BEHIND THE SCENES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 396, 3 December 1932, Page 7

BEHIND THE SCENES

NEWS AND NOTES , ON COMING FEATURES. The complete cast of "The Mask of Fu Manehu" now includes the names of Boris Karloff, Myrna Loy, Jean Hersholt, Charles Starrett, Gertrude Michael, David Torrence, Lawrence Grant, and Herbert Bunston. This new production i® an adaptation of Sax Rohmer's story of the same name. Eddie Gantor will make a second picture this season, to follow his current "Palmy Days." "The Kid from Spain" will he the title of the picture. It is based on an original istory by Cantor. In the new story, Cantor, after introductory sequences of his boyhood in Brooklyn, will he shown emerging as a famous bullfighter in Spain. Intensive prepuration® are in hand for the new production, "For the Love of Mike," at Elstree. A special film version has been adapted for the screen of this successful story by Clifford Grey and Frank Launder, and will be presented as a comedy with musical numbers interpolated by logical introduction. Members of the original cast of "For the Love of Mike" will repeat their outstanding performances for the screen and include Bobby Howes in the starring role, t Arthur Roscoe and Wylie Watson. Elaborate attentions are lavished on all feminine stars in Hollywood, it was learned recently. However, it was pointed out the services supplied by the studios are insurance on the picture. Claudette Colbert, wh'o is working with Clive Brook in "The Man from Yesterday," has four at- . tendants at the studio. She has a j maid to run errands and help her pre- , pare herself for scenes. The studio | make-up artist is at her call if she ! wants to consult him concerning her make-up. A hairdresser is on the set ' constantly to fix her hair hefore each scene. She is not tliere to make it immaculate so much as' to see that it j is matched properly from scene to ' scene. A wardrobe womari is on the I set to see that her clothing is correct ' to the last detail. S ometimes certain costumes become wrinklad so eaMly they must be pressed between each scene. Una O'Connor, Merle Tottenham and Irene Browne, distinguished actresses of the London stage, have arrived in Hollywood to play the same roles in the production of "Cavalcade" j as they enacted on the Drury Lane ' stage, where Coward's sensational drama has just completed a year's run. Two others prominent 011 the British stage and screen, Ursula Jeans and Frank Lawton, are due to arrive later for parts in "Cavalcade." Miss Jeans, beautiful and charming and sometimes called the "It" girl of the London stage, will have the role of Fannie JBridges, while Mr. Lawton, who created the title role of "Young Woodley" in London, will play Joe Marryot in the screen production of "Cavalcade." Others prominent in the cast of America's version of the

patriotic British epic include Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook (in the prin- ■ cipal roles), Herbert Mundinj Beryl Mercer, Margaret Lindsay, John Warburton and Billy Bevan. Frank Lloyd will direct the lilm. One of the difficult shots ever attempted for a talking picture production was undertaken by Edmund Goulding when he screened action that took seven floors apare for "Grand Hotel." For this' unusual scene, a spiral staircase, seven storeys high, was constructed, the upper portion representing the seventh floor of the Berlin hostelry, where the entire action of the play takes place, the bottom section representdng the cireular lobby. In the iscenes, screened from almost p'erpendicular angles, 'John and Lionel Barrymore and Joan Crawford are seen looking over the winding railing, down to the moving activity in the spacious lobhy. Special lenses were required for the focusing of this action. Garbo heads the allstar cast in the picturisation of the Vieki Baum novel, and others in ,the central roles are the Barrymores, Miss Crawford, Lev/is Stone, Jean Hersholt, Wallace Beery, Purnell Pratt, Tully Marshall, iRafaela Ottiano, Ferdinand Gottschalk, and Otto Matieson.