Modern Screen (Aug-Dec 1943)

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NAME ADDRESS nothing like » jretty young heiress, Brad always thinks, but his style is considerably cramped by Flossie (Carole Landis) who saw him first and wants no muscleinners. Besides, Skip is right there to protect Freddie's interests while Freddie is busy putting on the big ice show. Nora is a super hit in the show — everyone says she's as good as Sonja Henie! She gets an offer to star on Broadway, and since she thinks Freddie is giving her the runaround, she agrees to marry Brad and go to New York. But Flossie has something to say about that — and Skip — and, at long last, Freddie! So there you are, chums, head over heels in a snowdrift. Feeling cooler? — 20th-Fox. P. S. Sonja, who is a world champion skater and has won the Olympic skating honors three times, has another champion as a co-worker in "Wintertime." Cornel Wilde holds 22 fencing championships. Sonja studied fencing from him during the shooting of the picture with an eye toward future ice numbers. . . . Sonja's favorite pastime of playing cupid (75% of her original troupe are married to one another) had to be discontinued for the duration. There was only one eligible man left in the cast, and he was drafted at the close of the picture. Ninety percent of her original male troupe is in the service. Henie has made two U. S. tours since Pearl Harbor. Has to give professional performances but always buys 500 to 2,000 seats each performance for servicemen — has given 110,000 soldiers, sailors and Marines free tickets to her ice exhibitions! THE SKY'S THE LIMIT The first time Fred Astaire saw Joan Leslie on the screen he said, "There's my new dancing partner." Fred got his way, and when you see him with Joan in "The Sky's The Limit," you'll heave a sigh and say, "This is it!" It's the kind of show most of us are looking for these days, anyway. All about an ex-Flying Tiger who is back in America to join the Naval Air Service. But it's far from a war picture. The story takes place in the interim between the welcome-home-heroes parade and the day Fred Atwell (Fred Astaire) has to shove off in a bomber for Australia. An awfully short interim it is, too, with Fred marking the days on his calendar and trying to straighten out his love life before he leaves. Not that his love life is complicated — in numbers, at least. It's all tied up with one girl, a beauty named Jean (Joan Leslie), who takes pictures for a magazine. As soon as Fred sees her, he starts trying to get into the pictures. Unfortunately he has shed his uniform for a cowboy get-up which, while it rescues him from parades, impresses nobody, least of all Jean. She gives him the brush, but he keeps turning up in odd places, including her own kitchenette. Eventually she is fascinated by this combination of nerve and romance, and by now Fred has fallen deeply in love with her. However, he thinks she would be better off married to her boss, Harriman (Robert Benchley), the solid citizen type. Jean feels that two hundred pounds is almost too solid, and anyway, she loves Fred. But guys who ferry bombers to Australia are apt suddenly to have widows, and Fred decides to duck out and let her forget him. Harriman figures out the set-up, and you'll like the way he plays Cupid. In $1 FOR YOUR THOUGHTS We love getting letters. Who doesn't? But unlike other people, we're offering you an out-and-out bribe. Send us a letter containing an inside story about a movie star, and we'll mail you $1, if we use it. Naturally, it must be a TRUE story about a Hollywood star whom you've rubbed shoulders with or pursued for an autograph. Send us as many as you like, and for each one we use, you get $1. We'd better tell you in advance that we may edit or revise any story we use and will return your letter only if you send along a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Hop to it, and mail your incident today to Modern Screen, 149 Madison Ave, New York, 16, N. Y. fact, you'll like the whole thing, especially Fred's dance on the bar, which is breath-taking, even for Astair. — RKO. P. S. Fred Astaire's trickiest dance routine was the glass-breaking number. Truly dangerous, the dance involved kicking over and breaking more than 3,000 glasses and bottles and hurling a bar stool through a huge mirror. One slip and Mr. A. would have been seriously injured, but he came through rehearsals and six actual takes without a scratch . . . Joan Lesie became 18 just ten days after the picture began, which meant she didn't have to take time out for formal schooling. She spent all her spare time studying, anyway, preparing herself for entrance exams at U.C.L.A. . . . Bob Benchley wrote a great deal of his own dialogue and is solely responsible for the speech he makes on "Bottlenecks." Did weeks of research for it. ATTACK BY NIGHT How long do you think a member of the Underground lives? In Norway the average is six months. But the Norwegians are a realistic people — they know they must meet force with force even though some of them die. Nicole (Merle Oberon), the heroine of "Attack By Night" is like that. She has worked for the Underground a year now. It's inevitable that soon suspicion will fall on her, but she goes on with her job. It's a particularly disagreeable job, too. She has had to become the "friend" of the German Commandant, Major Dichter (Carl Esmond). She has thus obtained important information which the local oculist sends out written on spectacles, in invisible ink. But her own people consider her a traitor. Eventually Nicole realizes that Dichter suspects her, and the Underground sends word to London. A British Commando is sent over to dispose of Dichter. The Commando is Colonel Alan Lowell (Brian Aherne) who is chosen because he knows that locality well. He also knows Nicole well — they were in love, before the war called Alan back to England. They are still in love now, and when Alan is wounded and captured, Nicole desperately smuggles him out of the hospital and to her own house. But Dichter has grown more suspicious. The net is closing in. Unexpectedly he tells her that they are to be married on Thursday night. Nicole is (Continued on page 14) 12 MODERN SCREEN