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WOULD YOU BELIEVE…?

FACES IN THE FOG DOG WORLD TECHNICAL TALK
Wally Perkins Straight From The Top
Pets in Paris
The worst London fogs may be The Herald 14 Aug. 1939
Film Weekly 1939
things of the past, but they deserve their Chairman of Paramount Pictures
In France patrons are not merely
reputation for malevolence, not just on Inc., Adolph Zukor was feted at a Town
allowed to bring their dogs to the
the screen - think Gaslight, The Lodger, Hall reception in Melbourne. His every
theatre, but are encouraged to do so,
Footsteps In The Fog - but for impact in comment about Australia was
and where the opportunity offers, the
the cinema itself. favourable, even passing on that Mrs.
dogs are permitted to occupy vacant
I was in London in 1952 and 1953 Zukor had gone shopping in Sydney
seats.
and saw first-hand how pervasive a pea and found the clothes to be every bit as
-souper could be. At a cinema off Rin-Tin-Tin At the Princess stylish as in Hollywood, but of better
Oxford Street, the girl at the ticket box, Fred Page quality.
asked if I would like to take a peek However, on developments in 3-D
Warner Bros. introduced their
inside to see if I still wanted to go in. he was inscrutable:
wonder dog to the world in 1923.
I sat down in fog up to my knees, Rinty (and some of his 18 stand-ins) ‘The companies have technicians
and watched it seep in under the doors went on to make 19 films, the brothers working on third dimension, and Mr.
until the swirling mass covered the first true star. Zukor himself saw a few hundred feet
lower half of the screen. I watched of film that seemed highly satisfactory.
Eleanor Parker and Fred McMurray in But when the technicians were asked
A Millionaire for Christy, or rather I how it was achieved they said, “We
watched the top half of them. don’t know”. It was a happy accident.’

Chilly Photography
The Age 7 Dec. 2006
In journalist John Lowry’s report of
an interview with film restoration
expert David Adams:
Is there a particular film that you
would like to restore?
‘…I have a great interest in the
older Technicolor films that were made
with the freeze-drip cameras. Those
For one Rin-Tin-Tin film the films can do with a lot of help’.
Princess Melbourne advertised that any As Gordon Evans has pointed out,
The same winter I was in the child who brought their dog with them the correct phrase is ‘three-strip
Gaumont Kilburn for a Sunday night would be admitted free. The police cameras’.
tribute to the music of Tchaikovsky. were inundated with calls about
At first all was well. Then the fog missing dogs.
came in, engulfing the orchestra by One joke from this incident: The
stealth. Sir Thomas Beecham’s arm head cleaner demands to know what's
movements and intemperate language on next. Told it will be The Four
showed he was having difficulty seeing Horsemen of the Apocalypse - “I quit”. REEL
his players.
Wally Perkins (again) says that the
By the time Dame Joan Hammond reason the cleaner quit was not about
sang Tatiana’s letter scene from Eugene horses; it was because he couldn't DEALS
Onegin, only her head was visible. tango.
Fog on this scale has a lingering KEEPING FILM
effect. As it clears, soot bonds to walls, Puppy Power
curtains and screen. Time 17 Sept. 2007 COLLECTORS IN TOUCH
Lucky and Flo are a pair of black
(Wally is aware that this story puts Labradors trained to sniff out DVDs ENQUIRIES:
his reputation as a reliable raconteur in and lead investigators to pirated MIKE TRICKETT
jeopardy. He is prepared to take a lie material. 25 Fairlie Street
detector test.)
The success of their first assignment North Geelong Vic. 3216
in Malaysia can be judged from the fact
Phone: AH 03 5278 1986
that bootleggers were reputed to have
Fax: 03 5278 3545
put a bounty on the dog's heads.
Email: filmman@ncable.net.au
Luckily they escaped any would-be
assassins.
CINEMARECORD 2007 13