Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 11, 1942)

td March 11th, 1942 Help! Help! -Hamburgers! There is near revolt on the Warmer Bros. lot. The girls are getting fed up with hamburgers. The girls are Nancy Coleman, Genaldine Fitzgerald and Barbara Stanwyck, the sisters of ‘‘The Gay Sisters.” 2 “lt. FY a4 ~~ &» rT Te R a. S Zz 4 7 4 we x 7 ka a 47 CHICAGO SUN (Wolfe Kaufman, commenting on the Academy Awards.) One thought keeps plaguing me, as I go over this list again. An exciting thought. I happen to have They’ve been eating hamburger] discussed “How Green’ with one —badly prepared hamburger—for days in the name of the motion picture art. “We ate it yesterday,” said Miss Coleman, ‘we're eating it today, and I guess we'll be eating it tomorrow. It seems to be taking forever to get these dinner scenes right.” The hamburger business seems to be very much a part of the plot, so there’s no getting around it. “Personally,” said Miss Coleman, “I am of the opinion that we are being framed. The script says the hamburgers are supposed to be very low.grade. But how can anybody tell just by looking at them what they taste like?” But the prop man in charge of the “kitchen” is a literal minded person. “The script says they’re to be strictly Grade Z,”’ he explained, “and that’s the way I make ’em.” In the story the girls are three heiresses who can’t get at any of their assets because they’re tied up by legal technicalities. Amd they have a cook, Helen Thimig, whose duty it is never to get anything right. “To make it worse,’ said Miss Coleman, “I happen to like hamburger. Or should a young girl trying to become an actress admit such tastes? Anyway, I like it, and when I got home last night, there was mother’s beautiful, elegant hamburger steak. I went right to bed without eating a bite.” 0. HEATING AND VENTILATING CONTRACTORS AND ENGINEERS inner of the top executives of Twentieth Century-Fox when it was being contemplated. He told me it was to be “a prestige picture.” In other words, the studio was quite satisfied to go ahead with it on the assumption it would lose money. But it didn’t. It cleaned up. And it is still doing well. Ditto for ‘Here Comes Mr. Jordan’ at Cofumbia. “Sergeant York” was quite candidly conceived with the notion of profit-making, but it was fine, anyway. Now. It has aiways been my firm belief that good pictures can pay off. Don’t tell me what a flop “All That Money Can Buy” was. I’m sorry about that. It was a good picture and I believe the mistake was that the title was wrong and some of the selling was wrong. Certainly if pictures like ‘“Jordan” and “Green’’ can do well at the box office it goes a very long way to dispel the foolish Hollywood notion that only junk pays off at the hox office. THE EMPORIA GAZETTE (From an editorial called “The Movie Moron.” It was written in 1922 by William Allen White.) If the movie business has a serious place among thinking people, among the leadership in America which has developed beyond its fourteenth year, the movie makers must realize that they must segregate the morons. Give them houses of their own, where they can gasp at crime, leer at sex, and Canadian FILM WEEKLY di + Lf y Mle ae e -ECTIONS LELICLI = am RAMBLING WITH ROLY (Roly Young in the Toronto Globe and Mail) The reception accorded “Those Other Days’’ bears out this column’s’ ott-expressed conviction that Canadian audiences really would like to see entertainment films of Canadian origin and production and that they do not have to be propaganda films to get across. By all means let’s have more of them. LIBERTY (Howard Dietz in an article called “Before You Pan Hollywood.’’) Over the years the Hollywood movies have become the best in the world, capturing the market wherever they were shown. Despite barriers of language, more than seventy-three per cent of the seating capacity of all the theatres outside the United States are devoted to American films. Although statistics are scarce since Hitler and Mussolini got gruesome, the number of Hollywood prints that have been ‘‘duped” and bootlegged to keep the suppressed peoples quieter makes a message in itself. It is not necessary to go into matters of trade or the incidental accomplishments showing how styles were started and even entire industries created by the movies — the whole modernistic trend in furniture for example. Let us here credit them with the major achievement of developing the remarkable technique of the feature picture through constant willingness to experiment. They have unearthed and trained real talent in all branches of films, acting, camera, direction, and continuity writing. They have presented well mounted productions to the public so that the talent could be fairly judged and the stars selected. get all the thrills they want. But} THE COMMONWEAL give intelligent people movie houses where good pictures by reputable authors, conscientious artists, and intelligent producers may present high-grade things. As the movie managers have developed their business, it is the moron’s paradise. If theatrical managers followed the lines of movie producers and distributors —that is to say, if one saw Shakespeare and Shaw and Eugene O’Neill where one also saw smutty sex plays and musical comedies—the theatre also would be a mess that would stink a dog off a slop wagon, and drive the skunk to the open for air. These thoughts are for the consideration of our old Armageddon comrade, Bill Hays, who is now the big boss of ; the movie world in America. (“Hollywood Handles Dynamite” by Frederic Sondern, Jr., with C. Nelson Schrader) Serious men in Washington believe that there are only two alternatives for Hollywood. The movie industry should confine itself to entertainment alone and not deal with serious issues, or it should bring its tremendous power to bear in awakening the nation to a love and appreciation of its heritage, its traditions and its might. It should acquaint the nation with the actual nature of the crisis before Clark Gable is shown beating down Panzer divisions single-handed. If Hollywood puts box-office receipts before its duty to the country, the movie industry will deserve everything it gets—in restriction, censorship and ruin. Page 5 Rankin Expresses Appreciation The recent criticism aimed at the Centre Theatre management in Chatham, Ontario, for allowing a Sunday evening war efforts show caused a sharp division of community opinion. Religious groups attacked the theatre management while refraining from criticism of the sponsors, in this case the Knights of Columbus. A number of citizens wrote to Harland Rankin, manager of the Centre, praising him and expressing confidence. Rankin thanked them in a Chatham newspaper with the following letter. To the Editor the News: Dear Sir: I would like to express to your many readers, through your columns, my sincere appreciation for the many kind letters received since the staging of a Charity Show in conjunction with the Knights of Columbus. Although we have received certain criticism in your columns, we feel more than compensated for our efforts from the generous response received from the general public. It is not the intention of the Centre Theatre or, I believe I can justly speak for the theatres of Chatham, to antagonize any organization. We want to be part of the community and assist in as many ways possible in making this a community centre of goodwil land fine entertainment. The public, as you know, are made of many different tastes and viewpoints. There is the youth, people of middle age, and there are the more serious mature minded people who shoulder the greater responsibilities, and to satisfy everyone’s likings is an impossibility. We can only strive to do our best in the interest of Chatham. This week we are having a two day show for the Daughters of the Empire, and hope to raise a substantial sum for this worthy cause and have many future anticipated goodwill promotions in mind. Please accept our deepest appreciation to the Chatham Daily News and the citizens of Chatham for their kindness. We are sorry we cannot answer all the letters that do not bear a signature but we will try to confirm their request and suggestions from anyone at any time, as the theatre was built for the sole purpose of providing entertainment along the lines that the people of Chatham like best. Yours truly, Harland Rankin, Centre Theatre. "Moby Dick" Remake The Herman Melville sea classic, “Moby Dick,” is being scripted at Warners. It will be released under that title, a change back from “The Sea Devil.”