"Madanie X" Appears in New Styles: Grand National Revi es the Magic Lantern There is scarcely a America that has not the: in season after season, been drenched by tears provoked by "Madame X," reputedly the most frequently exhibited fixture of the stage, writes Douglas W. Churchill to the New York "Times." Every stock company has played it many times and there is not a leading indy in the nation who is worthy of the name who has for gnawed its courtroom scenery for least one at week each season.
Xf the theatre has sanctified the piece by name, the screen has not always been as charitable. Placed on celluloid twice in its true colours, it has been presented frequently in other guises with its parentage concealed but suspected. Now once again the suffering Jacqueline is to arise in the dock and, dripping with nobility, spare her son the knowledge of her shame, While the MGM venture will differ from other versions many respects, it will be notable because, as far as records show, it will be the first time Jacqueline will have appeared as a blonde. Gladys George is playing the title role. patency screen an old magic lantern in which had been installed a powerful light. Stars are now rosed in the type of scenery suggested by their costumes, The results have an authentic appearance. He secured foreign settings, the Piso Tower, Parisian boulevards, the Chi. nese Wall and the like by the expedient of photographing po on the slides and projecting them.
"Mother Cary's Chickens"
"Mother Cary's Chickens," or nally scheduled for Ginger Rogers, has been switched to the schedule of youthful Anne Shirley since her performance in "Stella Dallas." RKO has laboured to find vehicles which could show the actress to advantage and the executives are pretty vexed at stories that she has been neglected or her potentialities overlooked. "One of our most difficult problems has been to cast Miss Shirley properly," S. J. Briskin, production chief of Radio, said this week. "She is not cld enough to play leads, and so tories must be found adaptable to her special talents. We tried to follow the success of Anne of Green Metro's Problem Gables' with 'M'liss,' which was ex-
Metro appreciates the problem on iis hands in presenting the story in believable fashion...) Modern youth being what it is, it is conceivable that a lot of sons would enjoy having as lively and interesting a character as the original Madame Floriot round the house. So in the 1937 edition, while she is wrongly accused, Jacque line does her best during subsequent years to justify her reputation.
John. Meehan, who has written many of the more torrid social melodramas of the past (Norma Shearer's "Free Soul/^gnd "Divorcee' has prepared the screen play and takes the lady from Paris to the inevitable Riviera, New York, New Orleans, Buenos Aires and back to Paris. The lights on theatre mar-quoes could be worded with propriety, "Madame X Leaving.on 'Track' Seven."
Pauline Frederick made the first screen version for the old Goldw. company in 1920 and Ruth Chatterton carried on in the first talking edition in 1929 under Lionel Barrymore's direction. It was for the treatment for this that Dorothy Parker was drafted, and-after hearing the producer's outline of what he would like, she said, "Why not let me do a series of pic We could have Madame Frence'; "Madame then Madame X at Harvard, For the Honour of the School."
Miss Parker ceased to interest Metro at. about that time.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.