FILM SIDELIGHTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 September 1938, Page 5

FILM SIDELIGHTS

PICTURES & PLAYERS ON PARADE PATSY KELLY IN ROMANTIC ROLE. “THE LADY AND THE COWBOY.” Lovelock Received in Silence. If the Germans are hoping for a big foreign market for their gigantic film of the 1936 Olympiad they will be disappointed, says the Venice correspondent of the London “Daily Telegraph.” Many of the events are exciting and some of the photography is beautiful, but, unhappily, Herr Hitler’s friend. Leni Reifenstahl, the producer, sacrificed herself on the altar of German efficiency. A spectator who follows every heat in every event for five hours feels that he has just run last in a marathon himself. The reactions of a Lido audience were extremely interesting. The Germans cheered German and Italian victories, the Italians cheered themselves, and the British cheered nobody. Lovelock’s marvellous world record was received in dead silence. Hopalong Cassidy. With the considerable following enjoyed by “Hopalong Cassidy,” pictures in this country, it is of some importance to report the receipt of advice from America to the effect that George Hayes, known in the Clarence Mulford stories as “Windy,” plans visiting New Zealand in the near future. Information to this effect has been received at the local office of Paramount Pictures from Mr Albert Deane, an executive of the company in New York. Mr Deane writes: “What is driving him down there more than anything else is that he has heard about New Zealand’s fish streams. He is a river and lake fisherman of the first water and has read every line he has been able to find about New Zealand as a fisherman’s paradise. Patsy Goes Romantic. Patsy Kelly got herself into a bit of bad health recently, you’ll remember, says a writer in the “British Film Weekly,” when she decided to diet and set about it with too much vigour. Recovered from her over-enthusiastic start, she is now forty' pounds lighter and has been given a romantic role in “The Lady and the Cowboy.” I suspect the role isn’t really quite so “romantic” as Sam Goldwyn’s publicity agent

makes out since Patsy’s partner in passion will be Walter Brennan. And with. Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon starring there shouldn’t be any particular need for bolstering up the romantic appeal. But it’ll certainly be interesting to see the sylph-like Patsy provided we recognise her. More Realism. You saw a hurricane in “The Hurricane,” a city burnt to the ground in “In Old Chicago,” an earthquake in “San Francisco,” and now you are to see a terrific tornado in “Suez Canal.” Hollywood technicians put nature to shame with their man-made disasters. But nature got even for the tornado scene. After hauling 750 truck-loads of sand from a nearby beach, at a cost of 5000 dollars, for the tornado scone, a freak windstorm sprang up suddenly and scattered the sand far and wide before the cameras were ready to turn. Pyrone Power and Annabella are cast in “Suez Canal.”

The Ziegfeld Tradition. The screen has not yet finished with treat Ziegfeld, although it is not pronosed to give us any more of the famtiis theatrical manager’s life story. Wiiat we shall have is a picture which carries on the Ziegfeld tradition with he little “Ziegfeld Girl.” The film -.■ill have four leading actresses, Joan Crawford, Eleanor Powell, Margaret Sullivan, and Virginia Bruce. Of these lour only Virginia Bruce was actually i Ziegfeld girl. The picture will be produced with all the lavish chorus work almost inevitable in such a subject, especially dealt with in M-G-M studios.

The present state of affairs in Europe has not halted the good old Hollywood tradition of turning out at jeast one Gay Vienna epic a season. The current one scheduled has Fernand Gravet as Strauss in “The Great Waltz.”

Bonita Granville will become a gir sleuth in “People Like Us.” It is the ' first of a series about "Nancy Drew Girl Detective,” starring Bonita Gran- | ville on her own.