The Film Daily (1931)

THE Sunday, February 1, 1931 Timely Topics A Digest of Current Opinion Screen Must Depend On Younger Actors CPLENDID character delineations, artistically conceived and portrayed by acting genius will enthrall audiences when mediocre drama fails. That is one of the boons which sound has brought to the screen for many masterpieces of acting put over by great actors without dynamic dramatic settings, can now be given to the public. The problem will be to find enough great actors, capable of carrying a picture by the sheer artistry of their performance. There is a splendid school of young actors in the field today, whose ambition and talent will bring them into the foremost ranks, but of the older men and women, schooled by years of work and experience there are not so many. This is because the stage, which trained these people, produced but a few in comparison with the number the screen is now producing. In the days when the stage was supreme, a half dozen great stars could fill all the theaters of the country during a season. This of necessity placed a limit on the number of potentially great actors to succeed them. The screen of today needs hundreds of great actors. It is upon the younger actors of today that we must depend for them. Instead of being satisfied with good performances in a certain type of role, the youngsters should give a thought to the tremendous effort and application which such artists as Richard Mansfield, Joseph Jefferson, E. H. Sothern, Henry Irving devoted to their calling. These men were apprentices even to the day they retired. — Wallace Smith FEN YEARS AGO TO-DAY IN 1 American Cinema reorganizes wd increases capital stock to $1,200,)00. * * * ! Imporant combine of comedy producers reported. * * * : Pathe Exchange in new home in ew York. ■JZ&* DAILY • • • ABOUT ONCE in every decade, a real Cinderella story flashes across the cinema horizon the current one is that of Carmen Barnes, the 18-year-old school girl novelist and playwright that would seem glory enough for a girl to be hailed by the literary world as a genuine find with her novels, "School Girl" and "Beau Lover'' then Paramount induced her to journey to their Hollywood studio to do some original writing for the screen day after day as she came in contact with the officials, her unusual personal charm, added to exceptional physical charms, caused the moguls to induce her to take a screen test and we have it upon the word of such sure-fire pickers as Jesse Lasky and B. P. Schulberg that she is destined to be one of the great stars of all time on the screen exhaustive tests have been made, and the bunch out on the Coast are simply dizzy with the results so the result of it all is that she has been signed to a contract to act instead of write and Paramount will rush her to the screen in the stellar role of her own story, "A Debutante Confesses" all the writing of this remarkable girl places her in the position of the torch bearer of modern youth's revolt against convention she will probably typify a New Era and her work and influence already bids fair to scrap the current stock-in-trade film plots of modern youth and start a wild scramble for Carmen Barnes-type stories Just a brief glance at this girl's career is illuminating while only 15 at Ward Belmont, a private school in Nashville, she began her first school-girl novel on its publication she became a literary sensation over night at 17 she started "Beau Lover" and the dramatization of "School Girl" and a year later she is all set for the pinnacle of the Screen World and some folks think the Cinderella yarn is just a Fairy Story • • • RUSSELL MACK, Pathe director, basks in the knowledge that he gave Joan Sawyer, the dancer, her original start and Joan basks in the halo that surrounds her through having given Rudy Valentino his first professional job as her dancing partner so if you want to figure it out, Russell was really responsible for Rudy but who wants to figure back that far? Tom Dugan has the unique record of playing parts in two different screen plays that bear his own name through a coincidence the screen writers selected the name without even having heard of Tom Dugan, who is a comparative newcomer the pix are "Bright Lights" and "The Hot Heiress" • • • THE ORIGINAL Daddy of the Films, Jean LeRoy, thinks he has got us stopped on that yarn we ran about the first Newsreel and the first advertising film Jean submits this evidence in February, 1896, the first Newsreel shot was shown in New York, called "The Rescue of the Lapines," showing first scenes at Lyons, France, with the citizens saving the rabbits scurrying hither and yon from the swirling waters and the first commercial reel plugging an advertised product was shown in 1898 at 23rd St. and Broadway on the roof of the old two-story building where the Flatiron building now stands the pix was exhibited at night on the roof it advertised John Dewar's Scotch Whiskey and if they could show that type of industrial film nowadays, nobody would squawk against advertising served with film entertainment * * * * • • • PATHE'S BASKETBALL team is still rating 1,000 per cent having licked the other five film teams every time they played and with 48 wins out of 49 games in the past three years, Capt. Joe Katzoff and his gang have something to crow about Bcrnice Claire will appear the week of Feb. 14 at the Earle, Washington, in connection with her First National picture, "Kiss Me Again" EXPLOITETTES A. Clearing House for Tabloid Exploitation Ideas t) « « « » » » Prints Patrons' Comments In Newspaper Ads ^L SOBLER, of Warner Bros. Chicago theater staff, is seeing to it that the fans do not lose sight of the Orpheum, which is the Warners' theater in the loop. One of Sobler's ideas is to interview prominent people attending the Orpheum regarding the picture shown and the house itself and printing their comments in a box in his daily newspaper ads. People prominent in all walks of life are picked and it would seem from these ads as if everybody who is anybody in the Windy City is a regular visitor to the Orph eum. — Warners Curiosity Angle On "War Nurse" J{ NOVEL display was included by Marc Bowman, manager of the Fox Broadway, Portland, Ore. One week prior to the opening a field tent was displayed in the theater foyer. Accompanying tie-up copy explained that "War Nurse" was so intensely realistic that provision had been made to medically attend anyone who might suffer nervous exhaustion after viewing the picture. This, of course, was planned as a challenge to the curious. The tent, which was named "War Nurse Emergency Station," was in charge of a registered nurse throughout the showing. —M-G-M MANV happv ItnilRNS Ret w'shcs and congratulations are extended by THE FILM DAILY to the following members of the industry, who are celebrating their birthdays: February I Ernest Hilliard Harold Rodner Maxwell A. Silver