Hollywood Shows Western “Boom”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1070, 6 September 1930, Page 25

Hollywood Shows Western “Boom”

THREE BIG PICTURES PROJECTED

“BILLY THE KID” TALKIE Hollywood is taking its history of the West very seriously this season. No doubt this is due to the 100th anniversary of the starting of the first wagon train from Missouri. The Fox Company has been four months on the making of ‘‘The Big Trail,” RKO is about to start a long stretch of work on “Cimarron,” Edna Berber's story of the growth of Oklahoma from its land rush in 18S9 to the present, and MGM is making studio shots to wind up its epic of the West, “Billy the Kid,” says a Hollywood correspondent. There is another reason, a “box office” reason, behind all this historic activity. The Western story, with its virile appeal, is back with a vengeance, but the public, trained to “bigger and better” campaigns of various kinds, is demanding not programme pictures but feature pictures. BUYERS WANT MORE Having been treated to a taste of “Western” in the talkies, the ticket buyers crave more and better ones, and the answer seems to be the Western historical picture. It begins to look, around Hollywood, as if covered wagons and saddles are more important than anything else in pictures at the moment.

Fox, with their “The Big Trail,” have spent more than £500,000 on their epic to date; it is being filmed in Grandeur, as well as in standard film; 16 States have been traversed in seeking locations for scenes; 135 covered wagons were used; more than 10,000 people participated in some of the scenes; Indians from five different tribes were used in a battle scene; and a cast of 93 speaking parts is listed. Setting aside mere figures, the story represents in sweeping manner the hardships and events of the ' pioneers’ trek across country in the covered wagons. “The Covered Wagon,” which covered much of this same subject about 10 years ago, proved to producers how interested the American public is in the adventures and danger and hardihood of its pioneer generation. , “THE BIG TRAIL” CAST In the cast of “The Big Trail” is Marguerite Churchill, known from j “They Had to See Paris.” David Rollins, Tyrone Power, famous for his ; Shakesperean portrayals, lan Keith. Tally Marshall, and many others, round out the company. Raoul Walsh is directing. “Cimmaron,” the RKO bid for a slice in the Western box office melon, j I

is being done on an equally pretentious scale, though the theme is different. “Cimmaron” deals with the growth of the Oklahoma territory, from its opening for settlement in ISS9.

Bill Hart’s last film, “Tumbleweeds,” dealt with the land rush there, which will be filmed again tor this picture with 3,500 live stock in the scene. The adventures of Yancey Cravat, an editor who is an ardent champion of the rights of the Indian, make up the story. In the cast are Richard' Dix, Estelle Taylor and many others. The invention of the telephone, of the automobile, the linotype machine, the typewriter, electric lights, and many oilier modern things, are shown interestingly in the story.

“Billy the Kid,” immortalised in Walter Noble Burns's volume, “The Saga of Billy the Kid” (Burns was formerly a reporter for the “Chicago Tribune”), is getting on to celluloid out at MGM as their offering to the public in the Western epic field. Billy the Kid, portrayed by Johnny Mack Brown, has always been a good deal of a romantic hero to the West, and when Johnny Mack smiles his smile old-timers declare it is the same smile that endeared the boy outlaw to those who knew him as a friend. Months of work around the locations in New Mexico and elsewhere where Billy the Kid held forth during his brief but eventful lifetime, are being culminated by the taking of a few inside scenes at the studio and the film will soon be ready for release.