FILMS AND STARS

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVII, Issue 61, 6 February 1939, Page 1

FILMS AND STARS

PERSONALITIES ON THE SCREEN COMING ATTRACTIONS. Now that one of her jade ring’s has been returned by the burglar who recently robbed her home at the point of a gun, Maureen O’Sullivan is convinced that the bandit is semi-honest as well as “charming.’’ One man’s artistry, so great that to date nobody has been able to duplicate his work, has made Charlie McCarthy the most valuable piece of wood in the world. That man was Theodore Mack Chicago woodcarver. He is dead now—which is the reason Charlie cannot be duplicated.

Ben Alexander, supporting Joe Penner in R.K.0.-Radio’s picture of the gridiron, “Mr Doodle Kicks Off,” is celebrating his twenty-fifth year in pictures. A veteran picture, player at the age of twenty-eight, Alexander made his screen debut as a three-year-old with Fannie Ward when he played the part of Cupid in “Each Pearl a Tear.” “I’m almost a Cupid to-day,” joked Alexander as he sat, stripped to the waist, catching up on his suntan, while waiting his call before the cameras at the practice field of the University of California at Los Angeles where the Penner company was on location.

Hope Hampton, who is co-starred with Randolph Scott in Universal’s “The Road to Reno,” had a method all her own in studying roles. As a result of having appeared in light and grand opera for the last few years, the star still thought in musical terms. Therefore she marked up the pages of her scenario just like a musical score. When she was to “bear down” she marked the line as “fortissimo”; when she was to use restraint it was “piano”. “It was a trifle unusual, but it worked wonderfully,” commented Director S. Sylvan Simon.

One of the biggest successes of Bernard Shaw’s career has come to him at the age of 82 years, through the tremendous success of Pascal’s screen production of his comedy “Pygmalion,” released by GauinontBritish Dominions Films. Leslie Howard and the sensational new film

“find,” Wendy Hiller, art the stars, with Wilfrid Lawson scoring a personal triumph. An arresting cast of distinguished players includes Scott Sunderland, Marie Lohr, Violet Vairbrugh, Jean Cadell, David Tree, Viola Tree, Esme Percy, Kate Cutler and H. F. Maltby. “Pygmalion” is credited with new records at Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, and also in London and throughout the industrial and mining centres of England.

Bette Davis holds a Hollywood record. Not once since she became a star has she ever worked on a closed set. And she never will, the Warner Bros. ’ star announced a few days ago as she made ready to start in “Jezebel.” “This business of closing sets annoys me,” Miss Davis announced. “I’ll admit I don’t like forty or fifty visitors at a time. But I like to see a few strange faces behind the camera when I’m working.” Miss Davis points out that actors and actresses are always announcing their yearning for the theatre, where they have audiences watching them. And then those same players will bar their sets to visitors,” she said. “They howl against motion pictures because they have to play without an audience, and then they refuse to act because there are three or four visitors on the set. I can’t understand it.”

For six months Dr. Herman Lissatier and his staff of research experts have been answering questions like these: “How did bartenders draw beer in San Francisco in 1870?” “Did banks send out typewritten statements in the seventies?” “Did San Francisco have telephones in 1878?” The men who wanted the answers were the writers and director of Warner Bros.’ Technicolor production, “Gold Is Where You Find It.” Dr. Lissauer is head of the Warner research department. Dr. Lissauer didn’t know offhand how beer was drawn in the seventies. He had to find a veteran bartender and ask him. The doctor knows now—he knows that in those days steam beer was served over the bars, and the barkeepers drew it direct from the kegs. Nor did he know whether banks then sent out typewritten statements.

A definite new trend in film comedians is daily becoming more evident, and it might aptly be described as “the rise and fall of the prop.” The prop —any item like a cigar or a hat that a comedian habitually affects — enjoyed many flourishing years, but it is now on the down grade. In the so-called good old days, you simply couldn’t be a comedian unless you had a prop. It was the way people identified you. Ed. Wynn had his hats, Fields had his juggling equipment, Al Jolson his black-face make up, Charles Chaplin his cane and baggy pants, Harold Lloyd his glasses. Some of the old guard, of course, are still up there, but the facts are inescapable. There isn’t a prop among the whole collection of rising comedians. Jack Benny smokes a cigar incessantly, and once in a while comes on the screen with one, but he doesn’t “lean” on the cigar or wave it around. Bob Hope doesn’t even smoke, seldom wears a hat, and never owned a cane in his life. Ken. Murray and Milton Berle are just themselves—no false whiskers, wigs, or other impediments.

After having been friends for more than twenty years Edward Ellis and John Wray had their first fight recently. The incident occurred on a sound stage at R.K.O’.-Radio, where both men are appearing in “A Man to Remember,” in which Ellis is seen as a small-town doctor and Wray a farmer. Wray, whose wife has just died after presenting him with a daughter, loses control of himself and hits Ellis a resounding blow.on the jaw. Before Director Garson Kanin got the effect he wanted, Wray hit his friend four times. The animosity did not last long, however. When the scene was completed Ellis and Wray retired to a corner of the sound stage to smoke and go over their lines in the next sequence.

Lew Ayres’ sensational return to the screen spotlight continues. With Lionel Barrymore, he is featured in “Young Dr. Kildare.” Lynne Carver has the feminine lead. Ayres’ performances in ■ “Holiday” and

“Rich Man, Poor Girl” resulted virtually in demand performances by this young “veteran,” whose unforgettable work in “AH Quiet on the “Western Front” took him to stardom ten years ago. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer answered the demand by placing him under contract and casting him immediately as Kildare. Barrymore plays the grizzled diagnostician, Dr. Gillespie, who is at once the nemesis and mentor of the amazing young Kildare. “Young Dr. Kildare” is the story of a young medical student who sacrifices love and a place of comparative security beside iiis country doctor father to achieve something great for humanity.