Motion Picture News (Apr - Jun 1927)

1918 Motion Picture A^ ezvs Two American captains of industry — Louis B. Mayer and Charles M. Schwab, steel king, snapped together during Mr. Schwab's recent visit to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in Culver City conference with the leading Italian film producer, Signor Pittaluga. It seems to be generally understood that Pittaluga has succeeded in selling the ''Duce" on the urgent necessity of giving some governmental help to Italian film production, and it is generally expected that some practical consequences of that that intervievp are due before long. TThe Continuing Idea HE surest and safest money-making plan in motion pictures, according to Hal Roach, Pathe comedy producer, is to get a "continuing idea" involving the same characters and story ideas and bank heavily on it — the same plan tliat newspaper syndicates follow in looking for a "winner" in comic strips and then pushing it for all it is worth with publicity and exploitation. The foremost successful demonstration of the "continuing idea" has been made by the Hal Roach organization, so this producer can speak with authority. "Our Gang" is the subject. Frankly, when Hal Roacli conceived the idea of "Our Gang," a group of children to exploit the human interest of childhood for juvenile and grown-up audiences alike, he wasn't so perfectly sure of it. He felt certain that the series would be good for six two-reel ers — Perhaps, with unusual sucess, twelve might pay. Recently the sixtieth "Our Gang" picture, "Love My Dog," ending the first five years of the history of "Our Gang," was completed by Robert McGowan. Of course, no idea or venture in the motion picture field can ever become a "cinch," not if those who are in the business know anything about it. But Hal Roach feels that the one unfailing appeal of "Our Gang" comedies lies in their humanness, and the fact that the public enjoys the privilege of watching a group of children growing up, changing in a tooth or a freckle in every picture, growing a little taller or a little wider as every new story comes to the local screen. The public might "little note, nor long remember" that Mickey Daniels, Mary Kornman, Johnny Downs and Sunsiiine Sammy are no longer in the "Gang," for Farina, the ebony ))rodigy of six, Joe Frank Cobb, the heavyweight champ of childhood comics, .Jackie Condon, the boy who combs his hair with an egg-beater, .Jay R. Smith, possessor of 1,313 more freckles than Mickey, by Farina's count, and Scooter Lowry, the "toughest" kid who ever left New York, are favorites with the public and rule the "Gang's" destinies today. This is not to speak of Jean Darling, a new little blonde girl of four who has been selected after a year of search to fill the place left vacant by Mary Kornman, and Mango, otherwise Janie Hoskins, Farina's baby sister, possessor of "the brightest smile in the movies." These two arc too new to have gained the world-wide favor which eventually will be theirs. Yet there is no tragedy in Mickey and ^lary leaving, or .lohnny Downs and Sunshine Sammv. The first two are under three year contract in vaudeville at a high salary. Sammy is still going strong in vaudeville engagements after three years of it Johnny walked out of the "Gang" right into two or three big parts in features and when his screen work fails he can fall back on vaudeville as an always waiting opportunity. Success is the heritage of every child who leaves after a training in "Our Gang." As time goes on the studio picks up an average of one new child every three months for training and prospective fame. One out of four of these children makes good. Each one, chosen at the average age of five or six, has six years' service ahead of him in the "Gang," hence the "Gang" may be kept in favor indefinitely with overlapping tides of favor and popularity for each youngster. W Around the World in Thirty Minutes HEN Jules Verne wrote "Around the World in Eighty Days" the world gasped at the audacity of anybody even imagining the globe could be circled in such a short period of time. Today it can be done in thirty minutes — at the Metro-GoldwynMayer studio at Culver City, Cal., where motion picture settings embrace entire streets of most of the principal nations of the world. Pictures now being filmed include streets of more than a dozen nations, and there still remain standing another dozen huge streets, or structures, erected for pictures produced within the last few months. The European nations represented, and the pictures which they appear in, follow: Germany, "Old Heidelberg"; provincial England, "Quality Street"; France, "On Ze Boulevard"; Switzerland, "The Branding Iron "; Nova Scotia and South America. "Captain Salvation"; China and the Pacific Isles, "Tell It to the Marines"; London, "The Thirteenth Hour"; medieval France, "Bardelys the Magnificent"; Spain, "The Unknown"; Russia and Poland. "Anna Karenina." Other colorful locales include Spanish California, Tim McCoy's latest historical Western, as yet untitled; modern California, a civilian training camp comedy; modern New York, "Becky" and "The Mob." w, Youngest Cast Enacts Picture HAT is declared to be the youngest cast of experienced motion picture players to appear in a feature portrays the principal roles in "The Whirlwind of Youth," Paramount's screen translation of A. Hamilton Gibbs' "Soundings." Lois Moran, the heroine, is not yet out of her 'teens. Donald Keith, who appears opposite her, has just passed the voting age. Vera Voronina, Paramount's new Russian player, is just past the one-score mark in years. Larry Kent, who also plays an important part, is about the same age as Keith. Dirk Sears iriglilK I'othv Sens ciimeniiudn in \etc England, in a still iiith his friends in the IVhile House, President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge.