FILM WORLD.

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 August 1939, Page 9

FILM WORLD.

News of Pictures and Players.

NEW PRODUCTIONS. AT FOX STUDIOS. Taxing the studio’s vast facilities, five new productions are facing the 20th'Century-Fox cameras this month, bringing the total to nine. Heading the list is ‘‘The Rains Came,” screen dramatisation of Louis Bromlield’s best seller, which Director Clarence Brown will direct. Tyrone Tower will portray Major Safti; Myrna Loy will appear as Lady Esketh, and George Brent will be seen as Tom Ransome, ■while Cesar Romero plays Raischid AH Khan. Also on the set are Maria Ouspenskaya, Henry Travers, Jane Harwell, Montague Shaw and H. B. Warner. “Elsa Maxwell’s Hotel for Women,” including the world-famous hostess in its cafat, has Associate Producer Raymond Griffith supervising the Cosmopoltan production. Kathryn Scola, who collaborated with Miss Maxwell on the original story, is working with Darrell Ware on the screen play. “East Side, West Side,” which is being directed by Ricardo Cortez, has in the cast Kane Richmond, Amanda Duff, Edward Norris, Jean Rogers. Henry Armetta), and Marvin Stephens. Two of 20th Century-Fox’s most popular series are also under production. “The Jones Family at the Grand Canyon” and “Charlie Chan on Treasure Island,” starring Sidney Toler as_th© Oriental sleuth, is under the direction of Norman Foster.

GEORGE FORMBY’S LATEST. “TROUBLE BREWING.” George Formby, the sceen’s most popular comedian, and his twinkling banjo, again bounds into new popularity in his latest and funniest film, “Trouble Brewing.” As an eccentric wit, good natured to the point of amiable imbecility, George has a penchant of bursting into song at any old time. This time he is cast as a compositor in a great London newspaper office, whose burning ambition is to become a crime investigator. Aided and abetted' by Googie Withers and Gus MacNaughton, Formby succeeds in running to earth a gang of counterfeiters, whose exploits have been baffling the police- Before George achieves his triumph, however, he and his fellow amateur criminologists go through a series of funny misadventures. These take them to a course where McNaughton and George back a horse, hoping to win sufficient for his, or rather for Googie’s needs. They win. but the money that is paid is counterfeit. The swindler brands himself by Formby’s indelible ink invention for detecting crime, so that) all they have to do is to arrest the villain. This takes them to an all-in-wrestling match, where George surprisingly proves the victor against a bearded champion. Then there is the party given by a famous opera singer, in which George is called upon to rescue an incriminating paper from a most embarrassing hiding place, and finally they find themselves in a brewery, the headquarters of a gang of forgers, in which a never-to-be-forgotten battle ensues. In a climax fraught with thrills and , excitement, George manages to trap the counterfeiters in a huge vat full of beer, the men becoming gloriously drunk, before they are carried off by the police. In between all troubles George finds time and place to sing three catchy songs, “Hitting the High Spots,” “I can tell it by my Horoscope,” and “Fanlight Fanny.” In addition to George Formby, Googie Withers and Gus McNaughton the cast also includes Ga'rry Marsh, Ronald Shiner,' and J. Denier Warren. 1

CONAN DOYLE SLEUTH. As a result of the great success of “The Hound of the' Baskervilles,’’ Darryl Zanuck. 20th Century-Fox production chief, announced that another picture based on the exploits of that master-detective, Sherlock Holmes, is ■ - ■'.■i, . T

I ELIZABETH BERGAER. SOUGHT BY HOLLYWOOD. Elisabeth Bergner is expected to turn into a Hollywood star. Negotiations are in progress for her appearance there. Miss Bergner is wanted for the chief feminine role in “We are Not Alone,” opposite Paul Muni. Miss Bergner has said that she will not work in Hollywood unless her husband, Paul Czinner, is engaged as director of her pictures, but a compromise has now been arranged. Edmund Goulding will direct “We Are Not, Alone,” and Czinner will be handed the megaphone for another important picture in the same studio. Miriam Hopkins was originally intended for the Bergner pari of a German dancer stranded in England, but she is not suitable for the role. The story concerns an English doctor (Muni), who is accused of murdering his wife. Flora Robson, who was the housekeeper in “Wuthering Heights,” will represent the wife. Miss Bergner appeared in “Catherine the Great” after “Escape Me Never,” her first British picture, and subsequently she made “As You Like It,” in which her accent handicapped her, and “Dreaming Lips,” a slow and uninspiring version of an early German success, in which her tricks and mannerisms obscured the sincerity of her performance. Her latest film is the highly successful “Stolen Life.”

GRIM LESSOX FOR ALL ■ IN “BLOCKADE.” ! “Blockade” is a remarkable picture. !lt is fine from the standpoint of lash- | ing out at the inanity, the cruelty, the I stupidity, the crime of war. and is .good propaganda for peace. It. is aimed 1 at the effects war produces on the civilian population, showing the horrors of starvation and misery of all sorts which modern war causes to the people of a land, apart from the actual lighting units. Spain is taken as the locale and espionage as the main theme for the actual story. Madeleine Carroll is the daughter of a man who runs with the hjare and hunts with the hounds and who, together with John head of the system, forces her into becoming a spy for his. own purposes, but she falls in love with Fonda, depicted as a simple farming boy turned soldier, with the rank of lieutenant. He discovers her status, but when she is brought face to face with the sufferings and terrors of blockaded, starving people she realises exactly how war reacts on the unfortunate civilians. From this on she is on the side of peace and decency and makes side of peace and decency and makes an open confession to Fonda, even to the betrayal of the spies themselves. Spotlight is thrown on the activities of a ship with a cargo of food which succeeds in evading the blockade and so bringing its precious load safely to the people whose rejoicings over it makes a line spectacle. Henry Fonda is shown at the close denouncing war for its brutality and uselessness. The picture has been banned by Mussolini. It is Robert Warwick who is the actual head of the espionage business, and it is he who finally is denounced and taken off for trial by Fonda’s friends, although at the same time it was he who was Fonda’s own superior officer apparently aiding the townsfolks whom he was all the while betraying. Halliday gives a clear .impersonation of the suave, smiling traitor, while both Madeleine Carroll aind Henry Fonda are splendid in their sincere and perfect portrayals.

to be made. Basil Rathbone, who played the fictional sleuth in “The t Hound of the Baskervilles.” will portray him again in the new mystery - thriller and portly Nigel Bruce will ' once more be Dr. Watson, the chront icier of Sherlock’s activities and his 5 companion in adventures.

PRODUCTION PAES. NEWS FROM THE STUDIOS. Joe Pasternak has purchased screen rights to “Catherine,” by Nicholas Lazzio, the Hungarian playwright, and Deanna Durbin will have a featured role. William Powell: They started work at M.G.M. last month on Garbo’s new film. “Ninotchka,” in which the male lead may be adjusted for William POVell if the part fits the actor. For Paramount: The latest name to oe acicied to the roster of Paramount players is that of Allan Jones, famed for his fine singing. The first role in which he is to be cast is in support of Madeleine Carroll in “Are Husbands Necessary?” which is at present in production under direction of Edward H. Griffith. Biblical Story: Cecil B. de Mille offered Robert Morley any terms he liked to name for Mordecai in “Esther.” The Biblical story sound like de Mille out-doing de Mille. Incidentally, he was also trying to obtain the services of Hedy Lamarr for the role of Esther. Unrehearsed: “It’s an ill wind that blows no good,” according to Les Goodwins, who is directing RKO Radio’s “The Girl from Mexico.” In a wrestling sequence for the comedy, Ward Bond rolled through the ropes to land on the lap of Lune Velez. That particular happening hadn’t been scheduled, but was such a “natural” that it is being left in the film. Casting: Emile Boreo, star of the Fclies Bergeres, has been signed by Gainsborough Films of London for “The Great Vidocq,” a musical mysterydrama. Gladys George has been signed by 20th Century-Fox for a topline in “Here I am a Stranger,” with Richard Dix, Richard Greene and Nancy Kelly. Brenda Marshall, a stage newcomer, has been signed by Warners for the feminine lead in “Career Man,” with Joel McCrea and Jeffrey Lynn. “ARIZONA” IN TECHNICOLOUR. Once more the lusty story of the West will be brought lo the screen in realistic tcchnicolour. This time by Columbia Pictures, who have secured the rights of Clarence Budington Rolland’s Saturday Evening Post serial novel. Arizona, during the dramatic, thrilling days of the American Civil War, should lend itself to many colourful scenes, the covered wagons, the arid, parched lands of the West, the hearty struggles of the brave men and women of Arizona. Jean Arthur is selected to take the feminine lead in this picture. The others in an outstanding cast will be hnnuonced shortly.

RECHRISTENING THE STARS. AMUSING TECHNIQUE. The patronymics of Hollywood will one clay so thoroughly confound American genealogists that it is time some attention was given to the process whereby Fannie Zilverspitch became Franciska'Gaal and the-Messrs Wupperman became Frank and Ralph Morgan, remarks a writer in the “New York Times.” The gentlemen who supervise these metamorphoses are incarnations of Dickens’s Mr Bumble, the beadle in “Oliver Twist,” whose literary taste in names for the foundlings committed to his workhouse earned him the admiration of the ladies. The Hollywood Mr Bumbles are generally Press agents, who gain the respect of front-office executives because they can invent things like beautiful names. Their method partakes more of intuition, according to their own explanation than did that of the original Mr 8., who used the alphabet for inspiration. The logic in jettisoning some names is apparent even to the layman, however. Such labels are described by the Mr Bumbles as positively negative—they don’t look well in theatre signs, they don’t trip easily from the tongue; they haven’t in short the odour of glamour. Into this classification fall the names of Wililam Henry Pratt, now switched to Boris Karloff; Isodore Borsuk, now Bobby Breen; Arlington Brugh, now Robert Taylor; Misses Mullican, now the Lane sisters; Mitchell Weisenfreund, now Paul Muni; Frederic Ernest MTntyre Bickel, now Frederic Marsh; j Georg° Ranft. now Raft. . >

AUSTRALIAN COMEDIAN. IMPORTANT CONTRACT SIGNED. An Australian Laurel and Hardy team is envisaged by the recently arranged' partnership between the famous Will Mahoney with Australia’s 23-stone comedian, John Dobbie. Dobbie has been placed under contract by Mahoney’s manager, Mr Bob Geraghty, and henceforward the two will work as a team. At the conclusion of Will Mahoney’s current production for Cinesound, tentatively titled “Come Up Smiling,” the comedian will probably play 'the vaudeville circuits throughout the British Isles. To follow, a tour, of South Africa is planned. John Dobbie will go on both tours and will act as Mahoney’s “stooge”—an art which, he has practised with Australia’s George Wallace for a number of years. His most recent appearance with Wallace was also in a Cinesound film, “Gone to the Dogs,” soon for release in Sydney. Dobbie’s proposed overseas tour is not his first. Some years ago* he toured with the famous Nazimova as her manager. ALL-WOMEN CAST. - “The Women,” with an all-feminine cast, has gone into production at the •Metro-Gqldwiyn-Mayer 'studios, with Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind' Russell as stars and a cast that includes Phyllis Povali, Lucille Watson, Virginia Weidlor, . Mary Boland, Muriel Hutchison, Ruth Hussey, Joan Fontaine, Florence Nash. Hilda Plowright, Esther Dale- Dennie Moore, Virginial Grey, Ann Morriss, and Margaret Main.