Picturegoer (1934)

January 13, 1934 PICTUREGOER Weekly prisoners are confined in cages on the ship — a real "hell-ship" of the most approved and brutal type — and being scalded with steam in a cage is a great deal worse than being drowned like a rat in a trap, let me tell you. I haven't tried it, but it looks abominable. Mixing 'Em But it isn't all brutality and butchery, this film. Vorhaus showed us in Crime on the Hill that he was skilled at mixing drama and comedy. He has some light scenes in a Cafe Chantant in Paris (though, as a matter of fact, there is no such thing in France, for the expression really means "a singing cafe'," and cafes, strictly speaking, don't sing), where the waif (Merle Oberon) sings for her bread-and-butter and gin-and-bitters, and where she meets the brokendown opera singer (John Garrick). Garrick is one of the latest batch of imports from Hollywood. He travelled in good company. Meet, for example, the so cosmopolitan M. Marcel Vamel, who was educated at Charterhouse, became a Parisian play-producer, went to Hollywood and made several films for Fox, including Chandu the Magician. That film had one of the feeblest stories that ever tottered out of Writer's* Row, but some wonderful trick photography just saved it and landed it in the Not-so-bad Division. Influx from Germany I hope Director Varnel is not counting too much on using trick photography in England, because that is a department in which none of our cameramen seems to have specialised. However, there are enough German cameramen in England now to provide a crowd scene by themselves, and they are very good at standing the camera on its head and making it shoot backwards at the audience. Cameramen, yes, and directors, and actors, too, are flocking into our studios from Germany, as well as from Hollywood. It's fortunate for them that, now the Fatherland doesn't want them, the Mother Country is giving them a job. Link With the Past Varnel is to direct a film of the Walter IJ^ickett play. Freedom of the Seas. Edward Sutherland, also from Hollywood, is likewise to direct for B.I. P. He is a Londoner, and was a Keystone comic in the days when that company's droves of policemen caused practically all the laughter there was in kinemas. He has YOU CANT be S MARK WITH SHABBY, SHOES But why have shabby shoes when with Radium you can easily and quickly transform the oldest pair and make them like new? Radium costs but 6d. per bottle and may be had in every fashionable colour Shabby shoes ruin your appearance. Use Radium and be smart always. ft&cMum LEATHER DYES go A Uo Radium Cleaner for ckaning and reviving reptile Khoes of ail colour* — 6d. _RADITJM LTD. BROADHKATH MtNPHESTEB worked with Chaplin, and directed forty films so far, including Sky Devils and Close Harmony. Then he got homesick, and here he is. Bobbie Back Look who's coming back to Elstree ! Bobbie Howes, no loss. Marian Marsh will be heroine of his new film. Over the Garden Wall; and I am inclined to envy Mr. Howes. I saw Marian for the first time, this week, while she was playing in a comedy called Love at Second Sight, and I asked myself, " Why second ? " So will you. David Manners, also, is liable to set a few hearts beating more vigorously this spring. He is a good-looking lump of a lad — the typical athletic, clean-limbed young Englishman, for all that his real name is Rauff Acklom and he hails from Canada. He also has a voice which makts the sound recording engineer hug himself and utter little cooing sounds of satisfaction. Keep an eye skinned for David — and an ear cocked, too A Remarkable Set One of the most remarkable "sets" ever constructed for a film has been built at the B.I. P. studio at Elstree for use in the film Contraband in which David Manners, Greta Nissen, Clifford Mollison, Hugh Wakefield, and Camilla Horn have the chief roles. It is a full-sized replica of a British destroyer and every detail has been worked out to perfection by Art Director Clarence Elder under whose supervision it was erected inside the large studio. In this huge building, 300 feet long and 100 feet high, the ship that will never be launched awaits the filming of big scenes showing the departure of an exiled monarch (Hugh Wakefield) who has supposedly been recalled to his throne. Discipline First <f> Visitors to the studio this week have asked why it is necessary at such expense and trouble to build a destroyer when there is such a fine British Navy which might well be proud of a little recognition on the screen. Apart from the fact that the filming of scenes aboard an actual warship is always difficult and hazardous, it is certain that no British film company could secure admiralty permission to film on board comedy scenes such as are invariably desired in films. There can be no relaxation in naval discipline for the purpose of film making . . . not in the British Navy, at least. So the complicated parts of this great destroyer — torpedo tubes, gun decks, cabins, huge funnels, boats and derricks — have all been made in the Elstree workshops and assembled on the spot. Greta's 44 All Blacks " Greta Nissen apparently has not seen enough dogs at Elstree. At any rate, the other day she 'phoned a Bond Street pet store. With that sagacity which dog dealers seem to borrow from their dogs, a salesman arrived at the film star's hotel — with two dogs ! A miniature Scotty named Drambuie and a cute little French pug named Napoleon — presumably after Bonaparte. Both had such eyes and such a way. Suspecting the weaknesses of the film star and sensing the joys of an early trip from Elstree to Hollywood, they sat up smartly. Miss Nissen looked them over . . . and then again . . . and again. "I can't choose," she said. "How did you expect I ever -would." The salesman made no reply . . . just picked up his hat and the cheque for two little black dogs. Now Miss Nissen already had a black kitten named Hannibal, after the tiger which had to attack her in Red Wagon. She also had an Irish maid. All Irish, too. " I be afther getting meself a new job . . . film star or anything at all," she declared. And forthright, being true Irish, she did. So now Miss Nissen has an English maid . . . and a girl to take care of two black dogs and one black cat . . . and to teach Napoleon , the frowning pup, that the cushions and carpets in a film star's dressing-room are not Waterloo. Are you ashamed to show your hands? 7 r What a pity . . . and how unnecessary to have unattractive hands when Glymiel Jelly works such wonders ! Rub in a little of this fragrant non-sticky, non-greasy jelly at bedtime and every time you wash. 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