Screen and Stage

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26717, 11 March 1948, Page 2

Screen and Stage

By JAXON &&&&&$>

During the past couple of months film critics and fllmgoers’ organisations have been briskly compiling their “ 10 best of the year ” lists, most of which have been reasonably unanimous. Such dogmatism generally stirs up fierce protests from partisans of one star or another, or folk who have been particularly attracted to some film which has been missed from the arbitrary list, so that a retrospective glance at the films released locally during ihe past year would appear to be a safer proposition. “ Great Expectations,” “ Brief Encounter,” “ The Late George Apley ” and “ Tire Rake’s Progress ” were probably the pick of the years crop, but there were many other films which had sufficient polish and originality to claim passing mention. “ Caesar and Cleopatra,” despite its verbiage, had much to commend it. " The Overlanders" was a semi-documentary with an Australian background which showed the potentialities of production in Australia on home-grown subjects. “The Yearling,” launched on a flood of publicity, was perhaps too sugary for some tastes but was head and shoulders above the usual Hollywood product. American and British humour on a similar family pattern were exemplified by two fine comedies, “ Dear Ruth ” and “ Quiet Week-end,” while the reappearance of the Marx Brothers in "A Night in Casablanca,” diluted though it was when compared with their earliest efforts, was another comedy highlight. , The addicts of screen toughness were rewarded with a good bracket in " The Big Sleep,” “ The Killers," “ Boomerang and “ Notorious,” while “ Lady in the Lake ” was made interesting by its novel camera technique. The fading fetish for psychological quirks was noted in “ The Dark Mirror ” and " The Locket, and the musical pseudo-biography series was most successful with “ The Jolson Story. ” The Miracle on 34th Street ” was possibly the surprise film of the year. To the brief list of films on which he has walked out, Jaxon was able to add two during the year. They were the jumbled, murky historical hotch-potch. ” Diary of a Chambermaid,” and the dreary adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s ” The Razor’s Edge.” According to reports this lugubrious epic improved in its later stages. The first dismal hour, however, convinced Jaxon that it was high time to be elsewhere. • * * When Lana Turner pays a _ visit to Europe shortly she will go incognito She plans to cover her blonde locks with a black wig and doak the famous Turner figure in drab looking clothes. Britain Is to make a XO-reel Technicolor film of the Olympic Games, it will be released to the world within 10 days of the completion of the event. Hitler’s film unit took six months to complete 24 reels of the 1936 Games in Germany. * * • The Warner Brothers recently issued a film product announcement for 1948 which was significant because it omitted any mention of “Up Until Now,” the antiCommunist picture which the studio announced with a great fanfare last y ear - Also omitted from the Warner list of 30 pictures in various stages of pre-produc-tion preparation was the screen version of ” The Patriots,” Sidney Kingsley’s play about the founders of the republic. The Warner press release gave no hint as to why “Up Until Now ” and “ The Patriots ” are on the shelf.

The indefatigable Walt Disney, now labouring with a phalanx of assistants on "Alice in Wonderland,” is contemplating an item called " Treasure Island." Recently the producer had Dr Gallup and his staff test the title, " Treasure Island-with Cary Grant as Captain Hook and the results of the Gallup poll were " exceptionally in favour of such a feature,” according to a spokesman for Disney. Disney has not signed Grant or anyone yet and if he makes the film it will be part animation and part live action and it will have to follow “ Alice on his schedule. In 1945 David O. Selzmck planned the fourth remake of Robert Louis Stevenson’s great adventure yarn. That is still to be made. • • • Work on “ Don Juan ” has had to be abandoned because of the serious illness of its star, "Errol Flynn. Two British players of the front rank, Flora Robson and Michael Redgrave, will star in “ Macbeth ” in New York soon. The local release of recordings of the score of the Broadway hit musical, Annie Get Your Gun,” featuring the strident, forceful good humour oft Ethel Merman, renews the previously-expressed regret that there now appears to be little chance of tints comedy being played in New Zealand Evie Hayes is stated to have made an excellent job of the Merman role in the Australian production. After absence from the screen since before the war, Diana ChurchiU, actresswife of Barry K. Barnes, is to return to films in the important role of Mrs Scott, wife of the explorer, in Scott of the Antarctic.” a „ Jeanne Manet. French star of “ Vive La Liberte,” and a member of the French Underground during the German occupation. will make her Hollywood debut m Columbia’s “Let’s Fall in Love. Vive La Liberte ” was filmed by the Underground virtually under the noses of the German Army, but was made with interruptions of several months at a time. « * * " The Iron Curtain,” a melodrama decidedly antagonistic to Soviet Russia, is nearing completion at Twent.etla CenturyFox following a location trip to Ottawa, where shooting on the picture was initiated The story deals with the Soviet spy trials in Canada in 1946, but reports indicate that the Canadian Government has not been entirely sympathetic to the protect, and that,' as a consequence, only exteriors of the Dominion Parliament Buildings were obtained for the picture.

Back in 1625, the period in which M.-G.-M.’s ” The Three Musketeers ” is set, fighting men wore suits of armour that weighed 50 or more pounds—so heavy that often they had to be hoisted on to their horses by derricks. In the film production, however, Gene Kelly, Van Heflin, and the other actors will not have to suffer in any such manner. They will be wearing armoured outfits made of a special plastic material which will weigh about 101 b—or little more than an ordinary suit of clothes.