Charles Laughton in “St Martin’s Lane”

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 96, 26 April 1939, Page 11

Charles Laughton in “St Martin’s Lane”

SINGS AND DANCES FOR FIRST TIME (Meteor: Coming soon.) In the Action Pictures release, ‘‘St. Martin’s Lane,” Charles Laughton is called upon to sing and dance for the first time in his career. In this original Clemence Dane story of London and the theatre queue entertainers, he appears as a busker whose piece de resistance is the recitation • ‘‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God.” When he meets Vivien Leigh, who plays the part of an unemployed Cockney girl, he becomes more ambitious aud so he forms a quartette in which Vivien, himself, Tyrone Guthrie and Gus McNaughton appear. The long, thin Tyrone Guthrie plays the mouth organ, the lean Gus McNaughton the mandolin, while plump Charles Laughton assists with accompaniments on the tin whistle. Vivien Leigh sings and dances with the trio wearing top hats as a sort of chorus background and going through a few elementary dance steps as an accompaniment to her act. This sequence, one of the most amusing of many in the film, -will be filmed against

a re-construction of the exterior of the Holborn Empire. Laughton has been practicing up a simple dance routine, but that Fred Astaire need have no fear of a new rival is evidenced by the remark

of Tim Whelan, the director, who after having watched Laughton proudly go through his new dance, remarked, “As a dancer he’s still a great actor. ’’ At one time, Vivien Leigh did not attempt to conceal the fact that she was not in the least satisfied either with herself as a film actress or with her pictures. To-day, after “A Yank at Oxford’’ and “St. Martin’s Lane’’ she is very much happier about herself and the screen. Although she was “the other woman” in “A Yank at Oxford’’ the role did her good. Her ambitious, Cockney dancer in “ St. Martin's | Lane’’ has received even more ent.husij astic notices. A real-life “jitterbug’’ will be select- 1 ed as Dick Powell’s dancing partner in “Always Leave Them Laughing’’ when the Warner Bros, star, Director Bay Enright and Dance Director Bill O’Donnell attend a Hollywood jitterbug dance contest. In addition to selecting the feminine jitterbug dancing partner for Powell, the Warner trio will also choose 1G jitterbug teams to appear in the singing star’s latest picture.