una May Wong wish One of the Houston Sisters In "A Girl Must Live" one raw that an English cast can produce as lively a picture about gold-diggers as any compeling American one. At least, one should say an all-but English cast, as Lilli Palmer, one of the three gold-diggers. is an Austrian, who has learnt to speak very good English But the most interesting figure of the three is Renee Houston, the Scottish vaudeville comedienne. Miss Houston knows how to throw off a line with a verve which is almost startling in its certainty. Pro-ably she can do this because she learnt her job in vaudeville turns.
A music-hall artiste has to come on the stage and at once get into the closest relation with her audience. She cannot afford to miss fire for five seconds. Renee Houston does not miss fire at all. When mey were still in their teens, Renee and her sister, Billee, were at the top of the bill wherever they went as the Houston sisters. But they ceased to work together a few years ago. and since then Renee has divided her attention between the vaudeville stage and film making. Her pictures include "Their Night Out," "Lost in the Legion," "Mr. Cinders" "No Monkey Business" and "Fine Feathers" She is married to Pat Ahearne, a screen actor of the silent days.
"Little Old" New York Hollywood is used to reconstructing cities, both alive and dead, and even making the' dead cities appear very much alive. This will be done in "Little Old New York" for Twen-teeth-Century Fox. The story is set in New York of 1807, a city which if not quite dead is changed beyond recognition into a miracle of skyscrapers, Here and there might be found bits of New York as they were in 1807, but only here and there.
The cast includes Alice Faye, Richard Greene, Fred MacMurray, and Brenda Joyce, and the story deals with Robert Fulton's trials and trigulations in building the first steamboat. It would seem that Darryl Zanuck is not being satisfied with any small model for this production. The New York of 1807 will be built up on a grand scale, More than 75 sets have been constructed by a whole army of workmen, who have been busy on them for six months.
One of the largest of these sets reproduces the old New York waterfront, and covers fifteen acres, It includes a barnacle-covered walk, brick, stone and wood buildings,' three huge three-masted sailing ships, 25 smaller craft and a part of the Hudson river.
When, in pictures, a big bank i robbed, a "killer" kills, a multi-mi. lionaire fails or a distinguished. "socialite" is divorced, newspaper front pages appear on the scree: with headlines of the largest size They look like real newspapers, bui they are not. Hollywood issues its own fictitious press, carefully made up to look like the genuine article. Paramount, for example, has a press fully fitted with all the machinery of a newspaper office.
All have seen on the screen newspaper after newspaper of all countries, hailing the triumphant debut of an operatic prima donna, who, but one reel back, was singing in a small and obscure cafe; or we have seen the thrilling newspaper warning that a "killer" of the worst kind has escaped and is at large. This, and this alone, stands out on the front page. No other news matters, or is even readable, The dramatic headline is framed in a waste of "pie," type that is jumbled together without meaning. As a rule, the newspapers have fictitious names. They appear in large type and carry conviction, but no copies of them can be bought. The particular "Bulletin" or "Herald" does not come from any known public press. It is a part of the great Hollywood make-believe.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.