STAGE AND SCREEN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 1 September 1945, Page 6

STAGE AND SCREEN

NOTES AND COMMENTS (By "Spotlight.") About Turlian Bey Nothing ever happens to Turhan Bey, but that’s only one man’s opinion—Turhan Bey’s. For one thing, he has been in this country less than three years, yet in that short time all that has happened is that he was cast opposite Katharine Hepburn in one of the M.G.M.’s biggest productions, “Dragon Seed,” and co-starred with Susanna Foster and Boris Karloff in “The Climax.” Bey, six-feet-one, and a Turk with a bit of Czecho-Slovak in his veins, admits his life defies all Hollywood standards. His “dull” life includes a journey through India, Africa and Tibet, accompanying a German professor into the Indian jungles, looking for radium; also test driving for the Mercedes-Benz Auto Union in cars capable of travelling 160 miles an hour. Bey just poked along at HO until he quit, after witnessing the death of the man who had taught him to drive. It was in Paris, on the way to America, that Bey’s future as an actor was decided. A certain Dr. Wilson met him and gave him a letter of introd udtion to someone at Universal Studios, who advised him to study dramatics and English. Followed a part in a play, and the offer of a film role. It was as simple as all that for Turhan Bey to become one of the screen’s new heart-throbs. From the English Studios A haunted golf m,atch is one of the highlights of Michael Balcon’s ghost film, “Dead of Night,” now being produced at Ealing Studios. The protagonists are Basil Radford and Roland Culver, while the ghost of Naunton Wayne hovers invisibly in the background intent on sabotaging the game, the ball rising into the air and settling in another spot each time Basil Radford prepares to take a swipe at it. “Dead of Night” will be distributed by B.E.F. “Hungry Hill,” Daphne du Maurier’s story of Ireland and its industrialisation in the 1820’s, which ran serially recently in “Woman,” is being prepared for early filming by Two Cities. G.-8.-D. will release. Bud Flanagan, currently working with Chesney Allen in their latest ( comedy, “Here Comes the Sun” (for B.E.F. release), is a sick man. When “Sun,” a story built around a newspaper office, is completed, he will have to undergo an operation. Shooting on “Rake’s Progress” has completed, and the film is now being edited. For G.-8.-D. release, film features Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer, and Godfrey Tearle. It was written and directed by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, the pair who wrote and directed “Millions Like Us.” The fifth and final sequence in Michael Balcon’s ghost omnibus, “Dead of Night,” is built around the atrocious murder of a little boy by his step-sister, in the 1860’s. Sally Ann Howes appears in this sequence, not, of course, as the murderess, but as a youngster at a Christmas party who stumbles on a real mystery when playing hide-and-seek with Michael Allen. “Dead of Night” i s for B.E.F. release. Two Little Stars Little Margaret O’Brien has been cast for the starring role in “Tenth Avenue Angel.” Production will start in about two months, at the end of Margaret’s school holidays. Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Taylor

has been chosen for the starring role in “Now That April’s Here,” story of two English evacuee children who have difficulties in readjusting themselves on their return to England, after three years in America. The second child, a boy, has not been cast. Elizabeth should do well in this part —she is herself an English evacuee. But it doesn’t seem likely that she will return to England. She has made such a hit in her first full-length role in “National Velvet” that she has been given a long term contract at M.-G.-M.

Two other British players are lined up for top roles in forthcoming M.-G.-M. films. Stage and screen star Pat Kirkwood, who has just arrived in Hollywood to take the femme lead in the musical “No Leave, No Love,” is the first of the “LendLease” stars who are going to strengthen the ties between London and Hollywood studios. Peter Lawford is another rising young English actor. He wins the most important role of his career, and two charming leading ladies, as the juvenile lead in “Two Sisters From Boston.” He will fall in love successively with Kathryn Grayson and June Allyson, who play two Boston beauties.

After a year of retirement on account of the arrival of her baby, Ann Sothern is returning to the screen in a new Maisie adventure, “Up Goes Maisie,” in which she will co-star with George Murphy. Once before, Ann has appeared in a film opposite Murphy, and that one too, was a Maisie adventure, “Cash and Carry.” This was also the film in which she met her new husband, Robert Sterling. “Smithy” Film Under Way

Under the direction of Ken G. Hall, Columbia’s picture on Sir Charles Kingsford Smith is now well into production.

Scenes already shot include an English hospital, where Smithy is recovering from wounds received in World War 1, a Bloomsbury boarding house complete with boarding housekeeper (played by Ethel Gabriel), an English bar, a R.A.A.F. canteen, and Buckingham Palace, where Smithy is invested with the M.C. Exterior scenes at Liverpool have also been completed.

Captain P. G. Taylor, famous pilot and navigator, who has been signed by Columbia to play his own part in the film, recently flew the historic "Southern Cross for the first time since the famous Tasman flight, during which he climbed out on to the wing to change oil from one engine to another. Captain Taylor will pilot the Southern Cross for all flying sequences. For Stars-10-Be

Paramount, which has developed an array of young stars during the past four years, including Alan Ladd, Betty Hutton, Veronica Lake, Sonny Tufts. Eddie Bracken, Diana Lynn, Gail Russell, Marjorie Reynolds, Barbara Britton, will intensify its policy of giving build-ups to new talent, it was recently stated by Henry Ginsburg, Paramount studio head.

Since Ginsburg took over the production reins from B. G. DeSylva last September, Paramount has signed up a number of new players, all of whom will be spotted importantly in forthcoming films. Joan Caulfield, who starred on Broadway in George Abbott’s “Kiss and Tell” and who was elevated to stardom by the studio because of her performance in her first picture “Miss Susie Slagle,” has been signed to a new long term contract, which provides for her aDoearances exclusively in Paramount pictures. Her former deal gave her the rifjht to devote half of her time to stage work. Billy de Wolfe, the talented comedian who made an auspicious debut in “Dixie” then spent 20 months in the Navy, was featured in “Miss Susie Slagle,” and now is being groomed for stardom.

Pa trie Knowles, who scored impres-

sively in “Kitty” after a tenure as a civilian flying instructor, has been signed to a long termer, and now has one of the leading roles in “Masquerade in Mexico.”

Ann Thomas, young New York stage actress who was taken from the cast of “Chicken Every Sunday” to play Miss Duffy in “Duffy’s Tavern” has been signed to a long termer also, and will be featured importantly both as a comedienne and as a dramatic actress.

Pat Phelan, a Long Beach youth whose initial screen work was in ‘Miss Susie Slagle,” is bracketed for certain stardom following the completion of that film, and currently is being sought to play the leading role in an important film to be produced by another company. Virginia Welles, Wisconsin collegian and protege of Maude Adams, has just been loaned to Columbia for one of the leads in “Kiss and Tell.” Her sole screen appearance to date has been in Mark Sandrich’s “Here Come ,the Waves.” Bob Graham, 19-year-old former soldier, whose voice is described as being a cross between Crosby’s and Sinatra’s, was borrowed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for a spot in “Weekend at the Waldorf” and signed to a five-year deal as the singing star on “Duffy’s Tavern” radio show, within a week after Paramount had signed him up. Two other promising young women just signed up, to be groomed for leads, are Noreen Nash, former Apple Blossom Queen of Washington, and Margaret Field, a brunette beauty from Pasadena, who never had acted before her discovery in the audience of the Pasadena Playhouse by a talent scout.