Canadian Film Weekly (Sep 2, 1942)

September 2, 1942 Canadian FILM WEEKLY Page 7 Movies Lead USA Bond Drive Canada Can Learn From Our American Partners NFB Short Shows Women in Action In Canada today women are becoming the men behind the guns as throughout the United Nations, manpower and womanpower mobilize side by side for total war. “Women Are Warriors,” August issue of Canada Carries On, National Film Board series made in co-operation with the Office of Public Information, brings to the creen the story of womanpower at war, shows women cheerfully undertaking work that has no parallel in history. In Canada the Canadian Women’s Army Corps and the Women’s Division of the RCAF are releasing men by the thousand for active service, while the uniform of the Canadian Nursing Sisters has long been a familiar sight at British debarkation ports. In the aircraft industry more women are now employed than the prewar total of men and women combined. Over in Britain the camera shows women tackling jobs which, three years ago, would have seemed fantastic. Acting as ferry pilots, they fly anything from a trainer to a twin engined Wellington bomber, test guns on factory ranges, risk death with antiaircraft units to bring down Nazi raiders. In war industry 4,000,000 women hold jobs so vital that they cannot change them without permission; have done them so well that they have gained Union recognition. British women have met the drain on manpower by taking over wherever there is a job to be done: flying, shooting, ploughing, hot-straightening and cold-sawing, iron puddling and loading slag. The film shows Russia’s women, long since accorded equal rights with men, controlling 75 per cent of industry, exercising almost complete control of collective farms. Acting as parachute nurses, army doctors, technicians and front-line fire fighting squads, they also go into battle as a women’s Battalion of Death. In defense of cities like Rostov and Sevastopol, girls and grandmothers are seen among the guerilla bands. Today Canada, through Selective Service, urgently seeks solution for her manpower needs. “Women Are Warriors” shows how far women in the United Nations have already gone in sharing with men the full risks and responsibilities of war. while Hitler is unwept, unhonored and unhung. The Canadian industry maintains its own War Effort committee and has _ supported every drive in a big way ever since Hitler went off the deep end. Now the Americans are in it up to their hips and the support of the movie industry there is immeasurable. Right now the Americans have a billion-dollar war bonds and stamps campaign on and the theatres and studios are leading it. The campaign, designated as a “Salute to Our Heroes,” will have as its slogan and theme, “Buy a Bond to Honor Every Mother’s Son in the Service.” Some of things being done bv the movies in connection with the campaign are tremendouslv interesting. The whole scheme of things is worth studying right now. varticularly since the Canadian drives are about to begin. “This is a people’s war—85,000.000 moviegoers are the people,” reads a poster above the desk of Si Fabian, National Campaign Director, who is leaving his own business as theatre circuit owner to devote his entire time to the drive. Hundreds of other movie executives are giving their full time to make the drive a success. Some 15,000 theatres already are selling war bonds and stamps. About 5.000 of them are qualified as official bond-issuing agents by Federal Reserve Banks. Under this arrangement, theatres so designated function the same as banks and post-offices in the sale of bonds and are ready to make immediate delivery of securities. In their new banking role, the movie houses are able to make bond sales at night and on Sundays and holidays, when other agencies are closed. Pursuant to the “Salute to Our Heroes” idea, bond-selling theatres offer gratis to buvers a government postcard, reading: ‘Dear :I have just bought a war bond. I was thinking to you when I did... etc.’”’ The government is providing 2,000,000 of the cards. In theatres in every city “War Hero Rallies” are planned. Local men in service are honored by war bond and stamp purchases. Picture houses display photographs of the local service men and invite citizens to buy bonds in honor of the home-town boys. “War Mother Nights” are on in 2,500 theatres, where mothers of service men are guests of honor and are appealing to their fellow-citizens to invest in war securities. Paul Revere Again There is a cycle of “nights” in honor of “War Sweethearts,” “War The movie industry won’t rest] Brides | and Wives,” and “War Fathers.” On Sept. 1, at 9 P.M., entertainment programs were stopped in theatres with a total seating capacity of 11,000,000. A brief patriotic ceremony followed with a bond-selling speaker. ‘The audience was asked to rise and give three cheers for the fighting men of the United States. Mayors and Governors of some States adopted the idea of a “Salute to Our Heroes” and this cheering salute was in direct contrast with the tribute of silence on Armistice Day. Among the many spectacular events planned to stimulate interest in the bond drive will be the re-enactment of the Paul Revere rid in Boston. In New York State the Axis dictators in effigy will be “taken for a ride’ across the State and dumped into Niagara Falls. Every foot of the route, it is pJanned, shall represent a bond sale. Stars on Tour The moving picture industry further announces that “the glamour part of the month’s activities will be “Stars Over America” — tours to 300 cities by topflight Hollywood stars, arranged by the Hollywood Victory Committee, in cooperation with the picture industry’s War Activities Committee.” The announcement added: “In many instances studios have set back production to release popular celebrities for the tours. The 300 bond rallies, with stars in person, aim to average $1,000.000 sales each. Scores of very small communities will be visited—many never before having seen a screen star in person. “Hundreds of factories will be visited to stimulate the 10 per cent payroll allotment plan, a major part of the Treasury’s effort in September. “The world premiere of the drive took place in Washington. D.C., on Aug. 31, when a large group of screen stars took part in ceremonies on the Treasury steps, as Secretary Morgenthau wished them well as _ traveling salesmen and salesladies for war bonds. The Western tours got a send-off in Hollywood at the same time with a ‘going away’ gift of $1,000,000 in bond sales. “Tour ‘premierets’ took place Sept. 1 in San Francisco, Fresno Dallas, Chattanooga, Chicago Philadelphia and New York City. the seven jumping off spots on the nationwide tours. The covering of 300 cities in thirty days is believed to be one of the most intricate ‘one-night stand’ booking routes ever undertaken. The railroad and air fares alone will top $60,000.” “Selectees’’@ SA a RKO Busy on New Features Frances Gifford, tall, curvesome and redheaded, has been chosen by Producer Sol Lesser to become the new “Mrs. Tarzan’ in RKO Radio’s “Tarzan Triumphs,” now in production with Johnny Weissmuller again portraying the jungle hero. Role was assigned Miss Gifford after thirty candidates had been tested to replace Maureen O’Sullivan, who recently withdrew from the screen to await a visit from the stork. Oddly enough, the new heroine owes her current assignment to her impersonation of Dorothy Lamour—complete with sarong-—~-in the recently released “Henry Ald rich Gets Glamour.” William Thiele, who directed Lamour’s first screen effort, “The Jungle Princess,” and is directing ‘‘Tarzan Triumphs,” induced Lesser to test Miss Gifford after catching her Lamour impersonation in the Aldrich picture at a neighborhood movie house. = = a Harold Huber, one of the screen’s best-hated heavies, has been signed for a role in support of Rosalind Russell and Fred MacMurray in David Hempstead’s RKO Radio production of “Stand By To Die.” Huber, noted for his gangster portrayals, will play a hard but harmless inn-keeper. = es = Just for the fun of it. Lou Nova, California heavyweight, and Leslie Charteris, author of ‘“‘The Saint” mystery stories, became movie “extras” for several of the Miami Beach scenes in RKO Radio's Damon Runyon production ‘The Big Street,” a Florida enthusiast tells us. Both were guests at the Roney Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach when Director Irving Reis came with Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda and the supporting cast for the beach sequences of this picture. So, if you like the fun of ‘spotting’’ celebrities, here are two you can see in the beach scenes of this screen adaptation of Runyon's story “Little Pinks.” a aa > Samuel Goldwyn has engaged Stanley Clements to play Bob Hope's office boy in “They Got Me Covered,” starring Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, which RKO Radio will release.