Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1948)

p hm cm Center This month’s cover honor goes to M-G-M’s Greer Garson. The beautiful and talented star has just finished her new picture, "A Woman Of My Own”. They say the M-G-M lot has been tingling with excitement over the picture for many reasons — Garson’s prize winning performance — the unusual story — and the auspicious screen debut of new leading man Richard Hart. ■fc Greer has an especially strong feeling for her role as a young French war widow, since she, herself, attended school in France, and spent her childhood summers in just such a small Normandy coastal village as the one which serves as locale for the picture. She was doubly delighted when M-G-M decided to build a complete replica of the village right on Monterey beach — within a stone’s throw of her Pebble Beach home! Miss Garson is tremendously elated over "A Woman Of My Own” and very much impressed with newcomer Richard Hart. She agrees with Director George Cukor that the story ". . . will be remembered as the greatest love story of World War II”, and that Richard Hart will more than justify M-G-M’s faith in him. Hart was so terrific as the witch hoy an the Broadway production "Dark Of The Moon” that M-G-M signed him without a test and rushed him out to Hollywood. He had never been in front of a camera when he screen-tested with Miss Garson for the picture, and the next morning he had the part! •fr So is it any wonder that there’s a glow of visible happiness emanating from the First Lady of the Screen? The plaudits are still resounding for her grand performance with Clark Gable in "Adventure” — and she is deluged with praise for her new picture, which, from all reports, may bring forth another "Oscar” to place on her mantlepiece. hjL*t M'G'M ■&i£r # "A WOMAN OF MY OWN" # latter atte r By Lester Gottlieb A streamlined check list of recordings recreating the favorite melodies from the latest motion pictures Xavier Cugat enVy. (Columbia). NELSON EDDY: An album dedicated to "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met,” the amphibious antics remembered from Disney’s "Make Mine Music.” The big baritone gives it an amusing rendition, aware of the ready-made kid audience (Columbia). GENE KELLY: Not to be outdone, nimble-footed Kelly abandons his tapping shoes momentarily to record a pair of kindergarten epics, "Peter Rabbit” and "The Little Red Hen.” Kids who share their time with the nursery and the neighborhood movie house will love them while the veteran nursery performers will be Kelly-green with HOLIDAY IN MEXICO: Metro’s mammoth maraca contains a "modern bolero,” "You, So It’s You,” that will have rumba addicts shaking its praises long after the him is forgotten. The fact that Columbia has parlayed Dinah Shore and Xavier Cugat, one of the film’s original players, for a joint recording, indicates the song’s potential. LONDON TOWN: To insure acceptance here from movie-goers, this forthcoming Eagle-Lion British Technicolor import has a brace of tunes Hollyworded by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen, Bing Crosby’s favorite composers. Charlie Spivak (Victor) has recorded the songs, "So Would I” and "My Heart Goes Crazy” and they make for pleasant listening. SKITCH HENDERSON: Bing Crosby’s distinctive piano soloist gives a free and easy Steinwayward improvisation of the title song from the Fox musical, "If I’m Lucky.” (Capitol). DEAD RECKONING: This Columbia melodrama costars Humphrey Bogart and Lizabeth Scott and the studio tunesmiths have fashioned an appropriate theme melody, "Either It’s Love Or It Isn’t,” which Phil Brito (Musicraft) and The Pied Pipers (Capitol) have readily recorded. • THE SHOCKING MISS PILGRIM: You haven’t heard the last from the recorded music makers as far as this Betty Grable-Fox film is concerned. Artie Shaw (Musicraft) spins two post-humous Gershwin songs, "Changing My Tune” and "For You, for Me,” while sultry Peggy Lee sings "Aren’t You Kind of Glad We Did?” Capitol-ly. THE CLASSICAL CORNER: The stately and vigorous Haydn Symphony No. 97, written in the last period of the composer’s life, is excellently recorded by the London Philharmonic with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting (Victor) . . . For Victor Herbert fans (and who aren’t?) Victor has just issued a lovely collection with Met soprano Dorothy Kirsten singing "Kiss Me Again,” "Moonbeams” and "Indian Summer” . . . The sombre but ever interesting Schumann Symphony No. 1 is flawlessly interpreted by Erich Leinsdorff and the Cleveland Orchestra (Columbia) . . . Ballet music with a Spanish influence can be found in Massenet’s Le Cid Ballet Suite waxed by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston "Pops” (Victor) . . . The celebrated Don Cossack Chorus sing lustily in a new Columbia album wrapping up their best liked numbers including, of course, "Two Guitars” and "Dark Eyes” . . . The young Negro contralto, Carol Brice, who has a fine future ahead, sings "Songs of a Wayfarer” (Columbia) a collection of lieder songs by Mahler that reveals a positive trained voice. The Pittsburgh Symphony accompanies the singer. 22