Screen Mirror (Jun 1930 - Mar 1931)

Screen Mirror For June 27 in y woo tasker maids, or whatever they have at christenings." “Well — I’ll see,” Marco decided. Half won over to the plan, Marco sent inquiries to the Pullman company -anent the possibilities of the christenling. Their reply is what gave him the •dazzled look. It read: “Don’t see how it can be done. ‘Fanchon’ is still in service, but ‘Marco’ lhas been taken out of service because •of old age." • While the big-wigs of diplomacy sit around conference tables and spout about international peace, with as little •effect as a conference of crows cawing in a dead tree, the amusement world ia going ahead with projects which are genuine cementers of international good feeling. Will Rogers has just completed his *‘So This Is London" ... a picture •which . . . rumor has it ... is a natural binder of good feeling between the Yanks and the Londoners. Almost at the same moment, there arrives in Hollywood a British dealer ■of guffaws whose inanities . . . that aren’t so inane . . . have tickled the American public for the past decade. P. G. Wodehouse, English humorist pre-eminent, has been brought to Hollywood by Irving Thalberg to write an original story for the screen. Nor does the international tone end there. For Jack Buchanan, who is so English that even the English can’t always understand what he’s saying, is going to play the lead in the Wodehouse venture. • • The famous German guns which shelled Paris have nothing on the guns which have been shelling Hollywood Boulevard of late. The Australian government is all hot and bothered about American talkies, and they brot their guns into line, and took a crack at the cinema center of the world. “There is much truth,” says an official Australian report, “in the criticism that the talkies are all noise and crime, but their voice production is worse than their vice production." Australian flappers are becoming infested with that strange American malady known as “Vo-dee-o-do!” And the Spanish-speaking people of South America are perfectly outraged by the idea that American film star* should dare attempt production of films in the Spanish tongue after studying the language not more than six months or a year. We are sorry to be unable to extend the Caballeros any assurance of excellent diction, for some of these selfsame mimers have been using the English language for thirty years and more, yet cannot be understood beyond the confines of Brooklyn. Even the Germans and the Austrians have their kick. It seems that there are so many dialects in central Europe that what means soup in one province means nuts in the next. Until someone is ready again to produce really good silent pictures, internal Europe won’t bother itself with American films. However, the foreign market still looks good to the Hollywood Tzars. The importation of French playwrights continues. All the studios seem to be engaged in making pictures in five or six different languages. One astounding fact brought to light recently is that there are enough Frenchmen, Germans, and Spanish people in the United States to warrant showing these foreign tongue pictures in this country. Leroy Jerome Prinz, Dance Director, M-G-M Studios, Culver City, Calif. Dear Leroy: *• Hurry back. Rehearsals for new “Vanities" start in ten days. I’m not satisfied with the present supply of girls here. Bring as many of those California Beauties as you can. Tell the girls you pick that they need not be afraid of coming to New York. This is no speculation, as they most definitely will be in the show. It seems that all the beauty in the world has gone talkie. Truly, Earl Carroll. • Who is going to pose for the lamp stands? Rube Goldberg, creator of goofy statues, and daffy comics, American cartoonist and world-famous funny man, is going to direct pictures for Fox Studios. We have always had a secret desire to see a Goldberg statue done in the flesh, and we sincerely hope that this great artist's decorative abilities will extend to the designing of sets. What could be more elegant than a little knick-knack of an ashtray stand, composed of living people — acrobats with red noses, cocked eyes, and elephant ears — not to mention the intriguing gadgets Rube could figure out for the kitchen equipment. Rube’s first picture will be “Soup to Nuts."