Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1943)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD December 18, I 943 THE RACKET MAN (Columbia) PRODUCER: John Stone. ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Wallace McDonald. DIRECTOR: D. Ross Lederman. PLAYERS: Tom Neal, Jeanne Bates, Larry Parks, Shelly Winter, Lewis Wilson, Clarence Muse. WAR DRAMA. An ex-gangster goes into the Army where he is regenerated. He is mustered out on a confidential assignment and returns to his racket with a plan for cleaning up a black market gang. Working in conjunction with the FBI he gets the goods on the crowd and shoots it out with a former gangster pal, only to have death end his career. MILLION DOLLAR KID (Monogram) PRODUCERS: Sam Katzman, Jack Dietz. DIRECTOR: Wallace Fox. PLAYERS: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and the East Side Kids, Louise Currie, Iris Adrian, Noah Beery, Robert Grieg, Patsy Moran, Pat Costello. KIDS TURN BOY SCOUT. The East Side Kids save an elderly man from being severely beaten by hoodlums. They discover that one of the attackers is the son of the wealthy man. They step in and straighten out the youth and clean up the hoodlum gang. SWINGTIME JOHNNY (Universal) PRODUCER: Warren Wilson. DIRECTOR: Edward F. Cline. PLAYERS: Andrews Sisters, Harriet Hilliard, Peter Cookson, Tim Ryan, Matt Willis, Bill Phillips, Mitch Ayres and his orchestra. COMEDY WITH MUSIC. Jonathan Chadwick converts his pipe organ concern into a shell casing plant, hiring Sparks to be production manager. The Andrews Sisters and Mitch Ayres and his band abandon the stage to work in the plant. The vocalist finds Sparks plotting sabotage and awakens Chadwick from his lethargy to foil the plot and win the girl. FOUR JILLS AND A JEEP (20th-century Fox) PRODUCER: Irving Starr. DIRECTOR: William A. Seiter. PLAYERS: Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye, Mitzi Mayfair, John Harvey, Dick Haymes, Phil Silvers, Jimmy Dorsey and his band, Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda. MORALE MUSICAL. The story of the entertainment tour of the four girls, Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye and Mitzi Mayfair, plus romance for all with servicemen they meet overseas woven through the plot. The story actually traces some of the adventures the girls had on their six months' tour to England and North Africa in 1942-43. HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN (Warners) PRODUCER: Jesse L. Lasky. DIRECTOR: Delmer Daves. PLAYERS: Bette Davis, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith, Dane Clark, Bob Hutton, and many stars from other studios. MUSICAL. A true story of the Hollywood Canteen and the part it has played in providing recreation for the thousands of servicemen to whom Hollywood is a shining goal. In addition to all the ingredients that go to make the Hollywood Canteen a spot the boys remember when they are fighting on the far-flung battle fronts, a bit of romantic interest will be woven through the picture. Actual entertainment and fun provided for the boys will be highlights of the film. WILSON (20th Century-Fox) PRODUCER: Darryl F. Zanuck. DIRECTOR: Henry King. PLAYERS: Alexander Knox, Charles Coburn, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Mary Anderson, William Eythe, Ruth Ford, Ruth Nelson, Stanley Ridges, Madeleine Forbes, James Rennie, J. M. Kerrigan, Charles Halton, Annie O'Neal, Thurston Hall. DRAMA. This is a story of the life of President Woodrow Wilson, World War I chief executive, from the time he was head of Princeton to his death. It traces his campaigns for the presidency, the elections, and his problems as commander-in-chief during the strenuous war years. It depicts his efforts in behalf of the League of Nations, his retirement and subsequent death. WEEKEND PASS (Universal) PRODUCER: Warren Wilson. DIRECTOR: Jean Yarbrough. PLAYERS: Martha O'Driscoll, Noah Beery, Jr., Leo Diamond Quartet, Mayris Chaney, George Barbier. COMEDY-DRAMA. Johnny Adams, a shipyard worker, receives a bonus and a weekend off. He plans to spend it quietly in the country, but instead becomes entagled with Babs Lake, daughter of a traditional Navy family. She wants to be a WAC instead of a WAVE and has disappeared until she becomes 21. A series of wild and ludicrous adventures follow with Johnny spending the most adventuresome weekend of his life and being branded as Babs' kidnapper before he manages to extricate himself from the mess. TILL WE MEET AGAIN (Paramount) PRODUCER: David Lewis. DIRECTOR: Frank Borzage. PLAYERS: Ray MiUand, Maureen O'Hara, Lucile Watson, Walter Selzak, Vladimir Sokoloff, Konstantin Shayne. ROMANTIC WAR DRAMA. This is a story of the French underground with a romantic theme woven through it. A young American aviator parachutes to safety in Nazi occupied France and is hidden in a French convent by the Mother Superior and her gardener, both members of the underground. A young novice in the convent believes they are foolhardy, but when a Nazi officer causes the Mother Superior to be slain she takes the older woman's place in the underground movement. She arranges for the aviator, with whom she has fallen in love, to escape from France, but is herself shot when the Nazis discover her duplicity. CASANOVA IN BURLESQUE (Republic) PRODUCER: Albert J. Cohen. DIRECTOR: Les Goodwins. PLAYERS: Joe E. Brown, June Havoc, Dale Evans, Roger Imhof, Marjorie Gateson, Andrew Tombes, Sugar Geise. ROMANTIC COMEDY. Joe E. Brown leads a double life. He is a respected Shakspearean authority and college professor in the winter months but a hit burlesque dancer known as Casanova Kelly, just as his father was before him, during the summer months. June Havoc is a strip-tease artist who yearns to play Shakespeare and wear a cloak of respectability. She blackmails Casanova Kelly into giving her a lead role in his production for a Shakespearean Festival. He burlesques "The Taming of the Shrew," the girl makes a big hit as does the production and they find indications of happiness in love. THE VOODOO MAN (Monogram) PRODUCERS: Sam Katzman, Jack Dietz. DIRECTOR: William Beaudine. PLAYERS: Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, George Zucco, Michael Ames, Clare James, Wanda McKay, Ellen Hall, Louise Currie. HORROR DRAMA. Lugosi plays the part of a Voodoo doctor who has kept his wife alive for 20 years as a Zombie. He is frantically seeking a soul mate for her because he believes he can return the woman to a normal state. He picks up girls, transfers their vitality to his wife, only to have her regain normalcy for brief moments. Lie finally finds one he is sure is right, but his assistant, John Carradine, falls in love with her, frustrates the Voodoo doctor and wins the girl. MARSHAL OF GUNSMOKE (Universal) ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Oliver Drake. DIRECTOR: Vernon Keays. PLAYERS: Tex Ritter, Russell Hayden, Fuzzy Knight, Jennifer Holt, Herbert Rawlinson, Harry Woods, Johnny Bond and his Red River Valley Boys. WESTERN DRAMA. Tex Ritter is called to Gunsmoke by the town's leading banker to cleanup a lawless gang. Tex's brother, a young attorney, is cleaned out in a river boat poker game with the outlaw chief who then employs him to defend one of his henchman accused of murder. He clears the outlaw but manages to prove he's not connected with the gang in spite of his romance with the prima donna of the outlaw chief's Palace D'Or. Together with Tex, he helps clean up the gang. GREENWICH VILLAGE (20th Century-Fox) PRODUCER: William LeBaron. DIRECTOR: Lewis Milestone. PLAYERS: Don Ameche, Carmen Miranda, William Bendix, Vivian Blaine, Tony and Sally de Marco, The Revuers, B. S. Pully, Frank Orth. MUSICAL COMEDY. This story laid in New York in the roaring twenties is filmed in Technicolor. It deals with a young man from Kansas who comes to the city with his concerto seeking a famous conductor to play it at Carnegie Hall. Through a series of adventures, he becomes involved with a Greenwich Village group, falls in love with a youthful singer, and agrees to lift parts of his concerto and adapt it to the popular form. In the meantime another bilks him of his money under the pretext that he is going to get his concerto played at Carnegie Hall. The Village crowd recover his money and his concerto is played as the opening of a big musical show presented by them. NINE GIRLS (Columbia) PRODUCER: Sam Bischoff. DIRECTOR: Leigh Jason. PLAYERS: Ann Harding, Evelyn Keyes, Jinx Falkenburg, Anita Louise, Nina Foch, Jeff Donnell, Lynn Merrick, Leslie Brooks, Edgar Buchanan, William Demarest, Marcia Mae Jones, Shirley Mills. MURDER MYSTERY. Nine members of an exclusive girl's sorority are enroute to a hunting lodge to stage an initiation when one, the president who has enemies amongst the other eight, is murdered. They are all under suspicion except the new pledges. Clever detective work reveals the true murderer, the teacher-chaperon. The crime was promoted, she confesses, by the girl having wrecked the murderess's chances of marrying the victim s father. I 676 Product Digest Section