South African Pictorial - Volume 17 (Jul-Dec 1923)

10 SOUTH MAI WEEK IN LEICESTER SQUARE, October 18. South Africa and the Empire Exhibition. The Empire Conference goes on apace to a rumbling accompaniment of rumour from the quarters objecting to the policy of withholding official news of the proceedings until soine later date. Yet altogether the atmosphere appears to be cordial as well as briskly business-like. Both General Smuts and Mr. Bruce have a very good ‘‘ Press.’’ I was a privileged visitor to the British Empire Exhibition grounds ut Wembley when General ‘Sinuts, after a delightful and quite informal ‘“‘ get together ’’ reception on the rough cinder path, laid the foundation-stone of the South African Pavilion. His speech, evidently quite impromptu, might serve as a model for the reform of the stereotyped platitudes we usually have thrust upon us on such occasions. After referring to the years of effort and struggle, row begining to bear such abundant fruit, he described most concisely the present condition of affairs chez vous: how the Exhibition is looked to to assist in finding and extending markets and securing for South African trade “' a place in the sun’’; and summing up all that the Exhibition stands for as ‘‘ A great co-operative effort of the createst Empire that ever existed.’’ Sir Edgar and Lady Walton, Mr. Mosenthal and other prominent South African TO VISIT SOUTH AFRICA NEXT MONTH: H.M.S, HOOD. H.M.S. Hood is the most powerful fighting machine afloat, and is one of the few Battleships built up to the present which embody the lessons learnt from the Battle of Jutland. “8.4. Pictorial” photo. » personalities subsequently accompanied General Smuts to the Stadium buildings and hunched with the Dominion Premiers and other Overseas guests, afterwards making a general inspection of the grounds, just as an army of several thousand workers had left for their week-end rest (giving place to others, however—there is no slacking). The South African Pavilion has an enviable site adjacent to the giant Stadium (no longer showing any trace of that Cup Tie contretemps), where it is patent that every visitor to the Exhibition cannot fail to be attracted by the beautiful building that is already springing up—and, being attracted, induced to enter and have the country’s beauties and resources demonstrated in tangible as well as photographic and book form—and also by means of the omnipresent film, for there is to be a comfy little cinema in the Pavilion for the screening of films of practically all the industries, oecupations, recreations and life of South Africa. ‘¢ The Blue Lagoon ”’a Success. A propos films, the South African production of de Vere Stacpoole’s best-known work, “The Blue JLagoon,’’ is being most successfully shown this week at nearly thirty of the leading West-end and suburban cinemas, as well as AFRICAN aS SRROUS SCasRUAaNARsAse es Saseeeseenensensssesasaneas PICTORIAL. NoveMBER 17, 1923. throughout the provinces. It is attracting and delighting ({erms often far from synonymous) larger audiences than many of the so-called, and alien, “‘ super-pictures,” establishing itself as u credit to the country of its origin. Some wonderful but terrible films of the Japanese Earth quake have been on view here since the day when the cameramen of our various “‘ topical ’’ fil firms made a dead heat of their race of tens of thousands of miles to be ‘ first-in ’’ with their pictures; the \imericans did not beat cur own people, as some of the papers ungraciously infer. The Gaumont and Pathé records of the awful tragedy are arrestingly vivid, particularly Gaumont’s which has _ the uiost pitiful scene ever photographed—a flowing river partially choked with the bodies of victiins and débris of the ecarthquake.—[These films have already been shown here in recent topical budgets.—Ed., 5.A.P.| Bridal Bothers. Sensation-mongers and addicts of the more lurid of our Sunday shockers are just now being treated to a series of ‘‘ Bridal Bothers.’’ First of all we had the elderly Savoy Hotel Bride, whose hubby took himself off to foreign parts abroad, tout seul except for the greater part of his better lialf’s worldly goods; then in quick succession came the Hotel Cecil suicide, the Bride widowed after the marriage night; the Village Bride deserted by her Groom, ascertaining thereafter that the whole of her brief hymeneal career had been managed ‘‘ on tick’’ by the fugitive; and finally, this week, we have the Bride Who Was Not a Bride —proffering .an emphatic negative to the clergyman’s “Wilt Thou ?’’—and the Exhumed Bride, into whose death three months after the wedding the coroner is now enquiring. Next, please! Horatio Bottomley’s Prison Diary. Even prison bars have failed to stem the outpourings of Horatio Bottomley’s pungent pen. During the first six months of his seven-years’ sentence it appears he wrote a copious diary. In some mysterious way this was sinuggled out of gaol and disposed of by a former fellowprisoner of Bottomley’s to a certain Sunday journal. The vendor afterwards repudiated the bargain and re-sold to a rival paper, and last Sunday the first instalments of the diary appeared in both of the journals. Needless to say the scoop, though somewhat munqué by the duplication, was a genuine sensation. Bottomley has lost little of his wonted journalistic ability. He writes characteristically of prison life as lived by himself, as well as recounted to him by other convicts, abstaining for once from his accustomed invocations of the Deity. George R. Sims himself could not have drawn a more telling contrast than does H.B. in his description of three Armistice Days; 1918, at the Board of Education; 1920, in Westminster Abbey, shoulder to shoulder with the great of the land; and 1922, in Worm. wood Scrubbs prison-chapel. All the same, it seems scandalous that the law’ renders possible the publication of a convicted man’s chronicles whilst he is still in prison. (Continued on page 27.) UNDERWOOD STANDARD TYPEWRITER Winner of all the World’s Championship Contests for SEVENTEEN CONSECUTIVE YEARS, the Underwood is built for speed and durability, while its distinctive touch makes it the choice of discriminating users . . “The Machine you will eventually Buy" HORTORS LIMITED P.O. Box 1020 P.O. Box 111 P.O. Bor411 _—~P.0. Box 893 JOHANNESBURG PRETORIA DURBAN CAPE TOWN EMPIRE, MONDAY: HARRY CLAFF IN *‘ BLUFF KING (HAL,’’