ONE LITTLE SPARK

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 80, 25 June 1927, Page 23

ONE LITTLE SPARK

VALUABLE FILMS BURNT UNIVERSAL STUDIO’S LOSS One little spark from a burned-out lamp in a cutting room at Universal Studios resulted in the loss of a million feet of film and destruction of a two-storey building a few weeks ago. The full extent of the loss is not yet known and will not be until a check of material in the vaults is completed. The films known to have been burned were prints of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “Fast and Furious,” a Reginald Benny opus; “Wild beauty,” featuring Rex, the “king of wild horses”; “The Prairie King,” featuring Hoot Gibson; two Charles Puffy comedies, ,and two weeks’ shooting on “Eternal Silence,’* featuring • Francis X. Bushman.

The fire will necessitate making new prints of the films and again cutting the entire lot. The negatives were safely stored in vaults in another building.

Comedy in natural colour photography! That is the novelty Bouglas Mac Lean brings to the screen in “Let It Rain,” his new Paramount picture, due shortly in Auckland. However, not all of the latest Mac Lean comedy has been photographed in colour. The comedian believes that colour on the screen is still so much of a novelty that the spectator’s interest in the laugh possibilities might be overshadowed by the unusual colour appeal. The final episode was filmed by the improved technicolour process to reproduce all the colours in their full values. This marks its first use in the history of screen comedy.

It is understood that a gigantic combination of British film producers, renters and exhibitors will shortly be announced. It has been impossible to get either confirmation or denial of the details now being discussed in Wardour Street, and which foreshadow an amalgamation of Gaumont, Ideal, Film. Booking Offices, the W. and F. Film Service, Gainsborough Pictures, Piccadilly Pictures, and a very important chain of cinema theatres of which the Biocolour Circuit would be the basis. It is believed a new £2,000,000 company will be floated to include all these organisations.

In the first two days of the “Wolf’s Clothing” season at the Roxy Theatre, New York, 55,562 people viewed the pic-ture-—5,000 more than visited the Roxy the first week-end the house was opened to the public. The crowds flocking to see this Warner comedy-drama necessitated the policy of the theatre being adjusted to five de luxe shows per day instead of four. “Wolf’s Clothing,” written by Arthur Somers Roche, was directed by Roy Bel Ruth. It presents Monte Blue in a story of Broadway night life, supported by Patsy Ruth Miller and a cast including John Miljan, Bouglas Gerrard and Lee Moran.

Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but there is only a slight partiality shown as far as the director and camera chief of Sam Rork’s forthcoming production, “His Son,” are concerned. Sixty girls, employed in a smart hotel