Photoplay (Sep 1928)

Last We Go to Press Minute News from East and West REPORTS have it that John Barrymore is returning to Warners and the Vitaphone. He may do his Hamlet for the sound film. Meanwhile, he has one more United Artists production. It will be the story of an Alpine mountaineer and it will be directed by Ernst Lubitsch. "^TOW Pathe is filming the adventures of ’ Uncle Sam’s detachment of Marines with the rebels down in Nicaragua. It will be called “The Leathernecks,” and the title roles will be done by Bill Boyd, Alan Hale and Bob Armstrong. 'T'HEY’RE putting “Abie’s Irish Rose,” -*• which bids fair to make box office records, through the studio paces again. The original cast has been re-assembled and a talkie addition is being made. Incidentally, you’ll hear Buddie Rogers’ voice in the new sound version. WILSON MIZNER sold a story of three ocean gamblers on the illfated Titanic to Caddo Productions. He received $50,000. Now Caddo has decided to shelve the story because of its “lack of love interest.” That’s the way it goes. Doug Fairbanks’ next, a sequel to “The Three Musketeers,” will be called “The Man in the Iron Mask” or “For All Eternity.” Doug announces that he will not insert any talking sequences. RALPH SPENCE lays claim to being the highest paid title writer. He gets $10,000 per picture. And generally he’s worth it. UNIVERSAL is to make an all-talkie of “The Shannons of Broadway,” the stage hit. By the terms of the contract, filming can not start until February, 1929. THEY all do, sooner or later. Now Theda Bara is to try a come back, under the management of S. George Ullman, Valentino’s faithful manager. REPORTS that Pola Negri is contemplating a divorce are denied. Pola and Serge Mdvani are still happy, they insist. Pola says she has signed a contract to make two films for a British company for $200,000. She further declares that she has given up her American contracts. We didn’t know she had any. From Deauville comes the news that Serge has just had two large rubies set in the eyes of the serpent-shaped horn on his Rolls Royce. TDAYARD VEELLER has been in Hol‘ Mywood to supervise the plans for Metro-Goldwyn’s all talkie production of his stage hit, “The Trial of Mary Dugan.” Norma Shearer will be starred and production starts in September. TWTRS. TOM MIX and little Thomasina have departed for Paris on their annual Summer jaunt. Mrs. Mix issued the regular divorce denials. Don’t say that Will Hays isn’t a high liver. He dwells on the thirtyseventh floor — count ’em — of the Ritz-Tower in New York City. He lives higher than any other New Yorker "\X7TLLIAM FARNUM, the veteran * ” actor, has been made defendant in a suit for separate maintenance filed in Los Angeles by his wife, Olive Ann Farnum. DW. GRIFFITH has added Jetta ♦ Goudal to the cast of “The Love Song.” /T'HE Princeton photoplay, co-starring Charlie Rogers and Mary Brian, has been given a new title. It was called “Sophomore.” Now it’s titled “Varsity.” The Rogers-Brian team will be kept together for another picture, to be called “Just Twenty-One.” Frank Tuttle will direct again. /’"'ECIL DE MILLE is signing with ^Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. T_TERBERT BRENON fell from a stage scaffolding during the filming of a scene of Ronald Colman’s “The Rescue” and broke his right ankle. T_T AVING recovered from an operation -*■ -*-for appendicitis, Rod La Rocque is going to desert films for the stage temporarily. OH, those talkies! Wallace Beery sings in “Beggars of Life” for the first time since his musical comedy days of long ago. FLORENCE VIDOR is to return from Europe to play opposite Richard Dix in “Unconquered.” Dix spent the greater part of August in northern Arizona doing exteriors of “Redskin.” EDWIN CAREWE, Dolores Del Rio, Miss Del Rio’s mother, and the Carewe staff were to sail for Europe late in August. They planned to return in December. WS. VAN DYKE, the director who • completed “White Shadows,” is sailing for Capetown, South Africa, with a completely equipped company to do “Trader Horn” in the African interior. 10