Cinema News

Grey River Argus, 7 December 1940, Page 10

Cinema News

PICTURES. PLAYS & PLAYERS

“EARL OF CHICAGO.” STARRING ROBERT MONTGOMERY. Silky Kilmount Chicago gangster, the twelfth Earl of Gorley, is played by Robert Montgomery. Surrounding Montgomery is an outstanding supporting cast headed by Edward Arnold, seen as Doc Ramsey, an honest lawyer framed by Silky,, resulting in his disbarment. . With no place to turn after being released from Joliet, he takes a job with Silky and then waits for his chance to destroy the gangster who ruined his life. It is Arnold’s strongest characterisation since “Come and Get It” and “You Can’t Take It With You.” Edmund Gwenn, the famous English actor, remembered for his performances in "Anthony Adverse,” “The Bishop Misbehaves” and “A Yank at Oxford,” returned to Hollywood for the role of Muncey, Silky’s democratic butler, who teaches him the meaning of noblesse oblige. Reginald Owen, one of the screen’s most versatile actors, departs from comedy to play Gonwell, English attorney, who defends Silky in the House of Lords trial. E. E. Clive appears as his colleague, Redwood. Ronald Sinclair' plays Gerald Kilmount, -Silky’s cousin, an outstanding role for the boy actor who scored in “A Christ-

mas Carol” and “Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry.” Norma Varden plays his mother. Also in featured parts are Halliwel Hobbes, lan Wulf, Peter Godfrey and Billy Bevan. The oddest feminine role on record fell to Gladys Blake, cast as Silken Legs. She is Montgomery’s leading lady, but nothing is seen of her in the film except her legs. However, they are enough. There are 159 speaking roles in the picture, each an entertaining character, similar to the minor but “meaty” parts in “Goodbye, Mr. Chips.” “BROADWAY MUSKETEERS.” Pathos, comedy and spine-tingling melodrama were blended to produce the sentimental and yet vividly exciting picture, “Broadway Musketeers,” with a cast that boasts three leading women —Margaret Lindsay, Ann Sheridan and Marie Wilson —not to mention six-year-old Janet Chapman, who comes in for her share of acting honours. The plot of the screen play, an original by Don Ryan and Kenneth Garnet, starts with a reunion of three girls who were brought up together in an orphan fisylum, and then it follows their strangely interwoven fortunes, which lead one to dishonour and death, a noble death, and the other two to dearly won happiness. Others in cast include John Litel, Anthony Averill, Dick Purcell, Richard Bond, Dewey Robinson and Horace MacMahon. MARTHA SCOTT. Martha Scott, who is regarded as a potential screen rival to Bette Davis, has a grievance. Martha is only twenty-four and quite easy on the eyes. On the screen so far, however, she has never had a chance to be her age. She made her debut in “Our Town” and the character she presented grew from fourteen to thirty years of age. Miss Scott’s next film was “The Howards of Virginia,” with Cary Grant, which required her to jump from nineteen to middle aged. In “Three Cheers for Miss Bishop,” the actress portrays a sort of feminine “Mr. Chips” and in the later sequences has to age to seventy. Now she hopes to appear in “Strange Victory.” The heroine of the story is twenty-four and ages only ten weeks.

“GRAND JURY SECRETS.” Conflict between two brothers, one a newspaperman, the other an assistant district attorney, as to just how secret a Grand Jury probe should be, and additional differences over a young lady in whom both are interested, provide the dramatic motivation for the punch-packed drama. “Grand Jury Secrets.” With John Howard cast as the newspaperman, Gail Patrick as the young lady in question, and Harvey Stephens as the assistant district attorney the story starts rolling as Howard attempts to get the lowdown on a Grand Jury probe which his brother is conducting. He is stymied for a while, but by the clever use of a compact shortwave radio, he steals the story and breaks it wide open. His methods eventually lead him into danger —and the story progresses to a dramatic conclusion. The cast also includes William Frawley, Jane Darwell and Porter Hall. PREMIERE OF CHAPLIN’S FILM. The world premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s new film, “The Great Dictator,” took place in New York on October 15. According to the reviewer, the picture has faults, but, even as one man’s execration of Nazism, it

achieves some aspects of a masterpiece. The story is of the Hitlerlike Dictator of “Tomania,” who persecutes Jews, invades defenceless lands, and faithfully follows the Hitler. pattern. A little Jewish barber, who fought in the war of 1914-18, and who is now a victim of the Dictator’s persecution, strongly resembles the Dictator. By chance, he exchanges places with the Dictator just as “Osterlich” (obviously meaning Austria) is invaded. The barber thereupon is .asked to address the multitude which has gathered to welcome the conqueror. He gives a remarkable six-minute speech, calling on humanity to .live decently, in peace and brotherhood. The picture contains some touches of the richest humour. ACTION PICTURES. NEW HOLLYWOOD TREND. Hollywood has decided to return to the “movies,” writes Wilson O’Arne, in the Picturegoer. That l sounds like a senseless phrase, but what I want, to convey to you is that in the near future there is going to be more action and less talk in the films. Producers are going outdoor. They are looking for room for action. They are finding themselves cramped on studio stages. Of course, nobody can say how long the phrase will last. A smashing drawing-room story success may send them all rushing back to the studios to begin an indoor cycle. ( But for the moment, outlaws bad men, cattle rustlers, Western heroes, bare-fist fighters and the rest are . parading before the cameras. After fifteen years in Hollywood, Gary | Cooper is right back where he start- | ed, in a pair of buckskin pants, a checkered shirt, a tight-fitting vest, a ten-gallon hat and a pair of six- . guns.

His first outfit, fifteen years ago, was worth about *£3. That would not buy one of his boots in to-day’s costume. He is starring in Cecil De Mille’s “Northwest Mounted Police,” and it gives him scope for plenty of action.

Another "movie” likely to send producers to the wide open spaces is

“Boom Town.” It contains five fist fights, involving Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, and these are only incidents in a, dowdy, adventurous story which sends them looking for oil through mud and heat and ma- i chine-gun bullets. Naturally,, there are women, too, and as the chief are j Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr, the actions will certainly speak louder than any words. A quieter note is struck in “Brigham Young,” which tells of the Mormons’ trek across the plains and the desert. This picture had to be made with care and with a certain regard for known facts. It will have plenty of adventure, even though it tells of the founding of a new religion and the establishment of a church. As the premiere of the picture was fixed for Salt Lake City, centre of the Mormon activities, it is certain this unusual religion has been treated with reverence. Incidentally, the film should do much to dispel strange notions about. Mormons and Mormonism. IMPORTANT RE-MAKES. Since re-makes are so seldom as successful as the films on which they 1 are based, I have often wondered why it has occurred to producers to | save a lot of money and re-issue the

originals instead, writes Malcolm Phillips, in the Picturegoer. Now [Paramount has hit on the idea of Tstreamlined” revivals —short, re-ed-lited versions of big films that entertained us in nights gone by. These (films will run 45 minutes and will be re-issued as substitutes for second [features. The first picture to undergo the stream-lining process is “Love Me To-night,” made in 1932 with Maurice Chevalier, Jeannette MacDonald and Myrna Loy. It originally ran one hour and thirty minutes. The 1932 sotind has been re-recorded electrically to remove the scratch noise from the track and improve the quality of sounds in the lower register. This renovation job cost about £lOOO, which is below the price of the average short. Other pictures scheduled for similar treatment are “Design for Living” (1933), 'with Gary Cooper, Frederic March and Miriam Hopkins; “Night After Night” (1932), with Mae West; “Lives of a Bengal Lancer” (1935), with Franchot Tone and Gary Cooper; “One Hour with You” (1932), and another Chevalier vehicle.

HOLLYWOOD COMPANIES. MAKING LONG LOCATION TRIP. Time was when the movies *used to find nearly everything they wanted in the way of settings in and around Hollywood, with very satisfying results to actors and crew, for then a player could work by day at being an Arab shief, an Alaskan fur trapper, a red-coated mountie, a western bad man, or just a plain cowboy, and at night’ could go home to dinner at his own table and sleep in his own bed. It is different to-day. The movies no longer find everything tney want near Hollywood, because primarily, they want too much. This year actors and crews are being taken to far places and made to sleep not in their own beds but on cots, in tents, or in farmhouses rented for them’. iT'he Lombard-Laughton company went to Napa, 500 mlies to the north, to film “They Knew What They Wanted,” and at the same time other companies were straggling back from

■ distant locationist while still others were preparing to go. The reason for all mis is the increasing zeal for authenticity in movie backgrounds. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer sent “North- ! west Passage" to the Idaho mountain I country because it found there such 'mountains clothed in virgin timber, such- brawling rivers and bottomless swamps as existed in the St. Lawrence River country in Ranger Rogers’s day. For “Primrose Path,” Gregory La Cava took Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea and company to Monterey, California waterfront not to be duplicated near —because it has an ocean and a Hollywood, and Tim Holt, new western star, will not make just one picture but two. in the wild Zion Park country of Utah on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Garson Kanin took his LombardLaughton troupe to Napa for the film “They Knew What They Wanted,” because it deals with life and love among the vineyards of Napa. Though there are vineyards, in Southern California, they are not the same. Kanin desired to have the local colour correct, and for that reason he and the stars lived with :Napa ranch families. The story is about the love of Laughton, the Napa vintner Sind Carole Lombard, the San Francisco waitress, complicated

by the mechinations of William Gargan, the vintner’s foreman. OPERATIC AMBITION. His film friends have just discovered that Preston Foster once cherishled hopes of a career in grand opera. IHe sang for two seasons with the La Scala Opera Company in Philadelphia, appearing in bits and the chorus of such operas as "Othello,” “Hamlet,” “La Traviata” and “Rigoletto.” He was promised a third season and better roles, but an inconsiderate fate put an abrupt end to his.career. At the time, he was a classified advertising salesman on the Philadelphia Public Ledger. He sang in the opera at nights and on Wednesday and Saturday matinees. One matinee, the manager of the classified advertisement department came into hear Tito Ruffo sing. He heard Ruffo, -but he also spotted Foster, and Foster was supposed to be out selling classified advertisements. Foster severed his connections with the newspaper by request the next day—and he did not have enough money to finance himself until the third season of opera opened the next year.