Canadian Film Weekly (Nov 25, 1942)

ws ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER WHEN GOOD SHOWMEN AND GOOD -SHOWS GET JOGETHER! "remount SUUME Ve > ee a ee eee |e EXTRA ene PLAYING TIME IS THE ORDER OF JHE DAY WITH PARAMOUNT PRODUCT! VOL. 1 The Lowdown on the Production and D istribution of the Best Shows in Town! NO. 5 "Awengers® Will Win Wide Support * Thrilling Film of Underground Norway Will Interest Everyone In Nazi-oceupied Europe that famous “V” signal is much more than a mystic symbol invented for use on mi lady’s costume jewelry! “The Avengers.” The picture, starring Deborah Kerr, Hugh Williams, Ralph Richardson and Griffith Jones, is a powerful romance, told against a backdrop of war—the Battle of the Atlantic, the courage of the Commandos and the _ unceasing struggle of the Norwegian “underground.”’ It was produced in England by Paul Soskin with the full co-operation of the British War Office and the Norwegian Government-in-Exile. In the picture Hugh Williams, as a British agent dropped by parachute near a Nazi U-boat base in a remote Norwegian fjord, That’s only one of the things we can learn from Paramount’s dramatic new film,* Everybody Goes For ‘The Major" Academy Award Winner Ginger Rogers puts new ginger into her acting in the part she portrays of a minor in the “Major and the Minor.” Playing opposite Ray Milland, Ginger turns in another performance that has elicited raves. All across Canada the picture has been piling up marvellous business and in most spots where it has played to date “The Major and the Minor” is enjoying holdovers. Pick Vancouver or Montreal, the story is always the same—second week. © WHEE SPREE at a boy’s mili tary academy keeps Ginger Rogers on her toes when she coasts in disguised as a 12-yearold in her new comedy hit, “The Major and The Minor,” opposite Ray Milland. Register Rings When Crosby Sings With the addition of Dona Drake and Anthony Quinn to the cast, ‘Road to Morocco” boasts of one of the best rosters of any of the “Road” pictures. And the way the hilarious trio of Crosby-Lamour-Hope sing out with the hit tunes from the picture make you sit forward in your seat. The tunes are “The Road to Morocco,” “Ajn't Got a Dime to My Name,” “Constantly,” ‘Moonlight Becomes You” and ‘“Ho-ho-ho-hum.” Outdoor backgrounds to match any of the famous epics—lavish musical numbers to match any of the Paramount procession of smash musical-comedies. And you| Norway and a dozen other sullen, have never seen sets the like of those you'll see along “The Road to Morocco,” —— a is trapped in a hall by the Gestapo. A Norwegian girl (Deborah Kerr) taps out the “V” signal— three dots and a dash—on a table and the hall promptly turns into bedlam, every. Norwegian in the place banging it out with their feet, with beer mugs, with whistles, with their fists. Even the orchestra takes it up. In the confusion the lights are doused and the British agent escapes. But that sequence is only one of the highlight thrills of a thrillfilled film. There’s another when a member of the “underground” and the British agent use flashlights to signal the location of the U-boat base to a squadron of RAF bombers—and see the sea serpents nest blown to smithereens. There’s another when Commandos in a sudden raid rescue a group of Norwegian patriots from a Nazi firing squad. There’s another when— but that’s enough. The picture is one succession of tense scenes and thrilling moments, every one of them telling the same story: that love lives on despite Nazis and firing squads, that men and women who have once tasted freedom can never be really conquered. In Nazi-occupied Europe — in S seething, desperate lands — the “Vy” signal stands for “Victory” ... and for vengeance. PAULETTE GETS THE RANGE on the dangerous red-head who’s out to steal her ranger in the Technicolored romance, “The Forest Rangers.” Fred MaeMurray has some tall explaining to do to fiery Paulette Goddard who’s plenty burned up when she discovers Susan Hayward has a prior claim on him. ‘Morocco’ on Road to Success With the marvellous pre-selling campaign that Paramount have given their latest ‘Road’ picture, “The Road to Morocco,” it looks like one of the outstanding hits of the year. What with coast-tocoast broadcasts featuring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and the warm warbling of Dorothy Lamour right across the dial, radio listeners from the Atlantic to the Pacific are waiting for the picture to come to their local theatre. The hundreds of thousands of magazine readers are also avidly reading the latest dope on the incandescent trio, Hope-LamourCrosby. Juke boxes across the country are dishing out to hep cats the latest smash hits from |The Road to Morocco.” p — Cage iis