A SECOND HOLLYWOOD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 868, 11 January 1930, Page 14

A SECOND HOLLYWOOD

TALKIE CENTRE IN NEW YORK PLANNED BY PARAMOUNT With the Long- Island Studio as a nucleus. Paramount plans to create a complete motion picture production centre in New York, through which the best of Broadway entertainment of all varieties will be brought to the film theatres of the world. Jesse L. Lasky, vice-president of Paramount Pictures, announced this new plan recently. Feature productions, short subjects in a greatly increased number, all future Publix stage presentations, and foreign language productions in both feature and short-reel lengths, will be produced at the Astoria plant during the coming season. Every available inch of space in the recently-enlarged Long . Island studio will be utilised under the ne\y schedule To this centre of screen activity, Paramount plans to bring the pick of Broadway actors, directors, playwrights, composers, musicions, artists and technicians. Stars, composers, directors, writers and other specialists whose stage interests demand their presence in New Y ork, will be available for the makingof special screen productions, which cannot be filmed in Hollywood. Outstanding in this group will be the Schwab and Mandel musical productions. “The public demand throughout the world for foreign-language, talking pictures is steadily increasing," Mr. Lasky points out. “To supply this growing market, Paramount is organising a special foreign production department at the Lond Island studio. Audible shorts and features in several languages will be filmed ther during the 1930 season. The first feature on this programme, as hertofore announced, will be an all-French version of ‘The Big Pond,’ starring Maurice Chevalier, which will be made at the same time that the American production is filmed.” Full activity under the ned schedule, will not be reached before the early months of this year. Meanwhile, production will continue as previously planned. One of the deftest circus life pictures turned out in the States is “Painted Faces.” Joe Brown does not need to act the clown in this quaint oddity of a tale; he was one, and looks it. Some of the sets are spectacular in the extreme.