Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

October, 1 945 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE 41 is said to have been completed. Michael Balcon, seasoned British film expert, announces that his leading production this season will be Nicholas Nickleby, being directed by Cavalcanti, noted for his documentaries, including the powerful North Sea. Cavalcanti is reproducing faithfully the Queen Victoria era and the classic gallery of fantastic Nickleby characters — S mike, Noggs, Squeers, the Crummies, the Mantalinis. Two producers are vying for the right to screen Bleak House. Mr. Pascal is planning to go sentimental with a picturization of Old Curiosity Shop, in which Vivien Leigh would interpret Little Nell anew. Korda has for some time been planning to launch a specatcular production of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. He has also in preparation the screening of Arnold Bennett’s Old Wives’ Tale. A screen play dealing with the life of Shakespeare and the lusty and rowdy Elizabethan era has been prepared by Ben Hecht in this country for production by Paul Soskin in England. A Canterbury Tale, produced, directed, and scripted by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, a notable team, is soon to be shown here. It is a rendering into modern idiom of Chaucer’s classic tale of pilgrims traveling England’s oldest road, from London to Canterbury, to do penance in springtime. In the screen play there are only four pilgrims instead of 29. One of them is an American, whose pilgrimage is an unwilling one. He comes to understand the English character and to appreciate the loveliness of the English countryside. The part is played by John Sweet, who in America was a teacher and who went to England as a sergeant in the U. S. Army. He was chosen for the role by a lucky chance and is said to give the film’s greatest performance. A modern version of Hamlet is to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock, master of melodrama, with Cary Grant as the star. It will be made in Hollywood as soon as an unnamed professor at an English university completes the script. This Hamlet will be “a modern man with Hamlet’s problems.” Students of film appreciation will enjoy comparing the film with the original play and with Shakespeare’s sources. MGM has completed a powerful screen version of W. L. White’s They Were Expendable, directed by John Ford, winner of two Academy Awards (one for How Green Was My Valley) and erstwhile a commander in the U. S. Navy. The part of Lieutenant Brickley is played by Robert Montgomery, who himself commanded torpedo boats in the South Pacific. Metro plans a Technicolor version of Uncle Toni’s Cabin, with Margaret O’Brien as Little Eva and Lena Horne as Eliza. Two previous versions have been made, one by Paramount in 1917 and one by Universal in 1927. W. H. Hudson’s hauntingly beautiful fantasy. Green Mansions, will be brought to the screen at last by MGM, under the supervision of experienced Pandro Berman. Some years ago, RKO submitted two scripts of this subject to a committee of the National Council of Teachers of English for comment. The present writer, as chairman of that committee, reported violent differences of opinion as to the suitability of the proposed treatments. The project was abandoned, and RKO sold the screen rights to James Cassidy for a pittance. MGM, appreciating the possibilities, is reported to have paid Cassidy $150,000 for the rights. The autobiography of an artist and actress. Silly Girl, by Angna Enters, has been acquired by MGM. The youthful period of Miss Enters might well be played by Margaret O’Brien. Warner Bros, is planning a film biography of Winston Churchill, dealing with his early life, to be made in England. Warners is also readying a new version of Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, directed by Edmund Goulding. Completed by Warners, but not released, is Devotion, a story of the Bronte sisters in which Olivia de Havilland plays Charlotte, Ida Lupine plays Emily, and Nancy Coleman plays Anne. Among other notable parts is Sidney Greenstreet’s Thackeray. The Warner studio has on its list of forthcoming subjects the Rogers Hart musical version of Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, Henrik Ibsen’s Pillars of Society, and Fanny Hurst’s Humoresque. Walt Disney has in work cartoon-and-live-action versions of Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus and Hans Christian Anderson’s The Emperor and the Nightingale. Marc Connelly is doing the script for the latter. The Republic studio is completing an ambitious picture based on the life of Mozart, for which Arthur Rubinstein made notable sound tracks. Paramount will soon release Two Years Before the Mast, based on the Richard Henry Dana novel. Directed by John Farrow, one of the best filmers of sea stories (he has rendered notable service in the British Navy as a commander) , the film sails pretty close to Dana’s yarn. It has been livened up with pointed climaxes along the 15,000 miles from Brazil, ’round