Spectacle Again

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 271, 12 August 1938, Page 16

Spectacle Again

Less Talk and More Action in Next Year’s Films

QPECTACLE has regained popularity m Hollywood. There is a campaign for less talk and more action in pictures, and, as a result, the director of spectacle has come into his own again. Men like Cecil B. de Mille, Frank Lloyd and Michael Curtiz, who cause prodigious things/ to unfold before one’s eyes, can write their own cheques these days. Producers grieve because there are so few directors equipped like these men to stage the enormous spectacles they would, like to throw on next season’s Screens. Hollywood has indicated by its plans for forthcoming films that it is thoroughly in earnest about its professed desire for spectacle, and is going in for it in a big way. Manyybig scenes which are expected to thrill audiences will be revealed soon. The series will begin about the middle of August. A huge body >of ice is brought down after a spectacular crash in “Spawn of the North.” A film crew spent two months in Alaska shooting this and other scenes for the picture, in which are George Raft, Henry Fonda and Dorothy Lamour. '

Squadrons of aircraft will go into battle in “Men With Wings,” which is being filmed in technicolour and which features Fred Mac Murray, Ray Milland and Louise Campbell. There is a reproduction of the Morro Castle disaster in “Too Hot to Handle,” with Clark Gable, as a newsreel cameraman,’ swooping oyer a burning vessel and photographing it from a plane, while 1000 extras become panid-stricken and leap overboard. This will be staged near Catalina Island at a cost of £31,250. Fifteenth century Paris will be besieged by the Burgundians in Frank Lloyd’s “If I Were King,” co-starring Ronald Colman and Frances Dee. A vast cattle drive and a roaring prairie fire are among the spectacles in “The Texans.” Randolph Scott and Joan Bennett are cast in the chief roles, j The storming of the Bastille and other scenes of the French Revolution are promised in “Marie Antoinette,’ which brings Norma Shearer back to the screen after a long absence. Forest thrills of the “Come and Get It” variety are provided in “Valley of the Giants,” with Wayne Morris and Claire Trevor in the chief roles. Great vistas of wilderness, Indian fights, fires and snow blockades form part of “North-West Passage.” Robert Taylor and Spencer Tracy figure In this.

“Test Pilot” and “The Adventures of Marco Polo” are a sample of what 75 per cent, of next season’s product will offer in the way of robustness.