Cinema... Snapshots

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20463, 1 April 1938, Page 4

Cinema... Snapshots

About Picture People FROM THE FILM WEEKLY OLAIRE TREVOR may be going to get that chance at last. Paramount are angling to borrow her for the lead in Spawn of the North (which really goes before the cameras this year, they 6ay). Carole Lombard was once mentioned for the part, then France* Farmer. Now it seems Paramount wish to do what Twentieth CenturyFox might have done years ago and star Miss Trevor. After all this time I’ll believe the good news when I see it on the screen. But Hollywood is certainly in the middle of a belated consciousness of the Trevor talents. That’s because her bit in Deed End is being heavily backed as a possible winner of the Academy Award for the best supporting performance of the year. I’ll put my money on it too. » * • t A NN MILLER has acquired stardom. That’s to say she hasn't had it thrust on her, she’s earned it. At the sneak preview of Radio City Revels the audience registered such glowing approval of her on their card* that she is getting star billing alongside Bob Burns, Jack Oakie and Kenny Baker. Jk Ann is the young lady who part- ' nered Ginger Rogers in her tap-dance In Stage Door. Hardly a chance to get a real impression there and she got a bit lost among the other New Faces of 1937. But she must be able to dance or she wouldn’t have stood up beside Ginger. And she must be able to be something or that preview audience wouldn’t have bothered. So better look out. • • • • PARL EBMOND has been known to British fllmgoers for years, either as Willy Eichberger in Liebelel and other German films or as Esmond in Blossom Time and other British ones. He had to act on the London stage before Hollywood would notice him. Playing Prince Consort in “Victoria Regina” he was snapped up by Louis B. Mayer. Promptly rewarded, too, for he’ll play with Robert Taylor, Robert Young and Margaret Sullivan in M-G-M’s Three Comrades. What’s more, his part was first slated for Spencer Tracy. Esmond steps In over the heads of M-G-M’S other young hopefuls, Dennis O’Keefe and Alan Curtis. Both, were tested for the part. T&ere shouldn’t be much doubt about Esmond's success as a new romantic hero. Only he won’t be new to us. • • • ? TEAN ARTHUR went to lunch the ** other day with Frank Capra, thereby starting a flood of rumours that Capra was waving an olive-tree over Jean and ‘"Columbia, because he wants her for the lead in You Can’t Take it with You. Rumour-mongers mitfht as well have put a match to dynamite. Columbia denied it like a flat-iron. Jean’s husband, Frank Ross, also declared Jean would not make another picture for Columbia unless they give in and only call for two a year instead of four. Mr Ross I believe has quite a say in his wife’s business management. It still seems just too bad to me that when a studio has a prize director, a prize comedy and a prize comedienne they can't somehow all be got together. • • I t EWIB STONE, whose last picture for Paramount was “Outcast,” returned to that studio recently when he signed a contract to play a featured lead in “Stolen Heaven” with Gene , Raymond. • • • • P'RANCESOA BRAQQIOTTI recently - starred with her husband, John Lodge, in an Italian picture, “ To-night .at Eleven.” She got plenty of praise and not only from Italian critics. But I’m told she was no little worried by the fact that her voice was dubbed. That’s because she has provided the voice in Italian showings of Garbo pictures, so for Italian audiences Francesca Braggiotti’s voice is not her own but Garbo’s! Now that she looks like being a big Italian star, she’s wondering how to get her voice back. • • • • T>ARBARA STANWYCK is in trouble again all round. She was reported suspended by her studio for turning down her latest picture. I take that to be Distant Fields, announced by Radio for imminent production. She’s also been in court to answer the demands of her ex-husband, Frank Fay, to be allowed to see their adopted son. It hasn’t been a pretty case, with Barbara having to drag up stories alleging that Fay twice endangered the boy’s life, got drunk, and was generally unfit to see the child. Hollywood had thought the FayStanwyck upsets were closed and healed and has been daily expecting the Stanwyck-Taylor romance to become a wedidng. FLASHES . WALT DISNEY is preparing “ The Adventures of Phio'cchlo ” as his full-length cartoon for Christmas, 1938. He expects it to be ready before “ Bambi.” • * • * /COLUMBIA paid £7OOO to buy up the old Pathe Studio library. Properties they found in that job lot were “ The Awful Truth ” and “ Craig’s Wife,” as well as Ann Harding’s old I successes “ Holiday ” and “ Paris Bound,'’ “ This Thing Called Love,” Molnar's “ The Devil ” and Maurinc Watkins’ “ Chicago,” all of which they propose to make.