The Night of Love (United Artists) (1927)

Newspapers Like Biographies^ RONALD COLMAN AS A BOLD BANDIT Ronald Colman has a “flaming” role! The hero of “The Winning of Bar¬ bara Worth” and “Beau Geste” is given his greatest opportunity in “The Night of Love,” George Fitz¬ maurice’s production for Samuel Goldwyn, which comes to the. . Theater . The role is that of a vagabond gypsy prince who, seeking revenge for the murder of his bride, falls in love with the woman he has sworn to destroy. It offers the English actor opportunities for elemental portrayal of love and anger, hate and vengeance, and he has made the most of the chance. Colman, a native of Richmond, Surrey, England, entered upon a stage career while still in his teens, playing minor roles in London be¬ fore the World War. He offered his services to his coun¬ try in the first month of that great struggle and was wounded in the first battle of Ypres while serving with the famous London Scottish In¬ fantry. He was discharged in 1916, after having been promoted from private to first lieutenant. Follow¬ ing his discharge, he returned to the London theater and appeared in several notable stage successes. During this period he was offered the leading role in a British motion picture production, but his stage work forbade acceptance. In 1920 Colman came to New York with the American motion picture as his ob¬ jective. The young actor’s arrival was ill- timed, in that the film industry was suffering a general depression at that time. He then sought the stage and played with Henry Miller and Ruth Chatterton in “La Tendresse.” While working in “La Tendresse,” Colman’s ability came to the atten¬ tion of Henry King, who signed him to play the role of the Italian soldier in Lillian Gish’s “The White Sister,” which was filmed in Italy. As a consequence, Colman’s first screen work was done in Europe after he had crossed the ocean to find a place in American filmdom. After “The White Sister,” Col- man’s success was rapid. “Romola,” also directed by Henry King, fol¬ lowed, in which Colman had the lead opposite Lillian and Dorothy Gish. While “Romola” was being filmed in Italy, Samuel Goldwyn and George Fitzmaurice secured Colman’s con¬ sent by cable to play the male lead in the latter’s production “Tarnish,” with May McAvoy and Marie Prev- ost. Then came “Her Night of Ro¬ mance,” with Constance Talmadge. Some of the actor’s recent suc¬ cesses are “Pier Sister from Paris,” with Constance Talmadge; “His Su¬ preme Moment,” opposite Blanche Sweet; “The Dark Angel,” in which he made his first appearance with Vilma Banky; “Kiki,” with Norma Talmadge; and “Beau Geste,” a story of the French Foreign Legion, in which Colman had the male lead. Ronald Colman’s sincerity and dramatic ability won for him high esteem on both the English and American stages, and also carried him to success before the motion picture camera. He has established himself as one of the most sincere performers on the screen. VILMA BANKY PLAYS ROLE OF DUCHESS A blonde and beautiful duchess, the toast of all France, who loses her heart at last to a vagabond gypsy prince, is the marvelous role offered to Miss Banky in her new picture, the George Fitzmaurice pro¬ duction, “The Night of Love,” for Samuel Goldwyn, which comes to the .r Theatre . In her fight to choose rightly be¬ tween love and duty, romance and her marriage vows, Miss Banky of¬ fers to the public an entirely new characterization and the best dra¬ matic acting of her cinematic career. Prior to her American film debut, Miss Banky was known as “the most beautiful blonde on the Eu¬ ropean screen,” appearing in pic¬ tures for U. F. A., the largest con¬ tinental production company. She was working in “Should I Marry?” during the European tour of Mr. Goldwyn, which resulted in her con¬ tract for American work. Goldwyn was enthusiastic over Miss Banky’s possibilities and per¬ suaded her to forsake her conti¬ nental laurels for a new start be¬ fore the cameras of Hollywood. She arrived in this country a little over a year ago. Her first picture in America was the Goldwyn production, “The Dark Angel,” directed by George Fitz¬ maurice. Appearing with Ronald Colman, Miss Banky’s work was widely acclaimed by critics. Many declared that the picture was Col¬ man’s best to date and pronounced Miss Banky’s debut flawless. Through the courtesy of Mr. Goldwyn, the new star was then loaned to United Artists to play op¬ posite Rudolph Valentino in “The Eagle,” which upon presentation was a decided hit. Miss Banky’s work in her first Valentino picture won her an im¬ mediate second casting with that a.ctor in “Son of the Sheik.” As soon as the last shot of that picture had been made, Samuel Gold¬ wyn announced his plans for the coming productions to star Ronald Colman and Miss Banky. The first was “The Winning of Barbara Worth,” based on the famous Har¬ old Bell Wright novel of the recla¬ mation of the great American des¬ ert, which Henry King directed. Miss Banky is under a five-year contract to the Samuel Goldwyn Productions, Inc. As a result of her wonderful success, Mr. Goldwyn tore up her original contract and re¬ placed it with an agreement calling for a much larger weekly salary. Married and buried within two reels was the fate of Laska Winter, the little gypsy dancer, who plays in the opening sequences of George Fitzmaurice’s production, “The Night of Love,” for Samuel Gold¬ wyn, which comes to. Theater. Miss Winter has brown eyes and black hair and, in spite of her Ori¬ ental aspect, was born in St. Louis in 1904. She is just the height of one and two-third yardsticks and weighs only 97 pounds. For one year prior to her entry into the screen world Miss Winter played on the New York stage. She has had prominent roles in “The Thief of Bagdad,” “The Yankee Clipper” and “Shipwrecked.” NAME IS LOVE BUT JOB IS HATE Montagu Love, the man who can “smile and smile and be a villain still,” has achieved perhaps the greatest characterization of his ca¬ reer in the role of the Spanish Grandee, Duke Bernardo de la Garda in George Fitzmaurice’s production, “The Night of Love.” This picture which opens at the .theatre.offers Love the chance to be as cruel and capri¬ cious as he pleases and yet, at the same time, to be interesting to his audience. Photography was indirectly re¬ sponsible for diverting Montagu Love from his initially chosen pro¬ fession, that of the specialist on line drawings and crayon work for news¬ paper use—so nothing is more fit¬ ting than that he today should be gaining a livelihood from his art. Born in Hampshire, England, and educated in private schools and later at Cambridge University, Love ma¬ jored in art and designing, and, fol¬ lowing his graduation, secured a job on the staff of a leading London newspaper, for which he acted as a military staff artist and correspond¬ ent during two important British campaigns. The advent of improved methods of photo-engraving marked the pass¬ ing of the line-drawing for daily newspapers—save in the case of the cartoonists—and Love turned to his alternate choice of a career, that of acting. He had performed as an amateur in school and college, and experienced little difficulty in secur¬ ing a chance on the professional stage. His first professional engagement was with Edmund Breese in “The Lion and the Mouse”—he was the only Britisher in an otherwise Amer¬ ican cast, by the way—in which he toured the United Kingdom for a season. The next year, with Madi¬ son Lang and a company, he started on a tour of the British possessions— South Africa, Australia, India, China (Hongkong), and Egypt— which lasted the greater part of three years. The company departed with a repertoire of three plays and came back with one of twenty-five. Eventually Love was lured to the films with an offer of stardom in George Archainbaud’s first Ameri¬ can-directed pictures, “The Cross Bearer” (in which he won fame for his characterization of Cardinal Mercier, the prelate-martyr of Bel¬ gium) ; “The Awakening,” and “The Grouch.” He followed these appear¬ ances with an arresting interpreta¬ tion of Rasputin; the Black Monk of Russia, in a photoplay of that name; and, after that, with important roles in “Bought and Paid For” and “The Roughneck.” The Cosmopolitan productions next claimed his services (“The World and His Wife” and “The Beauty Shop”) and then Lasky for two, “Peter Ibbetson” and “The Leopardess.” Love came to the Pacific Coast for the first time (in pictures) a year ago, since which time he has been in great demand, having been co- starred with Jack Holt and Billie Dove in “The Ancient Highway”; played featured roles in “The Des¬ ert’s Price,” “Hands Up,” “Son of the Sheik” (United Artists), “Don Juan,” and “Leave It To Me.” DIRECTOR FITZMAURICE BEGAN AS AN ARTIST A love for art and the desire to paint which resulted in several years' study under masters in the salons of Paris are contributing factors to the success of George Fitzmaurice, who directed Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky in Samuel Goldwyn’s production, “The Night of Love,” which comes to the . Theater . Born in Paris, February 13, 1885, Mr. Fitzmaurice at an early age felt the call of the artistic, which brought him under the direction of the eminent artists of the French metropolis. He succeeded in his am¬ bition to such an extent that for four years, while still a student, he made his living with his brush. Fitzmaurice then started a tour, studying peoples and places of the world. The first hand knowledge thus gained, he brought to his work when he entered pictures as a sce¬ nario writer. His first work was for Pathe, and while engaged in writing he made a close study of production and was secured by Kleine to direct “Stop Thief.” Direction work for Pathe followed. “Arms and the Woman,” “The Iron Heart,” “The Mark of Cain,” “Com¬ mon Clay,” and “The Japanese Nightingale,” were among his early successes and established him in the directoral field. Mr. Fitzmaurice joined Paramount in 1918. With this organization he directed many outstanding photo¬ plays, including “The Society Exile,” with Elsie Ferguson; “Three Live Ghosts,” with Anna Q. Nilsson and Norman Kerry; “On With the Dance,” featuring Mae Murray and David Powell; “To Have and to Hold,” with Betty Compson and Bert Lytell; “Idols of Clay,” “Pay¬ ing the Piper”; “Experience,” “Kick In”; and “Bella Donna,” which fea¬ tured Pola Negri, supported by Con¬ rad Nagel and Conway Tearle. Among the outstanding produc¬ tions directed by Mr. Fitzmaurice was “Peter Ibbetson,” with Elsie Ferguson and Wallace Reid as the featured players. Mr. Fitzmaurice, then became as¬ sociated with Samuel Goldwyn, pro¬ ducing independently for the United Artists Corporation. His first pic¬ tures with Mr. Goldwyn were “The Eternal City” and “Cytherea.” Then came “Thief in Paradise” and “The Dark Angel,” starring Ronald Col¬ man and marking the screen debut of Vilma Banky, the talented Hun¬ garian actress, whose phenomenal rise in motion pictures followed. Through arrangement with Sam¬ uel Goldwyn, Mr. Fitzmaurice re¬ cently completed direction of Ru¬ dolph Valentino and Miss Banky in “Son of the Sheik,” for the United Artists. Mr. Fitzmaurice, who is five feet ten and one-half inches tall and weighs 185 pounds, has dark hair and eyes. He finds pleasure and recreation in horseback riding and golf. Five hundred courtiers, ladies and attendants; 100 soldiers and 50 dancing girls were employed in stag¬ ing the beautiful castle dining-hall scene for Samuel Goldwyn’s “The Night of Love,” which is now at the . Theater.