Maugham’s ‘Rain’ on the Screen

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 306, 17 March 1928, Page 25

Maugham’s ‘Rain’ on the Screen

| Now ‘Sadie Thompson’ GLORIA SWANSON'S ROLE “Rain” has not proved a stage success financially in this part of the world. Yet in America and in England this was not so. It will be interesting to see, therefore, how United Artists will fare with Gloria Swanson in the title role of the Somerset Maugham : drama. “Sadie Thompson” will be the screen title of the play. It was produced in Hollywood at the United Artists studio and. on Catalina Island, the owner of which, William Wrigley, placed all facilities at the disposal of Miss Swanson and her production unit. Pago-Pago wharf scenes and beach sequences were photographed during a month spent at Catalina. The trader Horn’s undistinguished hotel was reproduced in the United Artists studio by William Cameron Menzies, art director for Joseph M. Schenck. PAGO-PAGO “HOTEL” In Maugham’s story, which is included in a volume called “Trembling

of a Leaf,” this i sultry, crestfallen | wooden shack was I so minutely deI scribed that Mr. I Menzies declared I his volume of the I book was his blue ■ print. It was Mr. Menzies, a young | student, who had I acquired some knowledge of art jJ in New York at the Art Students’ 1 League, with such

others in his class as Dean Cornwell, who attained prominence through his designs for Ernst Lubitsch’s production, "Rosita,” and for Douglas Fairbanks’s “The Thief of Bagdad.” His set of the Pago-Pago “hotel” stood for more than three months in the studio, was drenched daily with synthetic thundershowers and appears in two-thirds of the film, “Sadie Thompson.” Miss Swanson selected her own story, director, leading men and supporting cast. Raoul Walsh, the director of Fox’s “What Price Glory,” and of Douglas Fairbanks’s “The Thief of Bagdad,” directed “Sadie Thompson.” After the actress-producer had viewed applicants for the part Sergeant Tim O’Hara of the Marine Corps, she turned to Walsh. Already he had adapted the Maugham -tory, “Miss Thompson,” to the screen. Obviously Miss Swanson had decided that Walsh should have his full share of labours in the Pago-Pago vineyard, for she inquired:—* “Raoul, when did you act before the camera last?” The Irish-American director, who acted in melodramas on New York stages, smiled at the question. “The last time I acted for the screen, Miss Swanson,” he replied, “was in Griffith’s ‘The Birth of a Nation.’ I shot Abraham Lincoln, shouted ‘Sic semper tyrannis!’ and dasfyed out of camera range. I was John Wilkes Booth.” “Well,” said the screen actress, “you are none other than Sergeant Tim O’Hara, of the United States Marines —from now on! ” Raoul Walsh thereupon began to function in a triple capacity. He adapted, directed and acted in “Sadie Thompson.” The “Tipsy” Doughboy Gloria Swanson cast Lionel Barrymore in the part of the reformer, and for the character of his wife she selected Blanche Friderici, who had played the equivalent role in “Rain,” the play also based on the Maugham short story, “Miss Thompson.”' Previously Miss Fredericks own experiences had paralleled those of her part in “Sadie Thompson.” After studying the speaking voice and drama under Rose Eytinge and May Robson, Miss Friderici conducted her own classes and her own concert company.

MOVIE “GHOSTS” PICTURES BY FAMOUS STARS NEVER RELEASED EVEN VALENTINO BARRED!

Valentino, Novarro, Chaplin, Pola Negri, Denny and many other “stars” have played in big films that ultimately were never screened —resulting in losses of hundreds of thousands of pounds to the film producers. One of these was “Captain Fearless” (Reginald Denny), comments a writer in the Sydney “Guardian.” A dream sequence, necessary to the plot, held up the Mexican Army to ridicule. Just at this time the Mexican Government announced a twofold decision citizens in an unfavourable light would be banned from the country, and (2) that all future productions by the same company would suffer a similar fate. Film Shelved For the sake of friendly relations with Mexico, “Captain Fearless” was shelved —never to be publicly shown. After thousands of dollars had baen spent on it, “The Hooded Falcon” (Rudolph Valentino) was abandoned, because of a difference between the star’s wife (Natacha Rambova) and the writer of the script, June Mathis. “Charlie Chaplin,” it is related, “intended ‘The Woman from the Sea’ to bring back Edna Purviance. The can of unseen film on the studio shelves is her professional tombstone.” Ramon Novarro was never seen in “A Certain Young Man.” for the reason that Willard Louis, playing an important role, died unexpectedly, and so made any re-takes impossible. Later, the story was done as “A Gentleman of Paris” (Adolphe Menjou). In the making of “The Mysterious Island.” in the West Indies, 200,000 dollars’ worth of equipment was destroyed by a hurricane in five minutes. The risk was too great to be repeated. Caruso and Negri Caruso appeared in two pictures. Because the box office sales of the first showed, unmistakably, that the public did not want him as a film star, the second picture—“My Cousin Caruso”—was killed without a showing. The Pola Negri Continental-made “Montmartre” had to be discarded by its American buyers because the onlyeffect of the emotional scenes was to produce roars of laughter. Historic among other fated pictures that might be cited are the Arbuckle comedies —those released, and others still in the studio. One moment they were worth millions of dollars. The next they were merely spoiled strips of celluloid.

i The refusal of the London 1 Board of Censors to licence ! “Dawn,” which pictures the death of Nurse Cavell, again j illustrates the risk associated j with the production of motion I pictures.