaumont Company. * * * Glad to report that Stanley Rodwell, who received serious injuries to the back when the ’plane in which he was filming crashed during exteriors for ” The Flying Fool,” has now completely recovered and is in charge of the camera at Welwyn Studios on the “ Four Winds ” unit. W.H.M. There are no flies on those electrical giants Western Electric, et al., grouped for certain purposes under the name of Electrical Research Products Inc., popularly known here as Erpi. In Hollywood the name of the educational film is mud. You can’t get money, or an ear or cheap floor space to make one. ” The public don't want to be educated,” they tell you. " Why not give them what they want ? ” Erpi knows better. The other week the American National Education Association held a convention in Los Angeles. For those 20,000 educationalists Erpi opened a small cinema and showed its own-make educational subjects — botanical, biological, entomological and the rest. The show ran from morning to night for seven days ; for seven days there was not a seat to be had in the cinema, unless one cared to queue up. Before the week was out Erpi booked the series to the University of California and sold 47 junior “ talkie ” sets ! Erpi has been secretly studying the educational field for three years ; has already shot half a million feet of educational film, and is serving 2,000 customers in the shape of schools, colleges, churches, clubs and institutions, with 6,000 more expected to be converted within the next three years. An Erpi official tells me that the educational film business of the near future would keep a major Hollywood studio in the profits to which it is accustomed. Rushing Musicals An indication that Hollywood is not fully convinced of the rosy future painted for musicals is Metro’s rushing of the script for " Flying High,” the George White songshow which will feature Bert Lahr, Jimmie Durante and Charlotte Greenwood. The effort is to get it out and draw the money for “ something different ” before Radio weighs in with “ Girl Crazy,” " Babes In Toyland,” and " The Bird of Paradise,” Paramount with the off-again-on-again " Rose of the Rancho,” Fox with the Gershwin-Gaynor subject, and the others with the others. Nobody in Hollywood is quite so sure that the public wants musicals as William Le Baron (Radio production chief) tells the Press he is. ” The Smiling Lieutenant ” is that kind of musical which has not much to do with the case ; one can’t generalise from a Lubitsch. Two other Hollywood scripts are being given day-and-night hurry treatment. They are Paramount’s " Draga Maschin ” and R.K.O.-Pathe’s " A Woman Commands,” the Thilde Foster story to be Pola Negri’s chord on. Both stories are based on the life of a Queen of Serbia — and both studios want to be first. Here and There Ludwig Satz has completed the first all-talking Yiddish pioduction, entitled ‘‘Love Crazy.” * * * Alexander Pantages has bought the world rights of a magnetic talking wire system of sound reproduction, similar to the Blattnerphone, from Arthur Whitsun, inventor, for a reported figure of /8,000. * * * Nick Copeland, former New York agent, has evolved a new variety of fan photograph consisting of an unbreakable disc with the star’s likeness on one side and a personally spoken message to the fan on the other. The discs cost only slightly more than the average postcard photograph. * * * Paramount lias installed the new Debrie motor-driven camera tripod on all stages. Michael Powell’s Second for Fox Michael Powell, who directed " Two Crowded Hours,” now playing at the Tivoli in support of " Daddy Long Legs,” has commenced work on his second British picture for Fox. Under the title of “ My Friend the King,” this new picture is now in production at the Nettlefold studio, Walton-on-Thames. The cast includes Jerry Verno who, as the taxi driver in “ Two Crowded Hours,” gave an attractive comedy performance, Robert Holmes, Eric Pavit, Tracy Holmes and Baroness Luli Hohenberg, all stage artists. Marjorie Hume and Janice Adair as mother and daughter in Butcher’s new Empire production “ Deadlock,” to be screened to the British trade on September 4th