LIONEL BARRYMORE FOR AWARD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21280, 25 February 1939, Page 16

LIONEL BARRYMORE FOR AWARD

SUPREME IN LATEST FILM It may come to pass— and do not be too astounded if it does—that Lionel Barrymore will be called into the Winner’s Circle at the Academy Award Banquet this month and given the No. 1 laurel wreath of his profession.

It is going to be difficult to stand off the fine performance he contributed in Frank Capra’s “You Can’t Take It With You.” How much of this was Barrymore and how much Capra is open to question, but the wedding of the two talents resulted in a rousing character projection. The picture content had much to do with it. Great performances must be established in a believable story, a story that has flesh and blood on its skeleton. At this particular moment in the history of the country, “You Can’t Take It With You” becomes almost a social document. It expresses a philosophy of living that may be true or false, according to your lights, but, true of false, it is interesting at all times. Audiences explode into applause at some of its more reflective passages. Holding it together, giving it point and rhyme and reason, is the warm portrayal of Lionel. Curiously enough, he turned in his finest all around performance at a time when advancing age and illness were threatening to write a period to his career. They even had to write in crutches in his part so that he could use them and continue working while he had to use them. Yet there is no suggestion in his playing that Barrymore was feeling unwell.

Britain’s Busiest film star

Miss Valerie Hobson, now starring in “The Spy in Black,” with Conrad Veidt, for Columbia, at Denham, is Britain’s busiest film star. She was loaned to Columbia by London Films for “Q Planes” to star with Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. So successful is her performance in this film, which is now in the cutting room, that Irving Asher, the producer, and Mr Friedman, head of Columbia, decided to put her in “The Spy in Black,” opposite Conrad Veidt.

Miss Hobson is described as “Britain’s best-dressed film star,” and for the past week she has spent all her spare time at Worths of Grosvenor Street with the dress designer, studying wartime fashions for “The Spy in Black.” The clothes of 1917 have only been slightly modified for the film, and Miss Hobson will be seen in the long dresses and costumes of that period. Her hair style, too, has had to be changed, and for the first time Miss Hobson will be seen in a bun worn low on the nape of the neck and curled fringe.

After finishing “The Spy in Black,” Miss Hobson goes to Pinewood to make a sequel to “This Man is News,” with Barry K. Barnes. This means that Miss Hobson will have made five pictures in less than a year, starting with "Hie Drum.” In order to be near her work, she is living quietly in the country, where she plays golf and cycles to church on Sundays, her only free day.