AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 460, 30 June 1937, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS.

PLAZA THEATRE “Secret Agent” Director Alfred Hitchcock, the 18stone genius who puts realism into every reel, demanded real types in “Secret Agent,” the spy-thriller that features Madeleine Caroll, Peter Lorre, John Gielgud, and Robert Yoling, screening next Week. For one of the most spectacular scenes Hitchcock had built a giant setting of a frontier railway station, between Greece and Bulgaria, in 1916. Swarms of peasants, soldiers, guards, refugees, and officials were needed to populate the huge station. From Soho, the Continental quarter of London, the types were gathered, and forsaking their usual occupations, they donned the uniforms of Greece and Bulgaria, the tatters of Albanian peasants, the equipment of frontier guards and the coloured shawls of the near-East.

Among the great company gathered at Shepherd’s Bush were men and women of Italy, Cyprus, Malta, Palestine and Greece.

“Girls’ Dormitory”

Although a number of screen personalities still adhere to the custom of having an orchestra on hand when they are performing before the cameras to “create a mood,” it remained for Simone Simon (pronounced Seemoan See-moan) to introduce an innovation that startled even blase Hollywood. The brilliant star, who is making her debut with Herbert Marshall and Ruth Chatterton in “Girls’ Dormitory,” Twentieth Century-Fox production showing on Thursday and Friday of next week, appeared on the set with a wide variety of rare and exquisite perfumes.

“To a sensitive nature perfume can create evsry variation of mood,” says Simone. “It can make you feel exotic, sophisticated, gay demure or tragic.” Constance Collier, J. Edward Bromberg, Dixie Dunbar, John Qualen and Shirley Deane are featured in the cast of “Girls’ Dormitory.”