Fox Film Heads Predict Big Things For This Year

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 31, 8 February 1935, Page 17

Fox Film Heads Predict Big Things For This Year

Strong, Simple Stories N a New Year mesage to film-goers in this part of the world Mr. Winfield Sheehan, chief of production at the Fox Film Corporation, and maker of the- record-breaking "Cavalcade," says: Chief characteristics of talking picture entertainment in 1935- will be good music, clean comedy, and drama of modern life, all built on strong, simple stories of present-day times. The group. of new artists, introduced in moving pictures last year, will. con-

tinue to establish themselves’ more strongly in the public favour in productions this year. These new players, recruited from all nationalities, offer novel, distinct types and compelling, interesting personalities: to the film world. The campaign to eliminate certain questionable elements from. motion pictures will result in 1985 in a marked improvement in the auality of sereen-plays through the efforts of producers to maintain a high moral tone and increasingly fine quality dialogue in their pictures. Fewer Misgivings JN a similar message to New Zealand ’ Mr. S..R. Kent. president of theFox Film Corporation, says: The motion picture industry to-day is facing the future with fewer misgivings than . at any time in the last four years, Having put, its house in better order. both financially: and artistically, the industry now is devoting its entire energy to the work of producing entertainment, which always has been the primary objective. , "The White Parade". UW for release in New: Zealand shortly is "The White Parade." a film which has as its setting a modern hospital. But there is nothing unpleasant about it, no "exposing of the evils of social diseases." It is a thoroughly happy story which deals principally with the nursing side,of hospital life

-and shows these modern Florence Nightingales as cheerful young women who give up: a great deal in the pursuit of their profession. English and American eritics have been warm in their praise of this film which is said to bring something new to a film pub-

lie grown weary of eternal triangles and song-and-dance talkies, "Nurse Young" LORErTA YOUNG and John Boles are the stars of "The White Parade," the Fox film mentioned in the previous paragraph. While waiting for "shooting" to begin ‘on this film Miss Young spent much of her time touring the Los Angeles hospitals and nurses’ training schools to acquire a first-hand knowledge of the "Wlorence Nightingale profession." She became so fas- ’ cinated by the hospital trades that she (Continued on next page).

(Continued from prevyicus page.} ° began to wonder. if, in spite of all her screen success, she had not missed her true calling after all. Gloria Swanson Back NH of the most delightful musical plays ever written came to the New Zealand screen at the week-end when "Music in the Air" was given its

premiere at the Civic Theatre, Auckland. The stage play was a huge svc-' cess in Hurope, America and Australia. Sylvia Welling (here last year in "The Dubarry") being brought from England to play the lead in the Australian production. The screen version. brings back one of Hollywood’s most glamorous nersonalities, Gloria Swanson, whose voice will be heard in several of the delightful musical numbers which embellish this show. John Boles is supporting her, while in the east also is Douglas Montgomery, the young star of "Little Man, What Now?" ° Colour for 1935 FILM that is exciting a lot of attention in New Zealand at the moment is ‘La Cucaracha," a 20-minute Short filmed in the most delightful colow's ever brought to the screen. It introduces a new colour process and several of the big American companies are now planning to bring the new tritone Technicolour into their 1935 pro_uctions. Fox Films will put colour Sequences into "Redheads on Parade" and "Dante’s Inferno," while Warners’ "Gold Diggers of 1985" and the ambitious "Midsummer Night’s Dream" will also have scenes in colour,