Picturegoer (Jul-Dec 1937)

July 17, 1937 Smash and Grab has a story that reminds me a little of The Thin Man, but I dare say Jack will have taken care to make it sufficiently different. I don't think I've given you the cast, which is quite an imposing one. In addition to Jack himself <. and Elsie Randolph who plays his wife, we have Arthur Marge tson, Antony Holies, David Burns, ^ ^ Edmund Willard, Zoe Wynne, <?r_ Lawrence Grossmith, Sara Seegar, Peter Gawthorne, Edward Lexy, Nigel Fitzgerald, Lawrence Hanray, Edmond Ryan, Ronald Simpson, and little Johnny Singer, the small boy who was " discovered " down at Teddington a year or two ago. I've heard precious little about The Sky's the Limit (Jack Buchanan apparently doesn't believe in production publicity, and it's more than my life's worth to go near his set) but I am credibly informed that it is a musical film featuring a beautiful Russian singer, apparently new to films, called Mara Losseff . Comedy-Drama # Talking of small boys (Johnny Singer, to wit) reminds me that there were plenty of them on the set of Alfred Hitchcock's picture A Shilling for Candles, in which Nova Pilbeam and Derrick de Marney are playing the leads. When I arrived at Pinewood a party was in progress, with blind-man's buff as the game of the moment. Dozens of little boys in Eton suits and little girls in elegant party frocks were disporting themselves with great zest and abandon; and into this festive scene, fugitives from the Law, came Nova and Derrick, seeking refuge in the house of Nova's aunt, played by Mary Clare, and uncle, played by Basil Radford. This is a typical Hitchcock situation, bringing stark drama into the most everyday circumstances. There is a lovely mixture of comedy and drama when, Mary Clare being blindfolded, the young fugitives grab the opportunity to make their getaway. Incidentally, it must be a terrible headache to the casting-department to cast a scene like this in such a way as to convince the Powers That Be that no child in the picture is under fourteen, or whatever the age-limit is at the moment. PICTUREGOER Weekly Dorothy Moore gives a demonstration on how to keep slim. She says that these simple exercises can easily be practised in your bedroom or at the beach. A Smart Youngster • On the next set, where Sinclair Hill is directing Command Performance for his own company, Grosvenor Sound Films, I found a player who definitely isn't fourteen, within ten years or so; but I suppose if I breathe the fact out loud I'll get into all kinds of bother. Keep it dark; she's Ray Collett, and one of the most intelligent-looking children I have seen for some time. She plays the little gipsy girl with whom Arthur Tracy, as the singer who is escaping from the turmoil of his professional life, strikes up an odd friendship. And her elder sister is being played by Lilli Palmer, so now I hope you begin to hear the distant sound of wedding-bells . . . or whatever the equivalent is at a gipsy wedding. I heard one of Arthur Tracy's songs being played back, and he certainly has a superb voice to which full justice is done by the recording. By the way, Tracy told me that on the p revious day he was recording the song " Trees," and had just finished singing the. lines : " Poems are made by fools like me But only God can make a tree " when a prop-man came up to him and said " Mr. Tracy, I think you ought to know I've just seen seven carpenters making a tree on the next set ! " Authenticity • Following my remark last week that I hoped Sinclair Hill's gipsies would look like gipsies, and not a musical comedy chorus, I was glad to find when I visited the set that (a) several of the gipsies, including Mark Daly, looked satisfactorily and convincingly grubby. and (b) Lilli herself had gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure her costume being authentically Romany. By a stroke of luck she came on the exact thing she wanted. She told me she was visiting the Royal Academy to see a portrait of herself which is hanging there, when she saw a painting by Dame Laura Knight with three gipsy girls in the foreground. Dame Laura's work is always famed for its fidelity to nature, so Lilli went back several times to the Academy to memorise the style of costume, the hairdressing, and the make-up. Add to this the fact that Lilli herself has declared she feels a bit of a gipsy, and we may expect a pretty realistic characterisation. Sinclair Hill, directing this picture which marks his first twenty-five years in the film business, certainly seems to be making excellent progress with it. Arthur Tracey tells me he is happier about this than he has been about any other film he has made. Dignity and Impudence • The film business is a place of sharp contrasts, but no greater contrast can be found in the British studios, at any rate, than between the way George Arliss, now playing the title-role in Dr. Syn at Gainsborough, is treated inside and outside the studios. Inside he is regarded with something approaching awe; certainly reverence. It's " Yes, Mr. Arliss," " No, Mr. Arliss " (No, I'm sorry, that's wrong; it's never " No, Mr. Arliss ") in hushed tones, and I have actually seen a minion following him about the floor with a chair, ready to push it under the great man should he suddenly decide to sit down ! But when he leaves the studios . . . well, you must realise that the Gainsborough studios stand in a mean street in Islington, and there is usually a group of from ten to twenty streetarabs outside, with no reverence in their hearts. As soon as the famous actor emerges he is greeted by a chorus of " Got a cigarette-card, George 7" " Ain't you goin' to treat us, George ? " " Aw, c'm on, George, cough up !" I must say " George " takes it in very good part. But I can imagine the agony of mind of an electrician who is reported to have administered a hearty smack on the stern to Alan Whittaker, Mr. Arliss's stand-in, when the latter was stooping to tie a shoelace, with a cheery " Wotcher, old cock !" only to find that it was the great man himself. Thrills and Spills # They had a thrilling time down at Rye, I'm told, when they were doing the location sequences of Dr. Syn. There was one scene in which " night riders," masked and attired in flowing cloaks, rode horseback across the marshes under cover of night. Twelve girl students from a local riding school (one of them the grandchild of a real Kentish smuggler) were engaged to play the parts of " night riders." It must have been quite thrilling enough without the extra bit of excitement provided by one of the girls who took a toss into a dyke, without any provision for it in the script. There is enough excitement in the play on which this film is based to provide thrills for three or four pictures; I only hope they manage to get that amount of excitement on to the screen. And, knowing Gainsborough. I believe they will.