Canadian Film Weekly (Oct 6, 1948)

THE PICK OF THE PICTURES Vol. 13, No. 38 CANADIAN and American business has increased from 30 to 35 per cent since July because of the quality of Universal’s product, President Nate Blumberg said in New York while announcing resumption of production in October. Thirty features will be completed by the end of 1949. Blumberg denied rumors that Universal-International was _ in financial trouble and would be sold and that Bill Goetz and Leo Spitz were resigning. LARRY PARKS has _ settled contract differences with Columbia and will start “Jolson Sings Again” in October, which Sydney Buchman will produce. Parks got a new contract and back pay for most of the year-and-a-half he refused to work. WALTER WANGER’S intention of releasing his $9,000,000 “Joan of Arc” on a roadshow basis is getting opposition from USA exhibitors. ODEON showed the EagleLion Olympic reels for one midnight show at the Odeon-Toronto, then double-dated them at the Fairlawn and Danforth. HOPE all government statistics are not as puzzling as those issued about the Canadian motion picture industry. BRITISH COLUMBIA is getting all the movie stars these days. Bing Crosby was just mobbed out there and Alexis Smith, who was born in Penticton, dropped around the old district. Jerry Colona and Gabby Hayes were also there recently. . IT COULD BE that legal fireworks affecting the industry will go off in Ottawa shortly. USA TRADE PAPERS are carrying Toronto correspondence which rumours Paul Nathanson is rejoining Famous Players. Wonder what that means? GOOD CASTING. Jesse Lasky wants to make Trilby with James Mason as Svengali. He’s trying to borrow Jennifer Jones from DOS for the title role, after failing to get Valli. The role is a natural for Mason. ES VOICE of the CANADIAN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY REVIEWS FROM FILM DAILY, NEW YORK Rachel and The Stranger with Loretta Young, William Holden, Robert Mitchum RKO 93 Mins. AN EXCEPTIONALLY WELL HANDLED COMEDY, DRAMA _ ACTION STORY EMBELLISHED WITH FINE PERFORMANCES: SHOULD RENDER FULL SATISFACTION TO AUDIENCE, In a performance comparable in many respects to her achievement in “The Farmer’s Daughter,” Loretta Young once again proves her capacity for delineating a fine role. “Rachel and the Stranger” is adapted from Howard Fast’s rovel of backwoods Americana, the Ohio frontier country in the early part of the 19th Century. It is a simple, yet forcefully told story of primitive domesticity which assumes dignity, feeling and even in its concluding stages some fine excitement. The widowed Holden and motherless Gray find it rather hard going on their farm which they have carved out of the wildnerness. Holden decides a woman is needed about the place. He goes to the nearby town and finds Miss Young, a bondswoman, whom he forthwith buys and matfries. This is not to young Gray’s liking but she applies herself to the chores and attempts to ingratiate herself with the pair. They tolerate her for a spell until Robert Mitchum, a wildermess cruising hunter pops up on the scene and shows her a good deal more attention that her immediate “family.” With Mitchum about the place the triangle assumes comic aspects which are handled in good taste and inoffensively disposed of to the end that at length Miss Young decides she will go back to town. As she is journeying there young Gray warms to her and Holden and Mitchum decide they have been playing at dam fools long enough. An Indian attack, however, occurs at this time. Gray is sent for aid. Mitchum and Holden dash back to the farm. Miss Young joins them. The fight with the Indians is vivid, exciting stuff handled in the best manner. The Indians are driven off but the Place is burned. CAST: Loretta Young, William Holden, Robert Mitchum, Gary Gray, Tom Tully, Sara Haden, Frank Ferguson, Walter Baldwin, Regina Wallace. CREDITS: A Dore Schary Presentation; Producer, Richard H. Berger; Director, Norman Foster; Screenplay, Waldo Salt; Executive producer, Jack J. Gross; From the story by Howard Fast. DIRECTION: Fine. PHOTOGRAPHY, Very Good, Blanche Fury with Valerie Stewart Granger Eagle-Lion (Technicolor) 93 Mins. WELL DIRECTED, PERFORMED BRITISH PERIOD PIECE SHOULD DO ITS BEST BUSINESS WITH THE FEMALE AUDIENCE ELEMENT. GOOD PRODUCTION VALUES. Directionial effects displayed by Mare Allegret will considerably enhance the audience reception of this British production. He has taken the flashback device and put it to new use and treatment. One of his most compelling effects is the camera conception of a woman dying. He uses the camera to interpret fading vision and progressive demise. Richly rendering the period of the story in Technicolor, the story is one of the cracking of @ dynasty based on ownership otf an estate called Clare Hall. Once in the possession of the Fury family, it is in other hands when the narrative gets started. Stewart Granger, illegitimate son of the founder of the line, lurks on the grounds as steward. He is given to brooding. Miss Hobson is a lady’s companion when she is summoned to Clare Hall to become a governess to the young, motherless heiress to the place. She brings freshness and beauty with her. A slow, smoldering passion is indicated between her and Granger which culminates in the real thing after she marries Michael Gough. Their passion desperate, after a bit they plot to kill the present owner of Clare Hall and his son. Trouble with some gypsies in the vicinity acords them an opportunity to accomplish a double murder. There is no suspicion. That is until Granger, now in command, indicates that in order to be master of the place young Suzanne Gibbs must be put out of the way. Miss Hobson is horrified at this and goes to the police to tell them how Granger murdered Gough and Walter Fitzgerald. Granger is arrested, goes on trial and eventually is sentenced to hang. The fates have insured that Clare Hall remain in his family strain. Miss Gibbs is killed in a riding accident. At the end Miss Hobson gives birth to Granger’s son. CAST: Valerie Hobson, Stewart Granger, Michael Gough, Walter Fitzgerald, Suzanne Gibbs, Maurice Denham. CREDITS: A_ Cineguild Production; Producer, Anthony Havelock-Alan; Director, Marc Allegret; Screenplay, Audrey Lindop, Cecil McGivern; From the novel by Joseph Shearing; Photography, Guy Gren, Geoffrey Unsworth, DIRECTION, Good. PHOTOGRAPHY, Good. Hobson, REVIEWS INFORMATION RATINGS $2.00 Per Annum UK Showmen Ask For Quota Out Worried that they will have to use reissues of British films for over half of the 45 per cent of screen time they are forced to devote to British-made productions by the new regulations which came into effect October 1st, some 2,700 of Britain’s 4,000 cinemas have applied for exemptions of one kind or another from the ruling. It is expected that about one-half of all those who applied will be given special consideration by the government. The present requirement is about 20 per cent of screen time for British films. Exhibitors who fail to meet the new minimum requirements are liable to fines ranging up to £200 (about $1,000) and a possible revocation of their theatre licenses. Because the British production industry, which fathered the increase in screen time requirements, is unable to fill promises of sufficient British films, the Board of Trade has been besieged for special exemptions by worried exhibitors. According to official circles, some 1,500 of 2,700 applications now on file at the Board of Trade will get favorable consideration. Exemptions will range from theatres required to give over only 10 per cent of their time to British films up to those who will be asked to show at least 40 per cent. Exhibitors are worried because American film interests, which have supplied the bulk of movie entertainment in the past, decided last month to refuse to book their feature films on the same bill with British films after October 1st. The result is that British exhibitors will have to show all-British or all-American programs as soon as their advance bookings run out. The refusal of Hollywood producers to double bill their productions with those of British studios was caused by the attempted reversal of UK films from the lower half of the bill to the top spot. This would have increased their allowance for screen time but would have cut down the American take to 15 per cent in place of the usual 30 commanded by USA product. Scott Brady Signed Scott Brady has been signed for the leading male role in Aubrey Schenck’s “Wyoming Mail,” which Eagle Lion (Hollywood) Films will release.