The Film Daily (1942)

— 71 Monday, June 29, 1942 DAILY EA To Organize Exch. Front Office Help (Continued from Page 1) was confirmed by Walsh later in the day. Back-office labor, including shipping clerks and inspectors, already is 100 per cent under IATSE jurisdiction. Business agents of IATSE exchange locals have served notice on all distribution branches that they will proceed immediately with the job of organizing front-office help. Drive in 33 Cities Involved in the IA's newest organizational drive are white-collar workers in 33 exchange cities scattered all over the nation. Asserting that he had received "good reports" from various exchange areas, Walsh indicated that the IA hoped to encounter little difficulty in bringing these workers into the fold. The fact that the IA already enjoys a foothold in the field of film exchange labor is expected to make the way easy. Its success in organizing back-room exchange labor is another factor cited in favor of an easy victory for the IA. No separate locals will be created for the white-collar workers. In every instance they will be taken into exchange locals already in existence. The IA is adopting this procedure in the belief that from a union standpoint it is a decided advantage to have both the back-room and front-office people joined in the same local. In cities where other unions may be in existence to challenge the IA's right to obtain jurisdiction over white-collar workers in the exchange field the procedure, according to Walsh, will be to "talk the situation over." Walsh expressed himself as thoroughly confident that such rival labor gioups would be made to see the justice of the IA's claims on white-collar workers employed at film exchanges. Rivalry in St. Louis Such a situation now exists in St. Louis, where the Stenographers, Typists, Bookkeepers and Assistants Union, Local 17707, which, like the IATSE, is an AFL affiliate, has jurisdiction over white collarites at the Paramount and United Artists exchanges as result of bargaining elections held on June 22 at the order of the National Labor Relations Board. Front-office employes at all the other St. Louis exchanges voted not to accept Local 17707 as their official collective bargaining representative. In spite of its inroad in the exchange labor field in St. Louis, Local 17707 is expected to offer no obstacle to the success of the IATSE's white-collar drive in that city. The basis for that opinion is the announcement that Lou Lavotta, business agent for St. Louis exchange Local B-l, is conferring with Elmer Theiss, AFL organizer who has been behind Local 17707's drive to organize the city's white-collar exchange workers, on steps to trans REVIEIUS Of MIU HLfflS "Lady in a Jam" with Irene Dunne, Patric Knowles, Ralph Bellamy Universal 78 Mins. SCREWBALL COMEDY RACES DOWN THE AUDIENCE TRACK A SUMMERTIME WINNER. This screwball comedy races down the audience track a Summer-time winner. Concocted by Eugene Thackrey, Frank Cockrell and Otho Lovering, the for-laughing-purposes-only screenplay has exactly the right touch, witness the fact that the projection room audience of reviewers and critics responded to the situatons and lines with everything from chuckles to guffaws. Irene Dunne, as talented a comedienne as you'll find, makes the role of a zany heiress-gone-broke the medium for sustained fun, and there's admirable support from Patric Knowles as an earnest young psychiatrist, Ralph Bellamy who satirizes an Arizona he-man, Queenie Vassar as Cactus Kate, Miss Dunne's eccentric grandmother, and Eugene Pallette as the troubled executor of the estate dissipated by Miss Dunne. Gregory La Cava, in the dual guise of producer and director, has turned in a highly competent job. The pace is rapid, with a couple of minor exceptions, and there are plenty of deft touches that give emphasis to situations and dialogue. Incidentally, the trade will discover a couple of wows in the lines which fall to Bellamy. Specifically, the references to arbitration and over-time. The plot, in thumbnail, runs about like this: Part of the fortune left by Miss Dunne's 'grandsire went to a Foundation on whose staff Knowles serves. When she goes broke, her executor, fearful of its effect upon her, appeals to the Foundation for assistance. Knowles proposes to diagnose her case and cure her before 4 p. m. But instead he replaces her chauffeur who quits, and, when her possessions are auctioned off to satisfy creditors, drives her cross-country to her grandmother's. Follow complications galore — the reappearance of Bellamy, her childhood sweetheart; the "salting" of the old family gold mine by Cactus Kate who would further the Dunne-Knowles romance, and — but that will give you an idea. Besides, it's not so much the story as the treatment that makes "Lady in a Jam" a howl. CAST: Irene Dunne, Patric Knowles, Ralph Bellamy, Eugene Pallette, Queenie Vassar, Jane Garland, Samuel Hinds. CREDITS: Producer-Director, Gregory LaCava; Screenplay, Eugene Thackrey, Frank Cockrell, Otho Lovering; Assistant Director, Joseph Lapis; General Musical Director, Charles Previn; Musical Score, Frank Skinner; Art Director, Jack Otterson; Sound Director, Bernard B. Brown; Film Editor, Russell Schoengarth. DIRECTION, Fast. PHOTOGRAPHY, Good. fer the Paramount and United Artists office employes to the jurisdiction of Local B-l. The move will be made through AFL headquarters in Washington. A. L. Rex, president of Local 17707, has indicated that he is not opposed to the idea of having local B-l take over the job of organizing the white collars at all of the St. Louis film exchanges. "Flight Lieutenant" with Pat O'Brien, Glenn Ford (HOLLYWOOD PREVIEW) Columbia 80 Mins. ACTION PACKED MELODRAMA SHOULD PLEASE THE AVERAGE AUDIENCE. This is a rather average melodrama based on a story which has been told many times before, but chock full of action and with many a tear-jerking scene in its 80 minutes on the screen. Fine performances are given by the leading players, particularly, Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes. Pat O'Brien, who is co-starred with Ford, of course, does his usual, adequate best. Sidney Salkow, the director, pilots the thing smoothly through a rather complicated script with plenty of changes in locale. The dialogue, however, is pertinent and helps keep the shifting scenes from becoming too confusing. Producer B. P. Schulberg has given the yarn nice production. Nothing lavish, although the air scenes are more than enough to please those fans who have been trained to expect thousands of planes in air epics. The tag sequences are bristling with drama and action — probably as exciting as any crack-up shots filmed. It can be said this is truly one film that begins with a bit of a drag and winds up, after a steady climb, with a real smash finish. Pat O'Brien, a war ace (War I), and civilian air hero, crashes his plane while drunk and his co-pilot is killed. He is barred from further flying in America and is in such disgrace because of the publicity, that he can't get a job. He gives all his savings to a lawyer to be used for the education of the dead man's daughter — and leaves his own son in the custody of the same lawyer, while he goes to Dutch Guiana to fly a broken-down air line. Ten years pass during which O'Brien pays for his boy's (Glenn Ford) education and rots in the jungle. His boy thinks he is an executive. The pay-off comes when O'Brien visits his son on the eve of his marriage and they discover the girl Ford is to marry is the daughter of the man killed in O'Brien's crash. When she learns Ford's identity, she leaves him, and Ford follows his father to South America. The war comes and finds Ford an officer test pilot in the army and O'Brien 'a private, ground crew mechanic. When Ford is to test a fast plane, O'Brien learns it is faulty — and, of course, takes it off for the test himself, and is killed. There's a lot of zip in the latter part of this thing and it should please any kind of audience. CAST: Pat O'Brien, Glenn Ford, Evelyn Keyes, Jonathan Hale, Douglas Croft, Minor Watson, Frank Puglia, Edward Pawley, Gregory Gay, Clancy Cooper, Trevor Bardette, Marcel Dalio, John Gallaudet, Larry Parks, Lloyd Bridges, Hugh Beaumont. CREDITS: Producer, B. P. Schulberg; Director, Sidney Salkow; Authors, Richard Carroll and Betty Hopkins; Screenplay, Michael Blankfort; Cameraman, Franz F. Planer; Editor, Charles Nelson; Art Director, Lionel Banks; Associate, Cary Odell; Music, Werner R. Heymann; Musical Director, M. W. Stoloff. DIRECTION, Smart. PHOTOGRAPHY, Okay. H€LLy>V€€D SPEAKING" — By RALPH WILK —HOLLYWOOD kiETRO has acquired screen rights of IVI "White Cliffs of Dover," poem i'n, Alice Duer Miller. Clarence Brown h'. been engaged by the company to direct, and Sidney Franklin will produce. • • D KO will distribute Edward A. Golden's ' * production of "Education for Death," by Gregor Ziemer. Pic starts shooting Aug. 10. • • k/jARK HELLINGER will produce a bi'▼' ographical film based on the life of Helen Morgan, having closed a deal with the late torch singer's mother. Ann Sheridan is expected to be Warners' choice for the Morgan role. • • DRODUCER-DI RECTOR Leo McCarey and • his "Once Upon A Honeymoon" company have returned to RKO from Universal where they used an already-existing interior set in order to conserve on set costs. • • kiETRO has exercised its option on Di'"' rector David Miller, who has been on loan-out to Republic making "Flying Tigers," the story of the American Volunteer Group in China skies. Miller plans a flying trip to New York to look over current Broadway offerings. • • SCENARIST-HUMORIST Jack Douglas and RKO are discussing a long-term deal whereby Douglas will move to that lot following fulfillment of his current freelance commitment revising a script for M-G-M. • • OARAMOUNT-PRODUCER Richard Blum' enthal, who is now preparing "The Crystal Ball" for production, will be the subject of the first of the series of profiles on "Movie Makers" now being written for a national weekly by Arthur Steinberg, Jr. • ' • ON his return from the East where he is making p.a.'s in connection with War Bonds and Stamps, Charlie Ruggles will report to Columbia where he will confer regarding a proffered role in a forthcoming musical. • • DARAMOUNT-SCENARIST Virginia Van * Upp has been assigned to write the screenplay of "Adopt A Pilot," from the original by Elizabeth Meehan. The story is built around the Government's campaign to rehabilitate rejected applicants to the Air Corps. • • JEAN-PIERRE AUMONT, French stage *' and screen star, who played opposite Katherine Cornell in the stage production, "Rose Burke," has been signed to a Metro contract. Aumont served with the French Army until the fall of France. • • PARAMOUNT has signed Dick Powell to ' a term contract. His first picture under the pact will be "Very Hot in Haiti," with Marjorie Reynolds, Victor Moore and Betty Hutton.