Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

56 Hugh Allan and Cathrine Hoffman are looking in the direction of June and their wedding day, and thanking their stars for the lucky day when the bride-elect, a writer, came to interview her husband-to-be. HOLLYWOOD simply can't become highbrow. Every time the film colony tries to soar to empyreal aesthetic heights, a constitutional ailment develops. Then some famous visitor's feelings are hurt, and he goes home in a huff. The latest to take his departure in haste and disgust is Max Reinhardt, the famous German stage producer. Brought over here some six months ago to make a Lillian Gish starring picture, he never so much as shot a single scene. Difficulties over story and contract, and uncertainty about talking pictures and other problems, reputedly came to the fore while he was preparing the production, and finally an agreement to disagree was reached between him and the studio executives. He sailed for Europe a few weeks ago. Reinhardt can console himself with the fact that others who came and saw, but did not wholly conquer, included at various times Maurice Maeterlinck, Sir Gilbert Parker, Michael Aden, William J. Locke, who just recently left, not to speak of numerous lights of the New York literary and show world. It would seem oftentimes that the picture realm likes to toy with great reputations, and that's what occasionally gives Hollywood a name closely synonymous with Boobville. Auditory Complexities. Somebody has made the impressive discovery that ears are more temperamental even than actors. The result is that everybody in pictures is soon to have his hearing tested. "You can get glasses to correct people's sight," one high official explained to us recently, "but nobody has yet discovered any apparatus to offset slight defects in auditory perceptions. And it's making a lot of trouble T T . -/-/ -/ I— I /-\ / /-r-» -r 1 1 /"N r>l m ■■ *mmmimm§m a ■ i ft v J_ -LX^/JLU.^/ yjL/ V/ V/ VL Listening in on the news and gossip of the studio world with those who hear it all. on sound sets. No two people can agree on what voices sound like." The executive might have extended his theory to include sound-picture audiences. However, they pretty thoroughly concur on how voices seem in bad talking pictures. But it probably can't be effectively told in polite language. They Pay and Pay. Income tax! What a baneful word in the movie colony ! It would seem as if some one is always having a squabble with the government over money said, alleged, and asserted to be due. Not long ago it was Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who took a hurried trip East to argue out some differences with Uncle Sam, and recently Lillian and Dorothy Gish had a $60,000 dispute over their returns for 1924 and 1925. The trouble disclosed the fact that the salaries paid the sisters aggregated more than $1,000,000 during the two years mentioned. Income tax difficulties also brought William Haines, Rod La Rocque, Mitchell Lewis, Dorothy Mackaill, and others, into court. They were witnesses in an inquiry directed against an income-tax adviser who, it was claimed, had been too generous toward the film celebrities' pocketbooks in handling their problems. A Swanson of Voice. Cecil DeMille has found a "vocal Gloria Swanson." That's the way, at least, he proclaimed his newest discovery, Kay Johnson, who plays the lead in "Dynamite." "She has the same emotional qualities in her speech that Miss Swanson possesses in pantomime," DeMille told us. "She will be a sensation in the talking medium." DeMille's picture, his first for Metro-Goldwyn, is a colorful and daring affair in his best grand-society manner. It will have spectacular embellishments. The most novel will be a race of huge wheels in which a number of girls will take part. The feet of the girls are strapped to the inside rim of these wheels and, by keeping a straight position within the circle, and correctly balancing themselves, they are able to make the wheels revolve down a grass course. Thus, head over heels they go down to the goal posts in the race. Precocious Youth. Make out of this what you can ! A Wampas baby star has been elected to play the starring role in "The Gold Diggers." Celestial Wisdom. "Tom Mix ! Tom Mix !" We heard this shout recently on a studio set and were nonplused, because it was a Karl Dane and George K. Arthur film. Besides, we knew that the celebrated cowboy hero was supposed to be on a vaudeville tour. Investigation disclosed that the Tom Mix in question was a Chinese extra, and further inquiry determined that there was not only a Mix among the celestials, but also a John Barrymore. It seems that the Chinese like film acting so well that