The world film encyclopedia (1933)

47' Interesting Facts About Films \vei.e:ht Boxing Champion at the University of Kansas. George O'Brien won the light heavyweight Championship of the Pacific Fleet in 1918. Anna May Wong has never been hissed in a film. Constance Bennett, contrary to common supposition, has never been on the stage. Twenty men, aged from 54 to 77 years, appeared in Horse Feathers. Robert Ames and Robert Williams, both featured in Rebound, died within two months of the film's completion. Pete Robinson, shown in Freaks (not exhibited in this country), is 55 years of age, and weighs 58 lb. Fredric March devoted five hours a day to making up for the part of Mr. Hyde in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The motion picture industry in America employs 300,000 people. Salaries received bj' stars are higher than those obtained in any other profession. Crowd artistes in Britain are paid one guinea per day, which sum is increased if they have to speak a few lines into the microphone. B.I. P. established a British record by employing 1,000 extras during the month of February, 1931. New York has supplied Hollywood with more stars than any other city. Hollywood itself comes second. Sophie Tucker once gave 14 shows a day in a small cinema with a seating capacity of 200. Seven of the shows were as a white woman and seven as a black. Jatmeson Thomas made his debut before the camera in 19 14 in a British film which was never completed owing to the outbreak of the war. Dick Grace and Phillips Smalley have both continued acting in films after having broken their necks. Grace broke his neck as the result of a crash in Wings, and Phillips Smalley's accident occurred when he was in\-ol\cd in a motor-car collision in Brooklyn. The first Japanese actor to appear in a British talking film was Kyoshi Takase, who had a part in the Archibald Nettlefold production, Red Pearls, released in 1930. Jack Mulhall achieved the distinction of playing the first dual role in talkies when he appeared as a policeman and a crook in the First National picture Pat and Mike and carried on a conversation with himself ! In the two-reel comedy Only Me. Lupino Lane played the entire cast himself by appearing as twenty-three dissimilar characters. Charles Farrell, before his screen career, was valet to a midget in vaudeville known professionally in America as " Little Billy." Though Chinese artistes have often appeared in films the first of that nationality to star in a picture was Lady Tsen Mei. This was in For the Freedom of the East, produced towards the close of the war. The first famous stage actor to appear in a screen play was Joseph Jefferson, who acted in Rip Van \V inkle, produced in 1897 by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Bert Williams was the first negra comedian to star in films. One of his comedies, Darktown Jubilee, made a great hit. Cinemas Largest cinema in the world : Rox\ , New York. Seating capacity, 6,500. Largest cinema in France : Gaumont Palace, Paris. Seating capacity. 6,000. Largest cinema in Britain : the Trocadero, Elephant and Castle, London. Seating capacity, 5,500. Projection speed : Silent films, 60 feet per minute ; talking films, 90 feet per minute. The weekly attendance in American cinemas is 130.000,000 and the annual takings /i 10,000,000. The following figures will indicate the number of cinemas owned in different countries : Germany, 5,267 ;