The Film Daily (1928)

V6 Exhibitors DAILY REVIEW, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1928 Complete Fox Production Plans for 1929 Announced Fox Film Corporation plans another imposing schedule for 1929, more comprehensive and advanced than that of the past year and rallying still more strongly around a vanguard of talking pictures. Besides Movietone News, which will be progressively expanded until it will have seven issues weekly by the end of the year, Fox is assembling six full length dialogue lilms which will be presently put in circulation, as forerunners of others to be made at the newly completed Movietone City, first studio specially designed for "speakles." 6 Dialognes These six trail-blazers are "In Old Arizona," first outdoor talker, directed by Raoul Walsh and Irving Cummings, acted by Edmund Lowe, Warner Baxter and Dorothy Burgess in the leads, and showered with praise already at the advance show•ings in California; "The Ghost Talks," first Fox comedy feature, with Charles Eaton and Helen Twelvetrees under the direction of Lew Seller; "Hearts in Dixie," with an all negro cast of actors and spiritual singers under the direction of Paul Sloane; "The Valiant," with Paul Muni and Marguerite Churchill in the stage play by Holwortliy "Hall and Robert Middlemass under the megaphone guidance of William K. Howard; "Speakeasy," with Paul Page and Lola Lane, directed by :Ben Stoloff from the stage play by Edward Knoblock and George Rosener; and "Thru Different Eyes," screen version of a play by Milton Herbert Gropper and Edna Sherry, directed by John Blystone with Sylvia Sidney, Warner Baxter and Mary Duncan. Among the special productions will be a realistic depiction of Indian life now being done by Robert J. Flaherty, famed for his primitive life films, in Mexico and New Mexico. Gaynor-Farrell Again The famous trio of Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell and Director Frank Borzage will be re-united in their first film together since "Street Angel." The new vehicle will be an adaptation of a story by Tristram Tupper which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post under the title, "Three Episodes in the Life of Timothy Osborn.' Miss Gaynor will also be seen in the newly finished "Christina," a Holland idyll directed by William K. Howard. Farrell, in addition to his newly current Borzage production, "The River," with Mary Duncan, will appear again with Miss Duncan in "Our Daily Bread," now being finished by F. W. Murnau, director of "4 Devils" and "Sunrise", for early exhibition. 8 For McLaglan Still another Fox topnotcher, Victor McLaglan, will add a couple of more portraits soon to his already popular gallery of dynamic, entertaining modern swashbucklers. His new offerings will be "Captain Lash," a stokehole romance just finished by Director John Blystone, and "Strong Boy," in which he plays a baggage-smasher under the tutelage of John Ford. Plans have been broached for McLaglen also to appear in "The Cock-Eyed World," a sequel by Laurence Stallings to "What Price Glory," in which he Schnitzer-LeBaron Plan 30 Big Specials for 1929 FBO Program will be reunited with Edmund Lowe under the direction of Raoul Walsh. 2 With O'Brien David Butler, after producing several hits depicting the humors of young America, will strike out in a new vein with "Son of Anak," with George O'Brien and Farrell Macdonald in the screen version of Ben Ames Williams' story. Another O'Brien picture will be James Tinling's production of "True Heaven," in which his co-featured partner will be Lois Moran, already teamed with him in "Blindfold." Mary Astor will be in Henry Lehrman's "New Year's Eve." Balance of Program Other impending Fox features, replete with box-office names and stories, are Madge Bellamy in "Fugitives,' directed by William Beaudine from Richard Harding Davis' story, "Exiles," and supported by a cast including Don Terry, Earle Foxe and Arthur Stone; "Red Wine," with June Collyer and Conrad Nagel, directed by Raymond Cannon; "Making the Grade," with Edmund Lowe and Lois Moran, directed by Alfred E. Green from a story of the same name by George Ade; "Scarehead," a newspaper story directed by Fred Newmeyer, with Robert Elliott, Sally Phipps and Frank Albertson; "Trent's Last Case," a Howard Hav/ks production with Raymond Hatton; "The Veiled Woman," in whicli Lia Torra, Latin beauty, figures as both authoress and leading woman under the direction of Emmett Flynn; "Big Time," vaudeville picture with Marian Nixon directed by Howard Hawks; "Girls Gone Wild", with Sue Carol and Nick Stuart under the guidance of Lew Seller; "Follow My Leader," with Raymond Cannon megaphoning and Lois Moran featured; "Nobody's Children," with Helen Twelvetrees and Frank Albertson. directed by Albert Werker; "The Grouch Bag," with Louise Dresser directed by Irving Cummings; "The Lady From Hell,'' with Camilla Horn under the direction of John Erickson; "Chasing Through Europe," with young Stuart under the direction of David Butler, and "Behind That Curtain," from the mystery story by Earl Derr Biggers. Amiong the outstanding productions lined up for Movietone shorts are Clark and McCullough in "In Holland" and 'Waltzing Around"; a new Robert Benchley series, of which "Lesson Number One" and "Furnace Trouble" have already been completed; "Forget Me Not," a Marcel Silver production with David Rollins and Nancy Drexel; "Friendship," written and directed by Eugene Walter from his play of the same name, with Robert EdeBon and Donald Gallagher, and a new picture by Arthur Caesar, who wrote "Napoleon's Barber" and "The Diplomats." DOWLING EFFECTS BIG FBO-RUSSIAN DEAL Ambrose Dowling, General European Sales Manager of FBO, who has returned from an extensive European tour and reports excellent business for his company in Central Europe and the concluding of some very satisfactory deals with the Soviet for FBO product. Subject to screening, the FBO product will be well represented in Russia and Dowling believes the Russian market will develop prices. He found many new film studios now building in Russia. While he found existing cinemas well kept and clean, there is room for in Russia for cinema development which will he well repaid. WarnerVitaphone for Photophone Houses Vitaphone Pictures, according to George E. Quigley, V. P. of the company, will soon be served to theatres equipped with the new RCAPhotophone disc device, which costs about one-third less than the film equipment, and is intended for smaller houses. This is the only device Warner Brothers have O.K.'d for Vitaphone discs. With the purchase of Florenz Ziegfeld's musical success "Rio Rita", Joseph I. Schnitzer, president of FBO Productions inaugurated the commencement of a revolution in the quality of the company's product. FBO is now in a strategic cinema "* vantage point as the producing and distributing c'ompany for the re ■ cently created Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation. Mr. Schnitzer announces that the company has scheduled 30 special productions for the 1929-30 program. To take care of wired houses, houses that are not wired, and the foreign market, sound and silent negatives will be available on each production. William Le Baron, vice-president of FBO in charge of production, announces that the great program of expansion will be inaugurated with the sound-proofing of the present r stages at the FBO Studios in Hollywood. In addition, a new soundstage will be erected. Construction on this stage will begin as soon as plans and specifications are ratified ♦ within the next few days. As equipment for FBO's sound operations, Photophone outfits are enroute from New York for installation at the studio. To carry out the magnitude of FBO's increased undertakings, a larger producing personnel will be built up, and an array of acting, directorial, writing and technical tal , ent will be assembled to execute the new enterprises. WALTER CAMP, Pres. JOHN BOYCE-SMITH, V. Pres. E. C. JENSON, Sales Manager INSPIRATION PICTURES, INC. Executive oflSces, 565 HFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Production: Tec-Art Studios, 5360 MELROSE AVENUE, HOLLYWOOD, CAL. HENRY KING'S "SheGoes to War!" featuring Eleanor Boardman, Alma Rubens, John Holland, Al St. John Adapted by Fred de Gresac from the novel by RUPERT HUGHES Scenario by Hov^rard Estabrook Directed by Henry King The epic of vsroman's imperishable part in the Great Conflict. Produced in association vv^ith Victor and Edward Halperin INSPIRATION PICTURES, INC. Released through United Artists