Guest Column

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13426, 27 August 1941, Page 7

Guest Column

| They told me. “Don't ever worry ; about becoming typed if you're in a Wilcox picture," but until that gentleman cast me with Anna Xeagle jin RKO Radio's “Xo Xo. Xanette." 1 ; hadn't fully appreciated the ro- ! mark. Producer-Director Herbert \\ ilcox is noted for what Hollywood terms ■‘off centre casting"—that is. having his players do roles which contrast sharply with the things they've been doing. And his reputation is deserved, as I found out when we -firted work on the screen adaptation of the famous stage hit. I'd about become resigned to playing the perennial undergraduate with a crew haircut, but Mr Wilcox cast me as a blase commercial artist who wields a brush intsead of a fraternity paddle. He even let my hair return to normal, so that it no longer stands up like an asparagus bed. But my own transformation was only the beginning by Wilcox. Victor Mature, noted for playing muscle and swashbuckling (parts, becomes a sauve Broadway producer, wears top hat and tails in “No, No, Nanette.” He plays my rival for Miss Neagle’s affections, and does a swell job of it.

Roland Young had never played a love scene on the screen —so Mr Wilcox sees to it that Roland has heavy clinches with three girls, Eve Arden, Tamara and Dorothea Kent in this fi 1 m.

Zasu Pitts is famous, of course, for her fluttering, slow brand of comedy. But not under Wilcox’s direction. He has her walking and talking at mile-a-minute tempo, chucking wisecracks with what should prove hilarious abandon. Directors like Mr Wilcox aie healthy—not only for the industry, but tor the actors themselves. It’s only too easy to slip into a rut with your characterizations. But the Wilcox Paving and Grading Co. has done much to iron out Hollywood’s ruts.