Another “Wings”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 544, 22 December 1928, Page 23

Another “Wings”

NATIONAL’S AIR DRAMA “Legion of the Condemned” Coming FLYING day and night; fighting duel after duel until death took his toll; helping to hold for France the line at Verdun. This was “The Legion of the Condemned.” A new “Wings” is coming to the National. Made hy Parmount, this drama of the air is a worthy successor to the outstanding success which thrilled Auckland recently.

As in the case of its predecessor, “The Legion of the Condemned” gains its appeal from the exploitation of aerial warfare in the Great War. The story is not unlike that of “Wings,” and many of the battle sequences are fully equal to those of the first production. Coming at a time when Auckland is particularly interested in flying, it should be an assured success. There was a youth who wanted to die He joined the flying corps and after reaching France sought an opportunity of joining the group of madiy-reckless birdmen who had chosen to die, and die fighting. In the Legion were men like Holabird, from Texas, whose past was so dark that no one cared to look into it;

Vasquez from the Argentine, who had shot his way out of a love affair; Sinclair, of New York, who was so blase that death was merely another sensation; and Dashwood, the Englishman, who had fled from a motor wreck in which his fiance was killed. Gale Price was a newspaper man who had found the girl he loved in the arms of another man. He desired only to die, but he wished to die in the cockpit of a roaring airplane, battling against odds nder the rim of the clouds. Then came the great day when he was assigned to special service over the enemy lines. His mission was one of almost certain death, for he had to attempt the landing of a spy in German territory. Prior to the take-off he approached his passenger and found himself face to face with the girl who had embittered his life. The stars are Gary Cooper and Fay Wray, both of whom owe their present positions to the warmth of their reception in this, Paramount’s second big air film, and one of the National Theatre’s greatest attractions.

Fortune in Silver Secured from Tanks STUDIO ECONOMY PROCESS During a month’s operations between five and six million feet of raw film stock are consumed at the Paramount Studios. And each month approximately £1,200 worth of solid silver is recovered fom the developing tanks through which the film has passed. The reclaiming process is in itself an interesting one. Photographic film is surfaced with a solution of silver, and when passed through the motion picture camera is treated to a rapidly changing flood of light rays. The light cuts into the microscopically thin veneer of the silver solution on the film, oxydising the 3ensitivo emulsion. Black leaves it unaffected. When the film is passed through the developer the oxydised silver surfaces are dissolved off and the freed metal remains in the solution or may even settle at the bottom of the tank. By certain processes the deposit is removed every week, and is made up into bags of fine dust. According to recent estimates the annual amount silver reclaimed at all the motion picture studios in Hollywood is worth £1,728,000. The heart of the motion picture business is indeed one of the world’s largest silver mines. The third greatest silver producing area in the world, Idaho, has by comparison an annual output of only approximately £1,100,000.