FILM SIDELIGHTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 August 1938, Page 5

FILM SIDELIGHTS

PICTURES AND PLAYERS ON PARADE SHIRLEY TEMPLE’S ILL-LUCK. I 111-luck appears to be dogging ShirI ley Temple, child film actress, who had three of her fingers crushed when a slammed the door of the car in which she was leaving the Boston Navy Yard. The remainder of the programme for her visit to Boston was cancelled. Recently, as the result of the strenuous time she had during her visit to New York she was ordered to bed for a few days suffering from over-excitement. Coining Money. British films coin money—when they are good. “A Yank at Oxford,” the first British film starring Robert Taylor had a fifth week at the Empire Theatre in the Leicester Square, London. In ten years only three other films have stood up for five weeks' at the Empire Theatre. These three were the first “Broadway Melody,” “Trader Horn” and “Mutiny on the Bounty.” “A Yank at Oxford" wil be shown at the Regent Theatre, Masterton, next month. Another of the “big four,” “Trader Horn,” will commence a return season at the Regent next week. The first screening will be at a matinee on Wednesday.

Hitchcock For Hollywood. Alfred Hitchcock, one of the most important of English film directors has decided to go to Hollywood to make at least one picture. For David O. Selznick. he will direct a film about the “Titanic” disaster. But this will not be until next year; in the meanwhile he will direct an English picture on “Jamaica Inn" the successful novel by Daphne Du Maurier, the daughter of Sir Gerald Du Maurier, whose few appearances on the screen towards the end of his life showed what an admirable actor was lost. Charles Laughton will be the star of “Jamaica Jim.” Midget Westerns. Described by an American magazine as “the runtiest stunt the cinema has attempted” a Western with an allmidget cast is being planned by producer Jed Bull. To be called “The Terror of Tiny Town” it offers work to at least 200 midgets. As soon as Bull’s plan was known, Eugene Frenke, Anna Sten’s husband decided to make a similar series, Starting with “Half-Buck Rides Again” and “Half-Buck Goes West.” The result is that hordes of these by-products of the entertainment industry are flocking from all over the world to Hollywood. Almost a Crash. Spencer Tracy, who since his work in M-G-M’s “Test Pilot” as a plane mechanic has become particularly sensitive to the sound of ’plane motors, was walking across the studio lot when he heard the unmistakeable roar of a power dive. Startled, he glanced skyward, expecting any second to see (IHIiIIW— HIaiMT - —■ J. •

some plane plunging through the roof of a sound stage. The roar continued coming closer and closer, and still he couldn’t see any plane. Then suddenly he realised where he was. The sound laboratory, past which he was walking was running off a sound track of one of the terminal velocity drives from “Test Pilot.” Relieved, he kept on walking. “Test Pilot” will be screened at the 1 Regent on Saturday week. England in Colour. All the beauty of the English countryside will be seen in natural colour in “The Divorce of Lady X,” Alexander Korda’s comedy which comes to the State Theatre on Friday of next week. Starring in this film, which, incidentally, is the first technicolour production to come from Korda’s Denham studios, are Merle Oberon, Tasmanian girl who made good, and handsome Laurence Oliviei’ who will be remembered for his work in “Fire Over England.”