NEWS OF THE CINEMA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 295, 20 September 1940, Page 3

NEWS OF THE CINEMA

0 By Spotlight”

PRODUCTION PARS. William Powell and Myrna Loy, who have been married in eight pictures, including “Another Thin Man,”' have birthdays within two days of each other and for the last five years have- been giving each other “surprise' parties just forty-eight hours apart f * * * * Herbert Stothart contributes his first complete screen operetta score since “The Rogue Song,” in the Nelson Eddy-Uona Massey co-starring musical. “Balalaika.” * * * * David Butler, veteran director whose name has been associated with such musical screen hits as “Sunny Side Up,” “The Connecticut Yankee,” “Just Imagine.” and “East Side of Heaven,” guided Kay Kyser’s debut film, “That’s Right—You’re Wrong,” in which the popular band loader is costarred with Adolphe Menjou. * * * * A committee of fourteen specialists passed on every medical detail in “The Secret of Dr. Kildare.”

BUSINESS AS USUAL. BRITISH CINEMA PRODUCTION. “The courageous gesture made in the first week oh the war by John Corfield (British National), is eclipsed by his just announced determination to proceed with even more ambitious plans, despite the serious turn in the present situation.’ Thus ‘"The Kinematograph Weekly” (London. June 27). “Mr Corfield,” proceeds that paper, '“‘admitted that one reason for his decision was the asurance he had' received from the Board of Trade that plans were going forward for the continuance of British, production ‘in any circumstances that may arise.’ With this undertaking in view, British National was going forward with an ambitious scheme for the production in Technicolour of a picture, /This England,’ dealing in cavalcade fashion with the history of the British countryside.” Production on “This England,” it is added, is already under way.

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iimimmmimiifiinmmiiimiiiiiimiiifmmiimiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiii ) her greatest success “It s a Saturday and Monday.

EXACTNESS ON SCREEN.

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“DR. KILDARE” SERIES. When a picture requires both an author and a doctor on the set continually, it’s an oddity even in Hollywood where most oddities are commonplace. This was the procedure in the filming of “The Secret of Dr. Kildare,” medicaldetective romance with Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymiorc. Medical exactness was the reason. Every scene in which any medical technique or dialogue appeared was checked hv Dr. Gilbert Lee, technical adviser. Often when the “props” in laboratory and surgery scenes were rearranged, dialogue had to be changed to fit. Either Willis Goldbeck or Harry Ruskin, the scenarists, was always on the set ready to make changes as called for by Director Haloid S. Bucquet. Barrymore called them the “science department.”

NELSON EDDY IN COLOURFUL v MUSICAL SUCCESS. Blazing a- musical trail from Petrograd to Paris over the strife-torn Russia of the Czars, the screen operetta,' “Balalaika,” presents Nelson Eddy and Ilona Massey, Hollywood’s newest singing star, in a thrilling, colourful and romantic musical drama. It tells a tale of romance between a Colonel of Cossacks and the daughter of a revolutionist in the midst of social upheaval, and gives an opportunity for an extensive musical programme that ranges from Russian folk songs to a love song by Franz Lehar, comedy songs by Herbert Stothart, and even the operatic version of a Rimsky-Korsakoff ballet suite. “Balalaika” is based on the London stage musical success by Eric Maschwitz and is heralded as one of the most stirring and colourful musifilms of the . year. *