Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1951)

( Continued from page 26) this entertaining comedy built around their exploits in and out of foxholes. Tom Ewell and David Wayne not only look like Mauldin’s characters but bring out characterizations remarkably in keeping with the wry humor of the popular cartoons. The story revolves around the bitterly fought Italian campaign of World War II, with Willie and Joe keeping squads of M.P.s constantly busy in futile attempts to keep them out of trouble. Italian actress Marina Berti plays a Neopolitan siren; Richard Egan, an army sergeant and Jeffrey Lynn, an eager beaver officer who has plans of winning the war all by himself. Your Reviewer Says: Fine fun. Program Notes: “Up Front,” say the U-I experts, is conclusive proof that the cost of war making has risen proportionately to the cost of making war itself. Back in the “All Quiet on the Western Front” days a machine gun cost about $10 for the entire production. Today a machine gun rents for $75 a week, not including ammunition. The ammunition for Willie and Joe alone in defending their foxhole cost $150 a minute. David Wayne and Tom Ewell ( the last time they appeared together was in “Adam’s Rib”) are New York actors who are being wooed handsomely by Hollywood. David has moved in lock, stock and barrel with his attractive wife and children, even signed a long-term contract with 20th Century-Fox. But Tom still isn’t particularly attached to Hollywood and commutes from his twenty-acre Bucks County farm in Pennsylvania. But he’s weakening— he’s signed a contract with U-l for two pictures a year, following his big success as Willie . . . Marina Berti flew to Hollywood from Rome the day after she finished her role in “Quo Vadis.” No, she is not Bob Taylor’s Italian girl friend. She is happily married to an Italian actor-director, Claudio Gora, and they have two boys. She has only been in one other American film, “Deported,” which was partially shot in Italy. V'V'V' (F) Lullaby of Broadway (Warners) > DORIS DAY and Gene Nelson are teamed in this cheery musical. Gene’s dance numbers are exciting and expertly done — and the boy is quite an actor. Doris sings in her usual charming manner, joins Gene occasionally in a dance and looks stunning in Technicolor. A good supporting cast includes Gladys George as Doris’s mother, an alcoholic cafe singer whom Doris thinks is a bigtime Broadway star. S. Z. Sakall plays a wealthy brewer who backs shows, Florence Bates, his wife, Billy de Wolfe and Ann Triola an out-ofwork vaudeville team. Your Reviewer Says: Easy on the eyes, the ears and the mind. Program Notes: Doris Day bought Martha Raye’s home in Toluca Lake last year, removed the mirrors and the bar, and is now living like a movie star for the first time in her career. Her mother and son live with her and any minute she’ll be a bride again . . . Gene Nelson is a Los Angeles boy who was a high hurdler and high jumper at school. Later he became a featured ice skater and graduated from that to musical comedy. He was spotted in “Lend an Ear,” a revue Bill Eythe produced in Hollywood, and signed by Warners. (F) The Fat Man (U-I) FRESH from the whodunits of the air waves comes 260-pounder J. Scott Smart, called Jack. Jack, as a sort of Nero Wolfe detective, except that he’d rather Charleston than raise orchids, is given quite a baffling case to solve. A Beverly Hills dentist is murdered in New York and the dentist’s nurse (Jayne Meadows) reports the only thing stolen is an X-ray of the teeth of a mysterious young man (Rock Hudson). The Fat Man with his Man Friday (Clinton Sundberg) takes the plane for L. A. and between gargantuan meals does a fine bit of sleuthing. Involved are a night-club entertainer (Julie London), a batch of millionaires who don’t want to be questioned about a racetrack robbery, and a very sad circus clown (Emmett Kelly). No fair telling who the murderer is. Your Reviewer Says: Not good, not bad. Program Notes: Emmett Kelly, known as “the king of circus clowns,” was for many years a star of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus . . . The best way to get into pictures these days, it seems, is to get a whodunit radio program, or so says Jack Smart who is well known to radio audiences. Preceding him in films were Howard Duff, radio’s Sam Spade; Jeff Chandler of Michael Shayne fame; Frank Love joy of the “Night Beat” airer, and Jack Webb of “Dragnet” . . . Jack Smart, who has done the “Fat Man” radio show since 1946, keeps happy by eating what he likes, cooking what he eats, playing the bull fiddle and dancing the Charleston. When he is in the East he lives in a fisherman’s shack in Maine and flies to New York each week for his broadcasts . . . Diminutive Julie London is married to Jack Webb who got his first good picture break in “The Men.” Julie claims that movies are a hobby with her now. Her real job is making a home for her husband and their year-old daughter . . . Twenty-fiveyear-old Rock Hudson was formerly a mail man in his home town of Winetka, Illinois. After he served a hitch in the Navy during the war he decided to have a fling at Hollywood. Universal has signed him on a long term contract, and has promised him a big he-man build-up. Hedda Hopper, who daily reports to thirty million readers in America and eight foreign countries, now reports to you on the air "the hedda hopper show” Every Sunday Coast to Coast on NBC * 5 to 5:30 Pacific Coast Time • 8 to 8:30 Eastern Standard Time CLOSED it's purse size LIPSTICK in new lip-width Go ahead and try it . . . just for « the beauty of it, ..just for5 softer, smoother, more exciting lips. WHIP-TEXT to stay on longer... and perfumed with Irresistible fragrance. All the advantages of a pencil plus extra strength in the lipwidth "shorty." PLACE THE CAP on the base and presto, it’s the long length size Fresh. ..fragrant... smooth all over with PM* HIST TALCUM t Keeps you cool, dainty in hottest weather. Smooths as it soothes . . . and prevents chafing. P 29