Exhibitors Daily Review (Jul-Dec 1928)

Exhibitors DAILY REVIEW, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1928 Lionel Barrymore to Direct Madame T Noted Actor Makes Good And Will Handle AllTalkie for M.G.M. II >■ .1. HARRISON EDWARDS \\ r*C Coast Correspondent .Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have decided to make an all-talkie of "Madame X" the celebrated stage play, with Lionel Barrymore directing. Production is expected to start within three weeks at the Culver City studios. Barrymore is said to have done such excellent work in his direction of a short reel talkie recently completed that it set the studio executives on heads with enthusiasm. They immediately began a look over all available material for a feature length talkie for his direction and came across "Madame X". We hear that Pauline Frederick will have the role of the mother and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., the son. 'U' BROADWAY CAST SIGNS 2WUGINALS Universal has signed two well known actors from the original cast of the stage sensation "Broadway" to play for the screen the same roles they made famous on the stage. They are Thomas Jackson, who created the role of Dan the detective, and Paul Forcasi, who created the role of Nick the cabaret proprietor. Both will leave New York at. an early date for Universal City, where plans for a super-production of the Jed Harris stage hit are nearing completion. Glenn Tryon has been chosen to play the leading role of the "hoofer" in "Broadway." Mary Nolan, beautiful blonde ingenue of Universal pictures is being considered for the hard-boiled cabaret entertainer, Pearl. Carl Laemmle, Jr., is supervising the preparatory work on the picture, which will be with full dialogue and sound effects. Ohio Keynote Today "Reorganize Censor Bd." (Continued from page 1) morning, when the exhibitors convene at the Deshler-Wallick Hotel. Myers Y. Cooper, governor-elect of Ohio will be one of the four principal speakers at the banquet to* night, the other speakers being R. F. Woodhull, C. C. Pettijohn and the Rev. William M. Macleod of Pinehurst, N. C, a famous movie-booster. State Senator Joseph N. Ackerman of Cleveland will address the convention, as well as the Hon. William H. Day, ex-Judge of the U. S. District Court. Caldwell H. Brown, president of the Brown Theatrical Enterprises of Zanesville will speak on sound and talkie pictures in the small towns; Fred Desberg, manager of the Loew Cleveland Theatres will talk on the future of these pictures in city theatres. Micheal L. Simmons of the Sonora-Bristolphone Corp., will demonstrate his company's apparatus for small town theatre owners. The annual election of officers on Wednesday will be the chief business of the day. Ping Pong Rules by Harry Reichenbach (Courtesy Motion Picture Club Bulletin) Ping Pong was created to while away dull hours by the head hunters of the Solomon Islands. Each evening after an hour of Ping Pong, the members of the Solomon Island tribes would go out into a forest shaded glen and look for fairies. Soon, oh not necessarily too soon, a number of fairies from the glen joined the tribe and became amongst the most wonderful Ping Pongists. Ping Pong is known in the west as "Nance Tennis" or female polo. The first stroke or "serve" should be made with the left hand resting on the left hip. After two serves, if server wins, he should walk around table and kiss opponent so that it will be apparent there is no hard feeling. That is, not too hard. The players should act as masculine as possible. The audience deserves consideration. If the rattle of the balls on the table becomes irritating, they can be softened by soaking in hot water. The balls, not the rattles. Ping Pong should be played by two people, one at each end of the table. Care should be taken in 'this. The expert is he who can hit the ball and run around to the other end of the table in time to knock it back in the opposite direction. In case of players donning athletic suits, red should be avoided. There is enough suspicion without that color. After a strenuous game, nothing is more revivifying than a nice cool glass of lemonade. If this is too stimulating, White Rock will do. Overhand passes are barred. Hobflail shoes cannot be worn. Collars should button in front and trousers in back during the playing of tournaments. The bicycles in the gymnasium are for the benefit of retired exhibitors. They will be reminded of old times. Of course this isn't necessary. Ta ta. 1ST NATIONAL UNITS AT WARNER STUDIO Recently it was announced by Jack Warner that their West Coast studio would close for a period of two months. This was caused by the fact that their production force were far ahead of their schedule on the product for release during 192829. Now it is learned that the Sunset Bldv. plant will not close after all, but the stages will not house Warner companies, but First National units. First National has around thirty pictures of its 1928-29 program to finish. This has been caused by practically no work being done at the Burbank studio during the time the organization was being passed around, and now they have to put on full steam, using both the Burbank studio and the stages of Warner Brothers. INDIA PROUCER'S HOLLYWOOD SURVEY (Special to Exhibitors Daily Review) HOLLYWOOD — A. Narayanan, India film producer, is in Hollywood looking over production and the salaries and general production costs of our picture colony have astounded him. Narayanan says that the most popular leading man in India enly gets $100.00 a month and that the best woman gets a salary of $400.00 a week. He was surprised to learn that a local Zoo gets $150 a day for the services of an elephant. He said "In India we could get 150 elephants for that price. They only cost $1.50 a day". Narayanan said that India was making more pictures today than England and that the great drawback in his company was theatres, there being only 400 theatres for a population of 350,000,000. Schlesinger Seeks Emelka Control (Continued from page 1) *ish Controlled Films has won the race against J. W. Schlesinger, the South African movie magnate and has secured for his company half of the Emelka shares; 80% of the German Exhibitors' Producing Syndicate Shares and 86% of the Maxim Films. Last week, Schlesinger was cheered in London as the successful buyer of the great Emelka concern; today Berlin declares the deal off ind in London, Major Rassam is the hero of the day. Every European producer and distributor is racing for markets. Every faint chance is early followed up and any vague rumor exploited. Such hectic feeling, however, does not prevail in the fatherland. Yesterday the Berlin Friedrichstrase exploded the Schlesinger report; today it contradicts the Rassam report. The appearance of the D.L.S. in the reports was unusual. This exhibitors' producing and renting association which had outstanding success as long as Herr Friedrich Zelnik was its producer, is evidently finding favor among British exhibitors and plans are afoot ther? to start something similar. Now the reported acquisition firm is looked on as an attack of British producers and distributors against British exhibitors. There is a long way yet toward the formation of the European bloc. It will be a long time fore British pictures find a million seats in Germany and a long time before the 3 to 1 German-French reciprocity arrangements lately discussed comes into force. OPINIONS By W. R. WILKERION Gilbert for U. A.? It is now rumored that John Gilbert signed a contract with United Artists when he was in New York a short time ago. It is believed that there will be an announcement to this effect as soon as his present M-G-M contract expires. "CHASING THROUGH EUROPE" The Fox unit that has been chasing through Euroe making a picture with this same title, returned to America Saturday, and from the stories that are being told around town, this gang must have had a great time, even though they did work day and night, get pinched several times, and risked being mobbed by admiring throngs every time they set up their tripod. They visited almost every important country in Europe, had a few days in London, Paris, Venice, Naples, Rome, Marseilles, Lille, Bethune Tangier, Tetuan, Barcelona, Zaragoza and Guadelupe and would probably have been over there yet if it had not been for a cable sent by "Winnie" Sheehan calling them back. • • • HAVE BUTLER The troupe was fathered by David Butler, Fox director, with Nick Stuart as the star. They exposed over 84,000 feet of negative, having photographed most every celebrated person in Europe including two kings, two dictators, one royal prince, two notable commanders of the World War and one Sultan. They probably have sufficient material for four or five pictures. • • • SAM GOLDWYN "Darn clever these Chinese". Sam Goldwyn finds himself with a great star in Vilma Banky and has been told about the tremendous grosses being made by talking picture. But — Miss Banky speaks very broken English. So Sammy has a story written that permits Miss Banky a characterization of a young Hungarian girl, speaking very poor English. And in order to make this thing real, the main characters in the story have to learn some Hungarian for the first part of the picture which centers on Miss Banky's arrival in this country wherein she does not speak any English at all. • * • WARNER'S LITHOGRAPHS The lithographs on the recent Warner productions have been exceptional good from every point of view. We inquired the other day and was told that the Warner organization owns the Continental Litho Co., bag and baggage. Certainly if your own plant could not turn out good work for you, who could. It seems evident that the Warner boys thought it best to grab a plant for themselves rather than be dictated to by the Morgan group who seem to have a strangle hold on all the lithograph business in our industry. We think aside from Fox and Warners, the Morgan gang does all the major work.