The SCREEN and its STARS

Southland Times, Issue 21836, 13 October 1932, Page 10

The SCREEN and its STARS

(By

“Columbine” )

THE MAJESTIC Now Showing: “The Wet Parade” (M G.M.—Walter Huston, Lewis Stone, Neil Hamilton, Dorothy Jordan, Jimmy Durante, Myrna Loy). Saturday: “Man About Town” (FoxWarner Baxter, Karen Morley, Conway Tearle, “Nat” Madison). Coming: “The Easiest Way (M.G.M. —Robert Montgomery, _ Constance Bennett, Adolphe Menjou, Anita Page); “Three Faces East” (Warners —Constance Bennett, Eric Von Stroheim, Anthony Bushell); Innocents of Chicago” (British Dominions—Henry Kendall, Betty Norton, Margot Grahame, Binnie Barnes); “Strictly Business” (Betty Amann, Molly Lamont, Philip Strange). » » * *

Based on Denison Clift’s story of intrigue in Washington, both political and personal, “Man About Town,” which comes to The Majestic on Saturday, was adapted for the screen by Leon Gordon, the actor who was in New Zealand with “White Cargo” some years ago. Warner Baxter is the star of this Fox picture, with Karen Morley, Conway Tearle, Leni Stengel, Lilian Bond, Lawrence Grant, Alan Mowbray, Halliwell Hobbes, Noel Madison and Noel Francis in support. John Francis Dillon was the director.

Eugene Walter’s very well-known stage play, “The Easiest Way” has been transferred to the screen by M.G.M., and comes to The Majestic on Wednesday next, with Constance Bennett as Laura Murdock, Adolphe Menjou as Willard Brockton and Robert Montgomery as Jack Madison. Jack Conway directed from a scenario prepared by Edith Ellis, and Anita Page, Marjorie Rambeau, J. Farrell Macdonald, Clara Blandick and Clark Gable are in the cast. The film was made before Gable was the hero of the hour, and before Montgomery was an independent star. ‘‘The Easiest Way” has always been considered a particularly fine study of a woman’s emotions.

The New Clara Bow.

(From a Correspondent.) If it is just the same with Hollywood, Clara Bow will continue to use the Rancho Clarita as her mailing address. You can take the spotlights, the closeups, page one and even paychecks, but that cattle ranch and Rex Bell, up on the California-Nevada line are good enough for Clara. The Brooklyn Bonfire, who didn’t know a cow from a cowslip until she headed for California and motion pictures, can call all the cattle on ranch (C Slash B) by their first names. Well if she can’t remember the right one, she can think of another, just as good. She’s looking forward to the Fox picture, “Call Her Savage,” which will mark her return to the screen—“expect to have the time of my life,” she says—but she plans to reach Hollywood two days before filming begins and to head back toward the wide open spaces the night they photograph the fade-out scene.

Of course, she’s glad to be able to look forward to the money that “Call Her Savage” will bring. It takes a lot of legal tender to build enough fence to go around three or four hundred thousand acres. Clara doesn’t recall the exact acreage and even Rex, who has turned into a first class business man, can only guess. The Rancho Clarita spreads, roughly,

over a piece of land 25 miles by 50 miles. New York Gity proper is approximately two miles wide by nine miles long. “Clara looks like a million,” grinned Rex Bell, in town to buy supplies for the Ranch and to talk things over with the film company with whom he has contracted to make five Westerns. The ranch house on the property when Mr and Mrs Rex Bell moved in was a small, rambling weatherbeaten frame affair and typically early American in the matter of conveniences. So Rex had another one built, the idea being that there is no law compelling ranchers to live in discomfort.

“If you had it in Beverly Hill, you’d be proud of it,” said one Hollywood friend on his return from a visit with the Bells. It has four bedrooms, a huge livingroom, furnace heat, electric refrigeration and all other conveniences including no telephone. It isn t pretentious but it’s comfortable. The ranch has its own electrical plant. And there’s a swimming pool. Clara Bov/ left the screen more than a year ago because of the strain of her work and the general high pressure focused on any Hollywood star. “For weeks before we left Hollywood, Clara couldn’t sleep more than half a dozen hours a week,” Rex said. It took months on the ranch before she found her real health again, and I dont blame her for not wanting to take any chances. When she’s in Hollywood she becomes restless. On the ranch shes happy all the time.” And don’t think Clara has lost interest in Hollywood pursuits. Im going to try that Malibu surf again, she told Rex “And see all the shows, and dance to the ' Cocoanut Grove Orchestra, go shopping, and all the rest of it. , And then I’m coming back to the ranch. Those Bells—Rex and Clara—are doing things all right for a couple of 24 year olds. Drop in when you re passing that way.

THE REGENT Now Showing: “Strangers in Love 1 * (Paramount—Frederic March, Kay Francis, Stuart Erwin, Juliette Compton). Saturday: “Beauty and the Boss’ (Warners—Marian Marsh, Warren William, David Manners, Mary Doran, Charles Butterworth). Coming Attractions: “Letters of Fire (Warners —Edward G. Robinson, H. B. Warner, Marian Marsh, Anthony Bushell); “The Honour of the Family” ,(Warners—Bebe Daniels, Warren William, Frederick Kerr); “The Miracle Man” (Paramount —Sylvia Sydney, Chester Morris, Irving Pichel, Robert Coogan, Hobart Bosworth); “High Pressure” (Warners—William Powell, Evelyn Brent, George Sidney, Guy Kibbee). *

William J. Locke’s novel, “The Shorn Lamb” was the basis of the Paramount film play now at the Regent called “Strangers in Love.” Frederic March, (“Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde”) has a new dual portrayal in this film (for which I am glad, because I never can have too much of this actor’s work) this time of a more genteel cut, as the twin brothers Buddy and Arthur Drake. Kay Francis is the secretary, and Stuart Erwin, Juliette Compton, George Barbier. Sidney Toler, Earle Foxe, Lucien Littlefield,, Leslie Palmer and Gertrude Howard are also in the cast. Lothar Mendes directed, and some of the settings were filmed on fashionable estates on Long Island. Marian Marsh, the 18-year-old girl whom John Barrymore chose to be the screen Trilby to his “Svengah,” is co-starred with. Warren William, a Broadway player who makes his local screen debut in “Beauty and the Boss,” which is the week-end attraction at the Regent. “Beauty and the Boss’ was adapted for the screen from A Church Mouse,” a Broadway hit by Paul Frank and Ladislaus Fodor,

Hungarian playwrights. Joseph Jackson adapted it for the screen, making it into a gay little romance of a “little busy bee who transforms herself into a butterfly,” with Charles Butterworth, David Manners, Frederick Kerr, Mary Doran, Lilian Bond, Polly Walters, Robert Greig, Yola D’Avril and Barbara Leonard in the cast. Roy del Ruth directed

“Letters of Fire,” Louis Weitzenkorn’s newspaper melodrama which was a considerable stage success, the First National screen version of which, starring Edward G. Robinson, comes to the Regent next week, was originally

written in twenty-one scenes, set on a turn-table with three stages which switched backgrounds in a few seconds. This fact made it ideal for film transcription, with only minor changes of dialogue, according to Byron Morgan who did the screen play. _ Mervyn Le Roy directed, with a big cast to support the star, including Marian Marsh, H. B. Warner, Anthony Bushell, George E. Stone, Frances Starr, Ona Munson, Boris Karloff, Robert Elliott, Aline MacMahon, Purnell B. Pratt, David Torrence, Oscar Apfel, Gladys Lloyd (wife of the star), Evelyn Hall and Harold Waldridge.

Mr James Whale, who produced “Frankenstein,” “Journey’s End” and “Waterloo Bridge,” arrived in London last month for his first big holiday since he went to Hollywood in 1930. His next big picture is to be Erich Remarque’s “The Road Back,” and Mr R. C. Sherriff (author of “Journey’s End”) who is adapting “The Road Back,” travelled to Southampton with him. He said he was compelled almost against his will to produce “Frankenstein” and thought if he must do it he might just as well be as horrifying as possible. “Apparently I succeeded in my aim to make film fans shudder,” he said, “but I, myself, was horrified when I saw the English version after the British Board of Film Censors had mutilated it. Exactly the same thing happened with my film ‘Waterloo Bridge.’ The British censor cut it beyond recognition. He changed my principal character from a girl of the streets to a chorus girl.” Respecting “The' Road Back,” he said, “It will be a magnificent film—the first film .of peace and the difficulties of returning to civilian life. The central figures will be 10 men. There is no big woman’s part in it.”