GRAND THEATRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 241, 12 October 1931, Page 11

GRAND THEATRE

“MOBY DICK” SHOWING Joan Bennett, youngest of the three beautiful daughters of Richard Bennett, stage star, and leading lady for John Barrymore in his latest Warner Brothers ’ picture, ‘ ‘ Moby Dick, ’ ’ showing now at the Grand Theatre, can trace her theatrical ancestry back through seven generations. Her grandmother, Rose Wood, was featured on the American stage at the age of eight, later becoming the featured attraction in New York and Philadelphia stock companies, where, it is remembered she frequently played opposite Maurice Barrymore, the father of the star of “Moby Dick.” Still further back in the family tree is William Wood, famous English pantomlmist and another generation back was the distinguished manager of the old Drury Lane Theatre in London. Educated in America and France, Miss Bennett had never professed an interest in the stage or screen, although they claimed both of her sisters, Constance and Barbara. Suddenly she returned from France and asked her father for a part in his new production, “Jarnegan,” just about to open in New York. Joan scored a great success in that play as leading woman opposite her father, and motion picture scouts in New York soon singled her out as highly promising material. Her first picture was opposite Ronald Colman in “Bulldog Drummond.” Determined to find a white sperm whale, and to photograph the beast in the open ocean, Warner Brothers—after two expeditions had failed—financed a third to sail out of Seattle as a preliminary step in the filming of “Moby Dick,” the Herman Melville sea story. The two previous trips into Southern Californian waters resulted in the securing of two whales, but neither of them answered the description of “Moby Dick. ’ ’