NEW YORK COMEDY

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22656, 10 March 1939, Page 5

NEW YORK COMEDY

Constance Bennett with Auer

and Ruggles

Constance Bennett, who is starred in “Service De Luxe,” coming to the Avon, could not help faking to acting any more than a duck can help taking to water. “I had no desire to become an actress,” she says. “It all seemed to

happen accidentally.” “She had it in her veins,” her friends assert. “The daughter of Richard Bennett—and not have acting in the blood?” • Richard Bennett, her father, was one of Broadway’s most colourful figures. Constance inherited her father’s talent—and no small part of his volatile personality. She is a driving bundle of energy, her entire 104 pounds concentrated upon the task in hand or the goal to be gained. Constance Bennett, who is starred with Vincent Price in ‘Service De Luxe,” stayed away from the stage and screen until she was grown up. Constance was at an Equity Ball in New York, with her father. Samuel Goldwyn, movie producer, was present lie took a liking to her at once. Three days later he offered her the title role in “Cytherea.”

In Universal’s “Service De Luxe,” she is cast as Helen Murphy, the head and owner of an exclusive organisation which renders service of all description to its clients. With her is seen Vincent Price, a newcomer to the screen, but who is known to New York stage audiences for his two-year portrayal of the role’ of Albert in Helen Hayes’ “Victoria Regina.” Also featured in the picture are Mischa Auer, Charles Ruggles, Helen Broderick, and Joy Hodges. *‘Sf. Martin’s Lane” An indication of the good reviews of Charles Laughton’s latest production, “St. Martin’s Lane,” is given by the candid criticism of John Milford in the “Film Pictorial.” He writes: “A richly comic, sentimental, and robust story of a London which even Londoners do not know. It tells of the theatre-queue entertainers, and of Charlie Saggers, in particular, who thinks he is quite as good an actor as, say, Charles Laughton, until, in a very moving finale, he is disillusioned. The whole film is sincere, human, and rattling good entertainment. Laughton is magnificent, and Vivien Leigh’s work a revelation.”

"St. Martin’s Lane” is coming to the Avon.