STARS TAKE PART IN BENEFIT FOR SURVIVORS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 382, 16 June 1928, Page 25

STARS TAKE PART IN BENEFIT FOR SURVIVORS

AMERICAN DAM DISASTER With the exception of Pola Negri and Bebe Daniels, both away on location, all the Paramount stars and featured players took part in a midnight benefit at the Metropolitan Theatre at Hollywood for St. Francis dam disaster survivors. The players included Clara Bow. Esther Ralston, Florence Vidor, George Bancroft, Wallace Beery, Richard Dix, Ravmond H at ton. Emil Jannings, Sally Blane, Evelyn Brent, Mary Brian, Nancy Carroll, Doris Hill, Chester Xvy Harris. MariConklin e tta Milner, Iris Stuart, Ruth Taylor, Fay Wray, Richard Arlen, William Austin, Clive Brook. Lane Chandler, Chester Conklin. Gary Cooper, W. C. Fields. James Hall, Arnold Kent, Fred Kohler, Jack Luden, Paul Lukas, William Powell and Charles Rogers.

These are the opinions ot Jesse L. Lasky, vice president of the Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation. “It is difficult to define the present situation in the motion picture industry,” Mr. Lasky said, “because so many different factors are involved. But we in the industry can sense it, and are making our plans accordingly. Discussion of these new trends in the business, in fact, will occupy Quite a bit of our time at the sessions this week. “Our problems are both economic and artistic. For the motion picture to exist at all it must make a profit for the people who have invested in it. “While we have apparently reached the limit in our distribution, we found more than a year ago that mounting costs had greatly endangered the margin of reasonable profit. “Therefore we were faced with the necessity of inaugurating a policy of economy which, while reducing costs, would not impair the artistic qualities of our entertainment. The pressure for greater efficiency, greater results at less expense, has been unremitting, and will continue so. Change in Taste “The change in public taste and in the mode of living has been another factor. With the country enjoying unprecedented prosperity, there have come new forms of entertainment, new ways to spend money. “It is true that the motion picture has reecived and is receiving its share of this prosperity, but the competition with other forms of recreation is becoming stronger. Nearly every family in America to-day owns an automobile. “This has been a great help in bringing patrons to theatres; on tl. other hand it has made other places lof entertainment accessible. The radio, bringing fine music and interi eating programmes into the home, is another competitor which has sprung j up within the last few years, j “Hollywood to-day is a magnet which atracts to itself the finest artistic minds of the world.”