The Educational screen (c1922-c1956])

October, 1928 201 I lums, Horace, Beezie, the Gedunk sundae and the autographed Ford and slicker. {See Film Estimates in this issue.) [72] THE STREET OF SIN (Paramount) A highly artificial story built to suit the needs of Emil Jannings — almost entirely impossible, sometimes thoroughly offensive, but somehow interesting in spots. This last is due partly to Jannings himself, partly to Olga Baclanova, and partly to the direction. Jannings plays a bully of the London Limehouse district, Baclanova the woman who lives with him, and Fay Wray a Salvation Army sister who is responsible for the bully's reform and also for his death. The last named character as played by Miss Wray, came, I feel sure, straight out of the Elsie Dinsmore books, and is probably the most incredible that has ever appeared on the screen. {See Film Estimates for June.) \73] THE LION AND THE MOUSE (Warner Brothers) A good deal more of spoken dialogue than previous pictures have contained, features this dramatic offering, and centers interest in the speeches themselves, or rather, in the mechanical noveltv of the thing. And that, perhaps, is just as well, for the story exhibits some serious weaknesses. Lionel Barrymore, of course, has much the best of it. He never finds it necessary to raise his voice above a conversational tone, and he is indubitably convincing, except when the plot betrays him. Alec Francis, too, is much at home with the spoken word. May McAvoy and William Collier, Jr. are not so satisfactory. They sound (I know I have said this before) as if they were making up their speeches as they go along. But since, even with these minor faults, this is by far the best of the Vitaphone pictures to date, I suggest that you see it. {See Film Estimates in this issue.) Production Notes Indications from Hollywood ■^ are that sound is the big developm e n t everywhere. Paramount announces that between twenty and thirty of the seventy-one feature productions to be released this season, will have sound accompaniment, most of them with talking sequences. Paramount News will present a large part of its service in sound, and one and rwo-reel short features, including Christie comedies, are also to have synchronized accompaniment. In addition, Paramount is to offer a new type of picture in the sound filmizations of stage unit productions such as those staged in the big theaters operated by Publix. Among the feature length produaions with sound which are either already in work or have been completed are Wings, Erich von Stroheim's The Wedding March, Abie's Irish Rose. The Patriot, The Canary Murder Case, Loves of an Actress, Warming Up and Burlesque. The company's first all-talking motion picture will be the sensational stage play. Interference, with a cast including Clive Brook, William Powell, Evelyn Brent and Doris Kenyon. Gary Cooper and Fay Wray will co-star in The Haunting Melody, which is to be made entirely in dialogue, the story centering around the melody itself. Harold Lloyd has started work on what probably will be the first dialogue and sound comedy of importance. No leading woman has as yet been chosen. Douglas MacLean's first ParamountChristie feature comedy. The Carnation Kid, is being made with sound, according to an announcement from the Christie studio. P ARAMOUNT piaures now in * the making include Tong War, co-featuring Florence Vidor and Wallace Beery; Manhattan Cocktail, with Nancy Carroll and Richard Arlen; Avalanche, with Jack Holt and Baclanova; Redskin, to be made entirely in color, and to star Richard Dix ; His Private Life, starring Adolphe Menjou; The Shop Worn Angel, with Nancy Carroll and Gary Cooper; The Sins of the Fathers, starring Emil Jannings, and a big special, The Pour Feathers. The Last of Mrs. Cheney is to be Norma Shearer's next picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Other important produaions for this company include a iilmization of the famous Trader Horn; Adriemie Lecouvrer; The Single Man, with Aileen Pringle and Lew Cody; Morgan's Last Raid, widi Tim McCoy; Thirst, with John Gilbert; West of Zanzibar, with Lon Chaney; Her Cardboard Lover, with Marion Davies; A Woman of Affairs, with John Gilbert and Greta Garbo; Gold Braid, with Ramon Novarro; and A Man's Man, with William Haines; Alias Jimmy Valentine will be the vocal debut of William Haines; Norma Shearer's voice will first be heard in The Little Angel; and Buddies will furnish Marion Davies with her first talking picture, all of these to be produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Cecil B. DeMille, with his personal staff intaa, has moved into the studios of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His new contract with the company provides that he shall produce pictures of the type of The Volga Boatman, The King of Kings, and The Ten Commandments. T J NITED Artists report that John ^^^ Barrymore's next piaure will be King of the Mountains, an adaptation of a popular European novel, Der Koenig der Bernina. Ernst Lubitsch will direa and Camilla Horn will play opposite Barrymore. Mary Pickford will be the first big screen star to make an all-talking picmre. She has purchased Coquette, the play that is now having a sensational run in New York. Coquette will be directed by Sam Taylor, production to begin immediately. The Rescue, with Ronald Colman and Lili Damita, and The Awakening, with Vilma Banky and Walter Byron, are finished. The next Colman-Damita picture will be Devil's Island, parts of which will probably be made in French Guinea with the co-operation of the French government, and the next Banky-Byron picture will be a story by James Gleason, author of Is Zat So. Douglas Fairbanks is at work on his sequel to The Three Musketeers, entitled The Iron Mask. Several members of the cast are playing the parts they created in the first story of D'Artagnan and his fellows. Marguerite de la Motte is again Constance, Cardinal Richelieu is being played once more by Nigel de Brulier, Leon Bary has returned to the part of Athos, Lon Poff to that of Father Joseph, and Charles Stevens to Planchet.