The Moving picture world (January 1924-February 1924)

January 26, 1924 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 271 Paramount Lists Seventeen Pictures for Release from March 3 to July 1 PARAMOUNT'S current announcement of forthcoming releases lists seventeen pictures. Issued on a schedule calling for one production a week and starting" March 3, they carry through to the first of next July. They represent the fulfillment of the promise made by Adolph Zukor last November that the temporary curtailment of production at the company's eastern and West Coast studios would entail no interruption of the Paramount releasing schedule. A majority of them are either entirely finished or well along toward completion. Of the remainder, some already have been started, while the plans for the others have beei completed and they will go into production in the immediate future. With the reopening of the West Coast studio and the simultaneous augmentation of production at the eastern studio, activity has been resumed on a broad scale. The production schedule at the Long Island studio calls for a greater number of pictures during the coming year than have been made there in any year since the studio was built. The studio at Hollywood has again resumed its place as the center of West Coast production activity, and within a few weeks twelve units will be engaged in making Paramount pictures at the two studios. The directors who will produce the Paramount pictures for the coming year are Cecil B. DeMille, director-general ; James Cruzc, William DeMille, Sidney Olcott, Allan Dwan, George Melford, Herbert Brenon, Sam Wood, Irvin Willat, Victor Gleming, Alfred E. Green, Joseph Henabery, Victor Heerman and Dimitri Buchowetzki. Among the stars and leading players who will be at work in the Paramount studios are Thomas Meighan, Gloria Swanson, Pola Negri, Glenn Hunter, Rudolph Valentino, Leatrice Joy, Agnes Ayres, Bebe Daniels, Richard Dix, Jack Holt, Rod LaRocque, Jacqueline Logan, Antonio Moreno, Patsy Ruth Miller, Charles de Roche, Ernest Torrence, Lois Wilson, George Fawcett, Theodore Roberts, Ricardo Cortez, Charles Ogle, Noah Beery, Theodore Kosloff, Nita Naldi, Mary Astor, Julia Faye, Ethel Wales, Vera Reynolds, Robert Edeson and Raymond Hatton. The recent suspension of production has resulted in the formulation of a definite policy of real and far-reaching value. With more authority and responsibility placed directly upon the respective managements of the studios, from now on no picture will be started until every item of cost of production has been estimated with the highest degree of accuracy possible. In each studio has been established an estimating department, composed of production experts, whose duty it is to go over each script with the director and scenario writer and estimate the cost of every scene in the picture before any photographing is done at all. Casts will be chosen with the greatest care and the utmost of time and study is to be placed on every step of production, not only looking toward the accurate estimating of costs but even involving changes in stories deemed necessary for their artistic improvement. With the resultant increase in economic efficiency the quality of product is bound to be enhanced to a degree that will prove of immeasurable benefit to the exhibitor and to the public. While this policy of production readjustment was being worked out, the acquisition of new and valuable properties for future production proceeded without interruption. The complete list of stories and plays purchased is an imposing one and will be published in due course of time. Among those planned for early production are "Merton of the Movies," the play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly adapted from Harry Leon Wilson's novel, which will be produced by James Cruze and in which Glenn Hunter, star of the stage play, will be seen as Merton ; "The Swan," the play by Ferenz Molnar, which is one of the big successes of the current New York theatrical season ; "Tomorrow's Bread," by Wallace Irwin, and "Feet of Clay," by Margaretta Tuttle, both of which will be produced by Cecil B. DeMille; "The Mountebank," by W. J. Locke, "The Salamander," by Owen Johnson, and "Monsieur Beaucaire," by Booth Tarkington. "Monsieur Beaucaire" has been chosen as the vehicle to reintroduce Rudolph' Valentino to Paramount audiences under the terms of the agreement recently entered into by Mr. Valentino and Famous Players-Lasky Corporation. Mr. Valentino has just returned from Europe and will start work at an early date in "Monsieur Beaucaire" at the Long Island studio under the direction of Sidney Olcott. Reverting to the list of productions just announced, it will be noted that Pola Negri will be -seen in two pictures, both directed by European directors. The first is "Montmartre," directed by Ernest Lubitich, who produced "Passion," Miss Negri's first and by many judged her greatest success. The other is "Men," written and directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki, the noted Polish producer who produced "Peter the Great," "Danton" and other great European successes. Buchowetzki recently came to this country and is now at Hollywood, where "Men" is to be started within the next few days. Also on the list is the Cecil B. DeMille production, "Triumph," which Mr. DeMille is now making on the Coast following the sensational success of his "The Ten Commandments." Zane Grey's "Wanderer of the Wasteland," an Irvin Willat production, stands out as a distinct novelty in that it will be produced entirely in color by the Technicolor process, which was used with amazingly artistic effect in the scenes of the Exodus in "The Ten Commandments." It also will be noted that Leatrice Joy is (Continued on following page) SCENES FROM DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS' NEWEST PRODUCTION, "THE THIEF OF BAGDAD," RELEASED BY UNITED ARTISTS