Films and the Studios

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 898, 15 February 1930, Page 27

Films and the Studios

NEW BERLIN SONGS Five new Irving Berlin songs are introduced by Al Jolson in “Mammy,” his next Vitaphone production. The new numbers, all written by Berlin for Jolson, are “To My Mammy,” “Looking At You,” “Let Me Sing,” “Knights of the Road” and “Here We Are.” In the course of the picture Jolson will also sing “Southland,” an older Berlin song; passages from the daddy of blues songs, “St. Louis Blues”; .“Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” and a new parody chorus to “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” * * * A SPRAINED ANKLE Joan Crawford had not long started work in “Montana,” her second talkie, before she slipped and sprained an ankle rehearsing a dance number. She went about on crutches and for a week or ten days she appeared only in scenes in which she wa3 seated all the time. “Montana” is a musical western picture, with John Mack Brown playing opposite the star and Cliff Edwards and Benny Rubin as comedy cowboys. * * • STUDIO REALISM A “battleship” constructed at the Radio studios for colour sequences in “Hit the Deck,” was approved by no less an authority than Vice-Admiral L. A. Bostwick, commander of the battleship division of the American Pacific fleet. Accompanied by the officers of his staff and their ladies, he was the guest of Luther Reed, director, while scenes were being filmed, with Jack Oakie as the sailor lad and Polly Walker as his girl. “It is an exact counterpart of my flagship, the West Virginia,” Admiral Bostwick declared. “The navy should be proud of such a faithful reproduction.”