1936-07-04 — Page 10

"FIRST NIGHT” ON FILMS

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, BATURDAY, JULY 4, 1936,

ENTERTAINMENT

Quins are paid

The Quins and Jean Hornhalt in

The Country Doctor

King's, Alhambra

ARRYL F.

DARR

Zanuck,

Fox-Twentieth Century

No. 1 man, boasts that half his success has been due to

dramatising news-stories.

2

£ 1,000 a

minute

Here he has dramatised If you have any spark of pa- the most human news-story ternal or maternal feeling in you, you cannot help liking this film. of 1934, the birth of the it is sugar and splee and all things world's ballyhoo babies.

He has also made the Quins, on their necond birthday, the world's highest-paid young women.

Zanuck paid £10,000 into their trust fund to make this film. The film runs 95 minutes. The Quins are born, off-stage, when it as been running one hour. Then come newsreel shots at different

ages.

nice.

The Quine are born to sheer slapstick. Every twin joke is multiplied by two-and-a-half and gets an honest laugh,

One. Two. Three. Four, Slim Summerville, the sherl, cannot take it. "Hey, you gotta stop this, Doc." And John Qualen, harassed father already in "Whipsaw," asks, "Think we're kinda near the end of them?" in Then for ten glorious minutes a dazed sort of way.

every themselves act the Quins one else off the screen. In screen time Yvonne, Ceelle, Marie, An- nette and Emille earned just £200 each a minute.

Five, and the settlement gets a new hospital and the doctor an 0.B.E., and everything ends hup- pily in a five-fold riot of nelion.

baby-

Films Released

"Big Brown Eyes" (Queen's, To-day) Cary Grant, Joan Bennett in gangster Alm, somewhat mutilated by Hongkong's consors, but nevertheless providing good entertainment if you can bridge the i loft by a rather clumally wielded pair of official scissors.

e gaps

"Break of Hearts" (Star, To-day). Katherine Hepburn is charm- ing, boyish and gives good money's worth.

"In Person" (Oriental, To-day) Gluger Rogers shows that she can do just as well as a star without Astaire. Delicious entertain- ment, in which make-up is so perfect that you won't recognise Ginger for the first fifteen minutes.

"Last Days of Pompell (Majestic): Dramatle entertainment of type all-too rarely seen these days. Flight from Pompeil scenes are admirably handled.

It is hard on Jean Hersholt. after thirty years' character ne ting, to be acted off the screen In his first lead by five lending ladies, but when Marie chews a ton, An- nette plays a trumpet, Yvonne does her level best to cat à comb, and Cecile and Emilie do a knock- about chair-upsetting act, and all. five make fish-faces and crawl and bounce over him, what could a mere man do?

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Quin Chat

-It happened like this.

Film unit (20) went to Callander-then Dr. Dafoe took charge. No filming before all babies were awake, Thirty minutes to erect apparatus, Thirty minutes' filming a day. Anti-glare lights. Masks. Throat-sprays.

Company rehearsed lines overnight, word perfect, with Camera crew dressed up like cushions labelled after Quins. surgeons.

Then the Quins took charge. Crawled out of camera Smeared Hersholt's make-up with podgy range, chuckling: fingers. Cast forgot their fines. So they just photographed them anyway.

Weck over-Dr. Dafoe all smiles, Quins had gained two pounds between them. Loss of weight of film unit was unspecified.

LETTERS

BALLYHOO FOR BRITISH

+

MUST BE SUPPORTED

BY BETTER PICTURES

--SAYS THIS READER

You announced that percentage of British films screened each month at a local cinema would be rekulated by the support accorded them by the public.

If that's the ease and if nothing better is offered than the type of British film we have recently been offered, I imagine it won't be long before they are cut out altogether.

"

Really, can't something be done about this matter? I know it in said that British films will never be popular in Hongkong, because they do not appeal to the Chinese, who make up the great majority of local, cinema patrons. But I contend that British films-that is, modern products, of I will the best type, from British studios-have never had a chance here. concede that "Nell Gwyn," shown this week, was excellent, but even that flm is over two years old.

I am not concorned with the system under which we nem-to-gel- nothing but second-rate, and, oft-times, very old, British pictures, but I do Any that the showing of such films, sa.far from helping in cultivating a taste for the best that Britain's studies can produce, is a distinct disser- vice to the British flm industry.

Last week, we had two British film which, by no stretch of the imagination, could be considered typical of that industry's present-day Pro ducts. What is worse is that both these pictures were preceded by "shorts" which were simply not worth seeing. In one of these programmes, there wero actually tiro "Organlogues" those banal, sentimental, mushy produc- tions in which the public is supposed to join In eining but never does, Personally, I should be glad if "The Voice of the Organ" were stricken with laryngitis, never to be heard again.

Then, preceding another film, was a British newsreel depicting event prior to the Into King's Silver Jubileel

If that was not enough, there was a short entitled "Song Writers of the 90's" which I had previously seen in Hongkong last year. I ask you is it fair to British films to present them, even poor as the type we see in Hongkong are, alongside such rubbish?

Why, oh why, can't we got good British films and up-to-date British

REGULAR PATRON,

newsreels?

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GORDON'S LTD. Hongkong's Ladies Shoo Specialis

Shanghai Newspaper

Wrote Crimean Classic for Screen

By "FIRST NIGHT” '

HONGKONG will soon see Hollywood version of the immortal Charge of the Light Brigade in film of same

name.

Ever since 1854 there's been considerable mystery regarding this military saga.

Some historians say it was an awful blunder. Others, that it was a great piece of strategy.

But everyone admits that the 600-odd men who took part in the charge were heroes. Tennyson made them immortal in his poem.

About five years ago a Shanghai newspaperman decided to show that the historians were wrong.

A woman was the cause of it all, he wrote.

At the mere monition of romance in such a juicy plot as the charge across the "Valley of Death," Hollywood producers fell over themselves to buy the screen rights of the Shanghai <riter's version.

The author is Michel Jacoby, well-knone to many a screed in the Far East. Mr. Jacoby is 32. He isn't English, but English, and English history has been his weakness;'

After graduating from Colum- bia University, Jake became a the New York reporter on World. He was sent out to Shanghai a decade ago, to cover one of China's periodic civil wars, and remained therefor six years.

While waiting for Chiang Kai- shek to seize Shanghai, Jake de- cided to write a story about Balaclava. He read

Pass, is sent over to Arabia for cavalry horses.

"That gives us a chance for some beautiful action stuff," Mr. Jacoby says, "It also moves to- ward the ultimato and smashing climax of the charge."

Errol Flynn.also well-known to Hongkong newspapermen, plays the part of a young lieutenant who leads tho charge. The heroine of the story is Olivia de Havilland, who appeared with every booklynn in the very successful written on the Crimean War. Ho "Captain Blood." studied maps and British military records.

He wasn't the first person who had thought of making n picture of the Charge. The trouble was that no one else had ever figured

a plot of hang the charge on,

All newspapermen are romantic, otherwise they wouldn't stick to their jobs. So Jake decided the only thing to do was to use the Charge as the climax of a film to write a story leading up to where Tennyson begins and end the picture with the ride across the Valley of Death.

a

SUE-

So, when you see the film at the Queen's shortly, you'll be prised to know that the famous Charge was neither blunder nor strategy. The noble 600" rode through the valley of death because their leader loved his brother's sweetheart, for one thing, and because they wanted to avendo a massacre in India, for another, It hasn't been stated yet how Warner Bros. are going to ret over Hongkong censorship dimenities bout hypothesis,

the latter

Jacoby says ho found some In- teresting things while digging up material for his story.

For one thing, he says, Tenny- Bonas. Inaccurato in his poom. There were more than 600 men. And Tennyson's description of the ride was "all wet" from a military point of view. Cavalrymen. Just don't charge no Tennyson had them charging, Mr. Jacoby anys,

And he says that the hardest thing about his story, which is. Inid for the most part in India,. was working up to the Crimean The had to War. He knew bring In the war so that It wouldn't seem to be dragged in by the heals. This he did by a vory adroit piece of busi ness. You learn that Crimean War is brewing when the cavalry regiment, which has been doing border duty near the Khyber

Renee Florigny Returns To Hongkong

His Excellency the Governor and the French Consul, M. J.. Leurquin, will patronise. the pianoforte recital at Helena May on Tuesday by Madame Renee Florigny, distinguished French pianist, who is revisiting the Colony.

q

Madame Florigny received her. musical training at the famous Paris Conservatoire, Laking her first lesson the jane at the early age, of seven, when she studied under the He celebrated maestro Raoul Pugno. recognised her genius at once and his prophecies concerning her ultimato Rucers, have been well borne out. She has often been called "the female Paderewski."

Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin aro her favourite composers, and those in Hongkong who heard her before de- clare that interpretation of those masters is splendid.

Madame Florigny's first visit to "Hongkong was In January, 1935. Since then-ahe has been to Manila, Indo-China, Salgon, Cambodia, Ball, Japan, South Korea, Dairen, Mukden, Harbin Tientsin, Peiping, Nanking. and Shanglind. Lately, she visited Canton and Macao.

Among her most priceless souvenirs are two decorations,which she has received since her last vialt to Ileng- kong. One was given to me. Florigny by the Emperor of Annam after she land given a concert in his Falace. The other was presented by the King of Cambodia.

Is your

___ picture right?

If you have shaded in shapes numbered 4, 8, 8, 10, 12, 14, 10, 21, 24, 27, 20, 30, 31, 38, 35, 80, 80, 42, 44, 40, 48, 50, 60, 55, 56, 67, 68, 60, 82, and 63 you will have-n allhouette, of George Robey

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