FILMS AND STARS

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 66, 21 February 1938, Page 1

FILMS AND STARS

PERSONALITIES ON THE SCREEN COMING ATTKACTIONS. If ten world-famous figures had chosen motion , pictures instead of other careers, they would have attained screen prominence, even stardom, according to a “voice personality” vote cast by three film notables. Ballots were filed by Carole Lombard and Fredrie March, co-stars in David 0. Selzniek’s technicolor production, “Nothing Sacred,” and by the director, William A. Wellman. The impromptu vote was the result of a discussion on the screen value of “voice personality,” during which it was agreed that no one who lacked it could hope to become a star. Unanimous choice of all three for the No. 1 position was President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Next in line followed the Duke of Windsor, Aimee Semple McPherson, the evangelist; Ted Husing, radio , sports commentator; Dorothy Thompson, journalist: Richard Halliburton, author, adventurer, and lecturer; Mr Anthony Eden, Britain’s Foreign Secretary; Hiram Johnson, Senator from California; Arthur Vandenburg, Senator from Michigan; and A 1 Smith, of political fame. “These choices,” explained Wellman, “were on the basis of voice alone.”

With Frank Capra and Robert Riskin working on the story, casting is expected to start soon for Capra’s new Columbia picture, “You Can’t Take It With You,” adapted from George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s tremendous Broadway stage hit, which is still attracting capacity crowds. The play, which won the Pulitzer Prize for 1937, was purchased by Columbia for the record price of £40,000. After the sensational success of his latest picture, “Lost Horizon,” which dealt with a more or less serious theme, Capra desired to do comedy, and “You Can’t Take It With You” is considered a vehicle sure to surpass his two outstanding comedies, “It Happened One Night” and “Mr Deeds Goes to Town.” Riskin, Vho is doing the screen adaptation on “You Can’t Take It With You,” also was the writer of these two successes. He and Capra, as a director-writer combination, are considered “tops” in Hollywood.

If the fan mail received at the RKO-Radio studio is any criterion, certain letter-writing movie fans are avid in their curiosity about the private life of their famous cinema stars. Particularly is this true in connection with Ginger Rogers, who receives a mere 10,000 messages per month. Her real name is Virginia Rogers. Her great-grandfather, Ebenezer Ball, invented the Ball-Mason jar for preserves. She is partial to subdued greens, blues, and browns for lounging pyjamas aud negligees. She always reads in bed before going to sleep. She doesn’t like shower baths. Uses a tub, and likes to soak and sing and wiggle her toes in the water. She likes to cook. She smokes, is unlucky at cards, and abhors bridge. She plays ping-pong expertly. Her pet peeves are people who read over her shoulder, coffee that isn't hot, and people who do not like spinach. In her current RKORadio vehicle, “Stage Door,” Ginger and Katharine Hepburn portray two stage-struck “friendly-enemies” who tackle Broadway shoulder to shoulder,

Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, lan Hunter, Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone, Patric Knowles, Alan Hale, Eugene Pallete, Herbert Mundin, and a company of 160 people travelled more than 1200 miles under the guidance of Director William Keighley, in order to find the perfect setting for one of the most important pictures ot the season, “Adventures of Robin Hood.” The company remained on location for several weeks, getting the background of Sherwood Forest, in which so much of the romantic story is laid. Robin Hood, the devil-may-care, rollicking, audacious young noble who steals from the rich to give to the poor, is one of the world’s best-loved heroes—and never has he been so perfectly portrayed as by Errol Flynn, already the idol of movie-goers. Henry Blanke is associate producer of this all-Tech-nicolor production, the story of which was written by Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller.

A particularly stirring scene was filmed recently for Warner Bros.’ Technicolor saga of the days of gold —“Gold Is Where You Find It.” The gripping scene, in which the body of tlie boy Lance, played by Tim Holt, is carried into the home of his father by a group of farmers who saw him shot down by the embattled miners, brought tears to the eyes of those who saw it. Claude Rains, as his father, and Olivia de Havilland, as the sister, gave outstanding performances. Clement Ripley’s sensational novel of the historic struggle between the hydraulic miners and the California ranchers in the seventies is being brought to the screen by Michael Curtiz and a cast of thousands. Such stars as George Brent, John Litel, Henry O’Neill, Margaret Lindsay, Robert Mac Wade, Barton McLane, and Harry Davenport are appearing in this colorful and exciting film, which will be showing soon.

Tim Whelan has completed London 1 Films’ “The Divorce Of Lady X,” starring Merle Oberon. The world premiere of this picture will form one of the most brilliant functions of the autumn season, and Alexander Korda has given the premiere in aid. of the new Westminster Hospital. It is seldom that Merle Oberon is' able to attend one of her own premieres, for usually on completion of a picture for Korda she leaves for Hollywood at once, and when she finishes one for Sam Goldwyn she has to hurry back to London again. She will see the presentation of “The Divorce of Lady X, ’ ’ however, for she will be at work on her second film in Techni- I color, “Over the Moon,” which Wil- ' liam K. Howard will direct for London Films at Denham Studios. 1

Among the unsung heroes of the making of “In Old Chicago,” the

20th Century-Fox production, starring Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, with Alice Brady, Andy Devine, Phyllis Brooks, and many others, were the special cameramen who were called on to film the dangerous shots. Most of these men were recruited from the newsreel ranks, a field in which danger is part of everyday routine. Jack Young filmed the cattle stampede in “ In Old Chicago. ’ ’ Two cameras were put in specially dug pits. While wild hordes of steers thundered over him, Young calmly kept the cameras going. These scenes show the cattle stampede which took place when cattle were loosed from the stockyards into the flaming city.

Odilon de Azevedo and Dulcina de Moraes, his wife, “the Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine of Brazil,” ended their recent tour of the United States by visiting Hollywood and reversing an established theatrical practice. Homeward bound to play “Private Lives,” “To-night or Never,” “Tovarieh,” and other American successes during the new season in Rio de Janeiro, they visited Columbia Studios expressly to see Irene Dunne. They had heard that she was filming “The Awful Truth,” a pieturisation of the Arthur Richman play in which Ina. Claire starred. Given no opportunity to see the play, yet proposing to present it in Brazil, the couple were anxious to pattern their stage characterisation after Miss Dunne’s and Cary Grant’s film roles.