Screen Guilds Magazine (May 1936)

Best Performance of April A TIE for first Honorable Mention and four players honored from but two of the pictures makes the poll of the members of the Screen Actors’ Guild for the Best Performance of April unique in the eleven month history of the awards. The members balloted on the 32 pictures released as Los An¬ geles first runs between March 23 and April 17. Luise Rainer again wins an award— this time as the Best Performance of April for her work as Anna Held in “The Great Ziegfeld” which was pro¬ duced by Metro-Goldwyn-M ayer. Last July, in the second month of this poll, Miss Rainer received the second Hon¬ orable Mention for her work in “Es¬ capade”. That picture, incidentally, was her first American screen appear¬ ance. Tied for first Honorable Mention this month are William Powell and C. Aubrey Smith. Mr. Powell portrayed the role of Florenz Ziegfeld in “The Great Ziegfeld”, while Mr. Smith played the Earl of Dorincourt in “Little Lord Fauntleroy”, which is the premier screen effort of the newly organized Selznick-International Corporation. For his performance of Mr. Havi- shan in “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” Henry Stephenson was mentioned on the third greatest number of ballots which earned for him the award of Second Honorable Mention. W HILE 13 of the 32 pictures con¬ tained performances worthy of mention according to the ballots of the members voting, 22 players received one or more votes. Of this group, four were singled out of “The Great Ziegfeld”, three out of ‘ ‘ Petticoat Fever ’ ’, and two from each of the following: “I Married a Doctor”, “Little Lord Fauntleroy”, “The Prisoner of Shark Island” and “Rhodes.” Again the votes seem to favor the actors. With Miss Rainer repeating and thus equalling the record of another actress, but nine women and 25 men have received this honor from their fel¬ low craftsmen to date. Actually, 37 awards have been made, there having been three ties. Best Screen Play ol April WM. ANTHONY McGUIRE Original Story and Screen Play Writer of "THE GREAT ZIEGFELD" Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer HONORABLE MENTION "LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY" Screen Play by Hugh Walpole Based on the Novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett Produced by Selznick-International Released by United Artists "LOVE BEFORE BREAKFAST" Screen Play by Herbert Fields Additional Dialogue by Gertrude Purcell Original Story by Faith Baldwin Produced by Universal Pictures Corp. "THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND" Screen Play by Nunnally Johnson Based on the life story of Dr. Samuel Mudd Produced by 20th Century-Fox perfield ’ ’ and ‘ ‘ Vanessa — Her Love Story. ” Tied for second Honorable Mention are ‘ ‘ Love Before Breakfast ’ ’ and ‘ ‘ The Prisoner of Shark Island”. Herbert Fields, who is credited with the screen play of the former, and Nunnally Johnson who wrote the latter pic¬ ture, have previously been singled out for awards by the members of The Screen AVriters’ Guild. Gertrude Pur¬ cell is credited with the additional dialogue on “Love Before Breakfast”. Air. Fields won a previous award for his collaboration on the screen play of “Hands Across the Table.” He has also received screen credit, either alone or in collaboration, for the screen plays of “People Will Talk” and “Mississippi.” Air. Johnson’s previous award was for ‘ ‘ Thanks A Alillion. ’ ’ Other of his recent credits, either alone or in collaboration, are: “Baby Face Harrington” and ‘ 4 The House of Rothschild. ’ ’ Among Atiss Purcell’s recent credits are “If You Could Only Cook”, “She Was a Lady” and “The Girl Friend.” Fourteen of the 32 pictures released in Los Angeles between March 23 and April 17 received one or more ballots in the voting, which is the eleventh since this feature was established. THE LIST OF 103 ANGELES RELEASES APPEARS ON PAGE 25 The Screen Guilds’ Magazine