20th Century-Fox Dynamo (February 1960)

ANOTHER FROM AN ACCLAIMED EXCITING AND BEST-SELLER "KING MUST DIE 99 SET FOR AUTUMN RELEASE Global Quest For Young Actor With All Qualifications To Play Focal Role Is Fruitful, Reports Producer Sam Engel With filming completed on “The Story Of Ruth”, pro- ducer Samuel G. Engel is finalizing plans for produc- tion of his second “block- buster” for 1960 release, “The King Must Die”. One of the costlier and bigger of the studio’s entertainment proj- ects for this year, this pictur- ization of Mary Renault’s best-selling novel is sched- uled to go before the cam- eras this Spring. It is tenta- tively scheduled for domestic release next Fall. Like George Stevens, who will produce and direct our next Todd-AO production, “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, Engel is deeply involved in an anything but an ordinary casting chore. As the trade in general and the personnel of the world-wide distribution organization are aware, Engel is desirous of casting a relatively unknown actor for the focal role of Theseus. Exhibitors have been asked to participate in the global search for candidates to portray that part. The silhouetted figure at the head of this column will give the reader an idea of the physical require- ments of the actor sought. Here are the exact speci- fications, as submitted by the studio: The candidate must be at least six feet tall and weight between 180 and 200 pounds. Nationality is unimportant, but the candidate must speak English perfectly and fluently. His body must exude dynamic power, agile enough to perform the numerous Her- culean feats of skill and daring the part calls for. Up to press-time, Engel stated, more than 350 candidates had been submitted from 72 countries, 121 from the United States alone. However, there will be no screentests made of candidates until the search has been completed, which will be very soon. Preference, of course, for screentesting, will be given candidates with histrionic talent. Engel is elated with the results of the co- operative search. Actually, never in the history of any studio has there been simultaneously current so far-reaching a multiple search for new players to play major roles as exists not only for casting of “The King Must Die” and “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, but also for Buddy Adler’s personal Todd-AO production, the tentatively titled “John Brown’s Body” that Joseph Mankiewicz is adapting and will direct. A complete report on “John Brown’s Body” preparations appears on another page in this edition. Stevens, who has created such outstanding screen- plays as “The Diary Of Anne Frank”, “Giant” which made a clean sweep of Academy Awards in 1956; “A Place In The Sun” for which he won a director’s “Oscar” in 1951; “Shane”, “I Remember Mama”, “Woman Of The Year” and others, has been in- volved with research on and selection of locations for “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” Actual filming will not get under way on this project until late this year. Stevens also won the Irving Thalberg Memorial Trophy in 1953. However, Stevens will not get his search for talent for his production under way until after com- pletion of the screenplay. He plans doing the actual production in the Near East where practically all of the exteriors will be filmed, and interior sequences in California, London and Rome. A perfectionist, George Stevens is well equipped to give this great story a treatment that will corre- spond with the importance the book has attained in literary and publishing circles. “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, in hard-cover book form, has, its pub- lishers report, been read by more than 180,000,000 people in 47 countries, for it has been translated in 33 foreign languages. It has appeared as a serial in 736 newspapers throughout the world. Its paperback edition, printed in 35 languages, has attained an astronomical readership. Also, as a radio serial “The Greatest Story Ever Told” has over the years pene- trated many millions of homes. Its broadcast, too, has been translated in foreign languages. Hence, it is no exaggeration to state that “The Greatest Story Ever Told” has been read and heard by many more people in more countries than any literary work, excepting, of course, the Bible. “Story Of Ruth” is currently being edited and scored. On that assignment, too, Mr. Engel led a world-wide search for a newcomer to play the screenplay’s chief role. The search embraced more than a year before he assigned the title part to a 20-year-old amateur actress, Elana Eden, from Israel. Even more extensive has been his current quest for a young man to play Theseus. 44 The King Must Die” tells the extraordinary story of Theseus and Minatour, half-man-half-beast crea- ture of 1500 B.C. Engel must be credited with having turned out a large number of major box office successes of such popular dimensions that they have been re-released time and again. His memorable production of “A Man Called Peter” in the past three years alone has played more than 5,100 repeat engagements in the United States alone. It was originally released in 1955. Since then, including repeat engagements, “A Man Called Peter”, as of Jan. 2 of this year, had played more than 20,000 engagements! Engel also delivered to exhibitors such attrac- tions as “My Darling Clementine”, “Jackpot”, “Raw- hide”, “Come To The Stable” and “Belles On Their Toes”. GIRL IN THE And, It Is In 3-D CinemaScope! nTT r TXTT ^ n Unusual Underseas Treasure XV E D BIKI I Hunt Drama Filmed At Mallorca In “The Girl In The Red Bikini” producer Edward L. Alperson has come up with a combina- tion of entertainment values that gives promise to make it not only one of the more colorful, but also one of the exciting box office successes of 1960. That, briefly, is the appraisal of a number of seasoned showmen who have seen “The Girl In'The Red Bikini” in “rough-cut”. To begin with, it will be the first CinemaScope presented in 3-D. It will be in color. Alperson is authority for the statement that it “can be projected not only in 3-D CinemaScope, but in any wide- screen process.” Also, “The Girl In The Red Bikini” is the first American-filmed motion picture wholly produced on the beautiful island of Mallorca, off the Coast of Spain, in the Mediterranean Sea, and in the area surrounding it. Mallorca has become Europe’s No. 1 year-round vacation resort. “The Girl In The Red Bikini” co-stars Joanne Dru in the title role, Mark Stevens and Robert Strauss as the fortune-hunters. It introduces a hand- some, young, Latin-type newcomer, Asher Dann, 26 whom Alperson and director Byron Haskin believe, “will become the new heart-throb” of feminine moviegoers. Dann plays a young Spanish seaman whose persistent, but boyish courtship of Miss Dru (as a model from New York vacationing in Mal- lorca) makes possible a fast-paced, action-packed, suspense-wrapped hunt for gold stowed away in a wrecked ship at the bottom of the sea off Palma, Mallorca’s principal and only city. However, Dann hails from Brooklyn. He turned to acting after an Army “stretch”, played Summer stock in Pennsylvania, studied for the drama in New York and subsequently did “live” TV shows. “The Girl In The Red Bikini” is his first motion picture. This Alperson production will mark the first instance in which audiences will experience under- sea 3-D viewing. The story pursues the audacious activities of two young Americans, Stevens and Strauss, to steal gold from the sunken hulk. Dann is an employee on the luxurious yacht of a wealthy sportsman. With his employer absent, Dann in- duces Miss Dru to visit the yacht, which he lies belongs to him. While they are aboard, Stevens and Strauss sight the yacht and decide it is exactly what they need for their sunken treasure hunt. They frankly detail their plan to the love-sick Spanish lad and model, who agree to join them. By convincing his absentee employer that the yacht is direly in need of serious repairs that will take two weeks to make (the period Stevens and Strauss fix for successful completion of their underseas adventure), he is able to turn the vessel over to the pair, in return for a share of the gold. But, at the end of the fortnight the operation is far from completed. When the young seaman in- sists on returning the yacht to port, Stevens and Strauss “hi-jack” it and proceed with their plan which eventually succeeds. Meantime, the yacht’s disappearance prompts its owner to enlist the aid of the police. When it suddenly returns to Palma, the owner is promised and agrees to a fifth of the gold treasure. However, it is too late for him to call off the police, who finally confiscate the gold. But, it all adds up happily, for Miss Dru and Stevens who fell in love during the hunt.