20th Century-Fox Dynamo (February 1960)

World A SENSATIONAL, SCIENCE-FICTION SPECTACLE BASED ON A. CONAN DOYLE’S FABULOUS STORY SET IN THE LEGENDARY "LOST CONTINENT” OF ATLANTIS DAVID HEDiSON MICHAEL RENNIE ORSON WELLES Another of the heftier entertainment events scheduled for public display this year is “The Lost World”, based on a novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, who is popularly known as the author of the “Sher- lock Holmes” stories. “The Lost World”, to be produced and directed by Irwin Allen, is a startling science-fiction adven- ture. Those who have read the screenplay incline to the opinion that the currently successful Jules Verne story, “Journey To The Center Of The Earth” is “tame” compared with the Arthur Conan Doyle drama. One of the finer casts of international stars as- sembled in some time headlines this CinemaScope production in De Luxe Color. It includes Clifton Webb, Fernando Lamas, Orson Welles, Jill St. John, Michael Rennie, David Hedison, Claude Rains and Robert Morley. Hedison and Miss St. John play the romantic leads. Hedison enacted the title role in “The Fly”. For Rennie this assignment means a return to the studio where he launched his American film career. Morley was last seen in “Around The World In 80 Days.” “The Lost World” dramatizes a jungle expedi- tion that leads a motley group of fortune-hunters, headline-seekers, scientists and others to an isolated plateau inhabited by pre-historic animals, savage aborigines and “missing link” ape-men. Members of the group, who survive, are radically changed by what they experienced and saw. A most important announcement from Allen pertains to the signing of Willis O’Brien, the great- est living authority in the creation of pre-historic monsters and enabling them to realistically move on film. In the basement of the old Imperial theatre in San Francisco, one day in 1915, the then young sculptor Willis O’Brien found a way to bring the monsters to screen life. His initial work was released under the title, “The Dinosaur And The Missing Link”. Thus, that day motion picture special effects came into being. Today, at 74, O’Brien is still ply- ing his trade, and is presently busy finalizing the special effects and trick work that will go into “The Lost World”. O’Brien has held magic in his hands most of his adult life. In 1919 he completed his second film, the first one in which un-real monsters were shown on the screen with people. It was called “The Ghost Of Slumber Mountain”, an immediate smash suc- cess. From “Ghost Of Slumber Mountain” O’Brien went on to start preparing and making tests for the first version of “The Lost World” which, like the present one, was based on the Arthur Conan Doyle fantasy-classic of the same name. Wallace Beery, Bessie Love and Lewis Stone starred in that one. Undoubtedly the foremost expert in his field, the quiet, grey-haired O’Brien has a list of credits too long to be included here. His was the skilled and imaginative hand that created the mighty “King Kong” and later “Son Of Kong.” And, it was the O’Brien genius that thrilled motion picture patrons of the period as they watched the spine- tingling “The Last Days Of Pompeii” unfold before them. “Mighty Joe Young” was another O’Brien product. O’Brien points out that the techniques he in- vented almost 45 years ago are still in use today, with practically no changes. He is convinced the pre-historic animals that will be seen in this Cinema- Scope and DeLuxe color version of “The Lost World” will be the most exciting, the most fright- ening ever put on film. As a sculptor, O’Brien, of course, studied anat- omy, but he has, over the past 45 years, became quite an expert in historical geology and paleontol- ogy as a result of the vast amount of research he has been called upon to do in creating hundreds of animals he has put on film over the years. Marriage-Go-Round 99 A VOLUPTUOUS BLONDE GUEST CREATES HAVOC IN A HAPPY HOUSEHOLD With his play, “The Marriage-Go-Round”, hav- ing completed its long run at the Plymouth theatre in New York, playwright Leslie Stevens is now de- voting himself completely to its picturization in CinemaScope with De Luxe Color. Scheduled to go before the cameras this Spring for release, in all probability, late next Summer, “The Marriage-Go-Round” rates one of the ex- hilarating events of 1960. An idea of its popularity as a play may be had from knowledge that it ran for 432 performances over a period of 54 weeks on Broadway. However, before settling down for the long run there, “The Marriage-Go-Round” had spent a year on a transcontinental tour that originated on the Pacific Coast and included about 20 major cities from there to New York. “The Marriage-Go-Round”, a Stevens-Colbert production, is “a gay and irridescent comedy”, as The New York Times’ great critic, Brook Atkinson, described it. The pace and tone of the story are droll and buoyant. The critics generally summed it as a “thoroughly delightful marital charade.” It concerns, mainly, three people: a middle- aged professor of anthropoligy; his wife, dean of women at an up-State New York college, and a voluptuous blonde from Sweden. There is a fourth character, a language professor who has long been in love with the wife. Paul Deville, the professor, and his wife, pro- fessionally called Content Lowell, are happily mar- ried. Years before Prof. Deville, famed lecturer on cultural anthropology, and a Swedish professor had become intimate friends. Before his marriage, De- ville had occasion to often visit Prof. Sveg and his family, which included a daughter, who, even as a child, adored the American. As years passed, the child, Katrin, now a beau- tiful young woman, convinced herself she was in love with the professor for whom her father had great esteem and whom she had seen only in news- reels. Came a time when Prof. Sveg accepted an invitation from the Devilles to visit them. Out of the blue to the latter’s happy home came a young woman of extraordinary charm. She introduced her- self as Katrin, explaining that her father would arrive later. But, the Devilles were in for a shock, for Katrin frankly stated her reason for coming to stay with them ahead of her father: she wanted Prof. Deville to father her child. How she goes about trying to seduce the married man and how she upsets the peace and quiet of a learned couple’s life makes for a succession of events that provides an abnormal succession of hilarity. In fact, the uncommonly audacious young wom- an presses her case with a persistence where the situation becomes intolerable to a charming and intelligent wife who moved briskly through the crisis, at first with a dry sense of humor . . . and then outraged, she threatens to leave her husband. However, the problem is finally solved when the Devilles learn that Prof. Sveg had sent on his daugh- ter to personally inform them he could not make the trip. In the end, she finds herself with no other alternative but return home, a move the reconciles the Devilles. Up to press-time no cast assignments had been announced. Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer co-starred as wife and husband in the play and Julie Newmar was featured as the scheming guest in the stage play. “The Marriage-Go-Round” was Leslie Stevens’ third play to reach Broadway. The others were “Champaign Complex” with Polly Bergen and “The Lovers” with Joanne Woodward. He was formerly associated with Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre Players. He graduated from the Yale Drama School and subsequently the American Theatre Wing, be- ing tutored by such master craftsmen as Moss Lind- say, Robert Anderson and Moss Hart. Stevens has written for television and for Warner Brothers scripted “The Left Handed Gun” in which Paul Newman headlined. “The Marriage-Go-Round” could have continued playing on Broadway indefinitely, but both its co-stars. Miss Colbert and Charles Boyer, had other commitments contractually requiring their services at the beginning of this month. Incidentally, Stevens is the son of the late Admiral Leslie C. Stevens, author of the best- seller, “Russian Assignment”. 78