Closing three days of intensive and fruitful effort the "Noah's Ark" company returned Wednesday evening to the Warner Bros. studio in Hollywood.
Director Michael Curtiz, known as one of the greatest of European directors, in conversation with a Sentinel scribe, summed up his opinion of local settings in one word: "Marvelous!" Curtiz, a master of the art of accomplishing big things in movie production, was imported from Hungary by the Warners, especially for this super play. In "Moon of Israel," his greatest European masterpiece, recently shown in this country, Curtiz handled mobs of thousands of people in many of the scenes, making of it a stupendous and impressive spectacle.
"Noah's Ark" is expected to rise to great heights as a film sensation. Already from 500 to 5000 people per day have been engaged in certain portions of the story which takes in both ancient and modern times. Scenes will be included using sets and crowds of greater extent than ever heretofore engaged in the filming of a motion picture. In addition, it is admitted that the new sensation, the vitaphone will be employed in many important sequences of the wonder play which has been two months in production and is now only about half completed. "Noah's Ark" will be given its world premiere in September.
Secure Beautiful Scenes
Director Curtiz with his staff of able assistants secured many extremely beautiful shots at the Big Basin locations in Governor's Camp. Panchromatic motion picture film is now used extensively and with this, aided by special artificial lighting equipment, some striking results were obtained for the Biblical portions of the play.
George O'Brien, Guinn Williams and Malcolm Waite appear as the three sons of Noah, and with Dolores Costello, were the only members of the cast of characters engaged in the part filmed here.
Barney McGill and Bill Rees handled first and second camera, respectively, Elmer Fryer was in charge of the still photography. Fryer was on location here a few years ago on the Renaud Hoffman company under Henry McCarty, with Thunder, the dog star.
Bill Guthrie served the troupe as business manager.
Fox Troupers Leave
With the completion of their roles certain members of the Fox "Farmer's Daughter" company, which has been working here for three weeks, are returning home.
Thursday night Harry Dunkinson, Sam De Grasse, B. Hauser and Johnny Rand returned to Hollywood.
The company has been very active and is hopping from one location to another in rapid succession lately. A few minor retakes and special scenes were made yesterday. It appears that the job will be about done and the company ready to depart tonight or tomorrow."
Twenty-four members of the Edwin Carewe unit of United Artists Pictures arrived in Santa Cruz this morning at 6:45 o'clock on a special train from Los Angeles. They were stopping at the Hotel St. George and intend to stay in this city today and tomorrow for work in the Big Basin and at the Minnehaha Falls in the Blackburn gulch. This evening six more of the company, including Miss Dolores Del Rio, will arrive.
The play to be produced will be Longfellow's "Evangeline." Exterior scenes, the forest primeval in the Big Basin and love scenes at Minnehaha falls will be shot. The company plans to leave for Carmel Saturday where an Arcadian village has been erected on Point Lobos.
Miss Del Rio will have the feminine lead as Evangeline. She will be supported by an all star cast including Roland Drew as Gabriel, one of the masculine leads; Donald Reed as Batiste, as the other masculine lead; Alec Francis as Father Felician; James Marcus, Paul McAllister, George Marion and Bobby Mack.
The picture is being personally directed by Edwin Carewe. Santa Cruz area is the first port of call for the filming of the picture.
The company plans to spend three weeks in Carmel in filming the Arcadian atmosphere before taking up the story of the travel to Louisiana which will be made elsewhere. During the filming of the deportation scenes the company plans to employ several hundred people for many days.
"Evangeline" will take four months to film and is planned for one of the United Artists big hits for the 1929 season."
Co-operating with Irving Cummings, director of the big Fox unit filming "Pigs" in this city, and Charles Woolstenhulme, assistant to Mr. Cummings, Manager Earl Amos of the New Santa Cruz Theater, has been successful in securing "The Johnstown Flood," Mr. Cummings' recent sensational production made in Santa Cruz and Soquel, for presentation at the local theater on the days of April 28 and 29.
Wednesday, the 28th, through the generosity of Director Cummings, has been designated "Fox Night," for on that evening Mr. Cummings; Janet Gaynor, ingenue lead in "The Johnstown Flood" and feminine lead in "Pigs"; Will Walling, lead in "Pigs"; Art Housman, comedy lead and remembered by scores of friends here for his remarkable heavy part in "Thunder Mountain," and the whole great big cast of the picture at present being made here, will appear in person on the New Santa Cruz stage.
Mr. Amos also has high hopes of being enabled to repeat the personal appearances on the following evening, Thursday.
The company again worked on location at the J. A. Gayton High Street residence this morning. Later they transferred to an East Santa Cruz location, and in a few days will commence concentrated work on Bob Jones' Hotel St. George hog ranch."
All the San Lorenzo Valley, from Felton to Boulder Creek, from Boulder to Poverty Flat, and on into the Big Basin country will soon ring to the tread of horses' hoofs and much will be the activity of the large movie company here from the Lasky Studios in Hollywood to film "Salomy Jane." The large number of cowboys already in Boulder Creek will be augmented later on by more men and horses, bringing the total to practically one hundred and fifty people in the company now there.
Director George Melford, eager to "break the ice" on his new production was scheduled to "shoot" a series of night scenes Sunday evening at a location near Glen Arbor, as the initial scenes to be made for the new photoplay.
The western set at Poverty Flat will be utilized as soon as ready, in the very near future."
On Saturday the last scenes of the "Sea Urchin," the new Santa Cruz movie players' first production, were enacted at the studio at Laveaga Park. The last scenes taken were the "Interiors" and consequently the last few days in photographing were spent at the studio. The exteriors, most of them, were taken along the cliffs and on the small beaches along the cliff drive.
This play, in contrast with the fault found in the previous company's productions, is entirely novel, speedy and full of action. Nearly all of the scenes are laid in a small west coast fishing village. Nan Cristy takes the title part, that of the Urchin, and with her flowing blonde locks, her coarse, but neat homespun dress, and her tanned and hardy bare face and limbs, certainly looks the part of the waif who is cast up on the rocks of a little fishing village, and has grown up among the rude customs and hardy simple life of the fisherfolk.
The part of Tom Searles, the constable and otherwise ordinary fisherman, is taken by Leon Kent, the new director. Tom Searles is about forty-five years of age, and during one of his walks along the beach picks up a babe, washed up among the rocks. He gives her the name of "Sea Urchin," raises her among the fishermen, and in the end, in his capacity of sheriff, grapples with and kills an escaped convict who had assaulted her.
Dick, the young nephew of Searles and boyhood lover of the Urchin, is taken and handled in a thorough manner by Jack Connoly. The way in which the young man puts his entire energy into his work is truly marvelous and commendable.
Fred Underwood takes the part of the escaped convict and assaulter of the Urchin, who in the end is killed by Searles.
At the studio on Saturday, the writer witnessed a scene in which the guardian of the Urchin (Kent) had before him the task of "getting tears". The writer has before seen this done among movie players, but Mr. Kent's way is a novel one. The services of an expert violinist were employed, and as sad, sentimental melodies floated from the violin, Kent's face could be seen to sadden, his eyes to redden, until at last tears rolled down his cheeks. The cameraman then began to unwind film and Kent's act of crying was "canned".
The films of the Sea Urchin will be taken this week to Los Angeles by F. W. Swanton, who has every possible assurance of their acceptance by Universal."
This play, produced by the Santa Cruz motion picture company, under direction of Leon D. Kent, was shown Monday afternoon at the Unique theater to invited guests and visitors.
Before the reeling of the film began, Mr. Swanton explained that this was the picture in the rough, so to speak; that the film would be sent to New York for the finishing touches, moonlight for the night scenes, and other little additions.
The audience was really a large one and critical in its judgement, and the judgment was expressed in the most enthusiastic hand clapping. There was Santa Cruz before us; Ocean Cliffs, the perfect arch of the natural bridge, and the clean, white stretches of sand on which the Sprite of the Breakers, Miss Vera Jensen, danced her graceful, carefree pas de suel; a child of nature, born a dancer.
Every picture was clear and the scenes well chosen, and the actors were good, Miss Christy playing the part of Anita grown up. Great credit is due Director Kent, and we may depend that the five reel picture he will soon make with Vera Jensen in a leading part, will be worth seeing.
Bay View school plays a prominent part, and here too the buildings were beautifully clear and all the figures in their school drill were splendidly taken.
Entirely setting aside our proneness to praise without reason on account of local pride, we wish to stamp "The Sea Urchin," the first release of the Fer Dal company under the direction of Leon O. Kent and given its premier at the Unique theater this morning. as an exceptionally good two-reeler.
The plot is sharply drawn, the photography is excellent, the picture is not padded and the exterior locations along our own cliffs between Moore's beach and Vue de l'Eau and in the fishing village at Capitola, have been well chosen and really give the subject a true artistic value.
Nan Christy, a trim little actress with an attractive screen face, plays the part of the Urchin. Nature has endowed her with pretty figure and in two scenes where she sits on the rocks in her bare skin and lets the wind fondle her tresses and breakers shower her with foam, she is indeed bewitching. She is an actress, a very necessary qualification in a short subject where the emotional changes are usually rapid and must not be overdone.
The Sea Urchin as a baby is found on the rocks in a broken raft. She is taken home by the village constable and fisherman (Leon D. Kent) and his little nephew Dick (Jack Connelly) becomes her playmate and later her lover.
The escape of a convict (Fred Underwood) from his captor (Lou Carter) in the neighborhood brings about a near tragedy in the life of the Urchin, now a carefree girl of eighteen whose whole life has been spent among the tide-sweep nooks and crannies of the seashore. This villain hides in a natural cave of the shore for his own protection and one day finding the beautiful girl alone his baser elements come to the surface and she becomes his victim. The story from this point rapidly unfolds. The escaped convict is caught in the village through his craving for food which forced him to throw discretion to the winds A photograph given the constable by the deputy after the man's escape helps in the identification, even the Urchin recognizing him in this way.
The Urchin, overwhelmed by her shame, is rapidly losing her mind and is about to end her life when her foster father's search for the criminal begins. It ends on the cliffs where after a hair-raising tussle on the brink of a ledge of rocks the villain is thrown into the sea. The Urchin's mind is cleared through her witnessing this tragic end of her traducer and she finally once more opens her heart to her lover and the story ends happily.
The escape of the criminal is staged on a Southern Pacific train between Seabright and Twin Lakes stations. The escape(e) jumps from the train as it passes over the first trestle out of Seabright into the water of the lake.
The acting of the characters in "The Urchin" was above par. The story was properly connected so that sub-titles were hardly necessary.
Elsier LeMay, the Sea Urchin as a baby was true to life in her howling part. Mr Kent at this juncture acted naturally, offering the leather-lunged youngster his pipe instead of the nursing bottle.
Due credit must be given to all of the cast of "The Sea Urchin" because they have had the satisfaction of taking part in the best release ever filmed at Santa Cruz and developed by the local company.
About seventy-five people witnessed the production this morning."
There is a new dog star. Ginger is his name and he has an important part in "Broken Chains," the winner of the $10,000 prize in the Chicago Daily News scenario contest, produced by the Goldwyn Pictures corporation and to be shown at the Unique Theater today. Director Allen Holubar was amazed and delighted at the intelligence which Ginger showed in support of Colleen Moore, Malcolm MacGregor, Claire Windsor, Ernest Torrence and other members of a brilliant cast.
Ginger is the only dog that belongs to the Boy Scouts. By unanimous vote, Troop No. 2 of Santa Monica has voted him in and also voted him the smartest dog in the world. He belongs to Dr. E. M. Cowles of Santa Monica. At a slight motion of the doctor's hand, Ginger stood on his hind legs and barked a sharp and incisive "yes" when admitted to the order.
Ginger has various chores which he performs regularly. The chickens are his special charge. As no fence separates his yard from the next, the dog has to watch them. The minute a fowl steps over the line, Ginger, without a word from anyone, carefully herds them into their own domain. He puts on his own collar, which lies on the ground attached to a rope; he turns on the hydrant and drinks when thirsty; runs from the front yard to the back at a word from his master and selects from among his treasures of bones, cans and hoops the one which the doctor has named, rolls a barrel in any direction ordered and jumps through a hoop which he himself first stands upright.
The talented animal is a cross between a collie and a Belgian police dog. From the day he was six weeks old Dr. and Mrs. Cowles have trained him daily, but never have they struck him.
"There is no limit to what this dog can learn," said Dr. Cowles, "unless it is where we are not able to make ourselves intelligible to him, and that is our fault, rather than his. He is alert every instant when with us and he is a fine example of concentration. He will leave his dinner to play ball and will leave the company of another dog any time to go through his tricks. I believe that dogs have souls and that their intelligence is far greater than many of us have thought."
"Traced in the Sands" is the title of an interesting play that is being filmed by the Santa Cruz moving picture producing company at the beach, where the settings and the scenes are ideal because the story deals with life at the seaside. This story is written by Lester LeMay of this city, who is a member of the local troupe of movie actors, and put in scenario form by Leon D. Kent, under whose direction it is being filmed.
Our summer visitors are very much interested in the filming of this little play, which will probably extend into two full reels. They follow the players and watch their work with much interest.
Russell and Pennington operate on the stock exchange and Pennington ruins Russell financially. On the beach at the resort the son of Russell and the daughter of Pennington are cast into each other's company through the kindness of young Russell, who cranks Miss Pennington's auto while her admirer sits in the machine indifferent, but very much angered over the courtesy of the young man whom Miss Pennington seems to be attracted to at the outset.
Young Russell returns to his aged father, who is taking a nap on the beach. In the sand he traces a heart in which he places his initials. Young bathing girls are sporting in the surf and they induce Miss Pennington to enter. As she does so she stops to trace a heart on the sands, and in this she places her initials.
The young heiress and society belle is drowning and a call comes for help. Russell goes to the rescue. On coming out of the surf he discovers the heart drawn in the sand. It strikes him as being very strange. He stoops and picks up a locket, which his father on opening and beholding the picture recognizes it as that of the man who had ruined him. Through the rescue and the finding and returning of the locket to its owner, the two old gents are finally made friends again because of the affection of the young couple for each other.
Miss Pennington has just about completely spurned her former lover. There is a tragic end to their friendship when during a quarrel the young lady is cast from the pleasure pier by Blake, and rescued by Russell, who dives in after her. It might be said right here that Nan Christy is playing the part of Miss Pennington and her act in permitting herself to be thrown from the pier is remarkable, when it is taken into consideration that the young lady does not swim. But she is going to learn this summer at the beach.
As the play progresses Russell is seen strolling down the beach; he stops to draw in the sand another heart. Along comes Miss Pennington and she also draws a heart that inter-links with the first. Russell completes the work by tracing an arrow through the center and then cupid fades into the film.
The play is going to be real fascinating when screened and promises to be one of the finest turned out by the local company. Leading parts in the play were taken by the following; Jack Russell, Lester LeMay; Frank Russell, Jack Connolly; Grace Pennington, Nan Christy; Bruce Pennington, Horsey; Blake, Mr. Unger. "