Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1952)

DICK WESSON, Ruth Roman, Janice Rule and all-star cast in gay musical based on Hollywood’s service entertainment units ^ (F) Starlift (Warners) REGARD this, please, as a good deed movie. It tells of the morale building the Hollywood stars do for servicemen leaving for and returning from the Korean front at Travis Air Force Base, Fairfield, California. Entertainment mingles pleasantly with reality. And romance is heightened by actual scenes of embarkation and debarkation. Such stars as Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, Jane Wyman, Virginia Mayo, Gene Nelson, Ruth Roman, James Cagney, Gary Cooper, Frank Lovejoy, Patrice Wymore, Phil Harris and Randolph Scott play themselves. Janice Rule and Ron Hagerthy provide the romance, Janice playing a Hollywood starlet and Ron a young corporal and member of the crew flying troops back and forth between the base and Honolulu. When his buddy, Dick Wesson, leads Janice to believe he and Ron are off to the front, she tenderly kisses Ron farewell and Louella Parsons prints news of a romance. When Janice discovers the truth, the romance pops higher than a champagne cork. Between sessions of the stormy love affair, Doris, Jane and Gordon sing, Janice and Gene dance and Gary, Frank and Phil cut capers. Your Reviewer Says: A good deed well done. Program Notes: Visits by Hollywood personalities to Travis Air Base are now a iveekly event. They had their inception when Ruth Roman first visited the field over a year ago. When Louella Parsons and other stars became interested in the project, producer Jack Warner immediately began production on “Starlift.” Backgrounds for the film were photographed on the base. Included were scenes of the flight line, evacuation of patients from a C-97, the terminal cafeteria, the base theatre and hospital. Brigadier General Joe W . Kelly, division commander, gave the weekly flight from Burbank to Travis Field its name, “Operation Starlift” and was a frequent visitor throughout the shooting. Major George E, Andrews acted as technical adviser . . . Janice Rule makes her debut in the film, coming directly from the Broadway stage , . . Young Hagerthy, a local boy, played Frank Lovejoy’ s son in “l Was a Communist for the FBI” and icon a contract for his work in this one. • SHADOW / OUTSTANDING ' ' GOOD / FAIR WHEN HEDY LAMARR mistakes burlesque clown, Bob Hope, for a foreign agent — the fun takes on an international flavor ^ (F) My Favorite Spy (Paramount) THIS is a Bob Hope movie so need we say more? If so, we can say it in two words — Hedy Lamarr. With Beauty and old Scoop Face as a team it doesn’t matter much what the story is about. But briefly, Bob is a burlesque clown who is called upon by government agents to impersonate an international spy who could pass for his double. Or vice versa. The dangerous adventure takes our hero to Tangiers and straight into the arms of glamour Lamarr. Any resemblance to sanity in any department of the story from then on is strictly a coincidence but who cares? It’s funny, it’s entertaining and you’ll probably love it. The ending is funnier than an old time slap-stick comedy with Bob swinging in the breeze from the end of a fire-truck ladder. Your Reviewer Says: Go on, split a gusset, what do you care? Program Notes: Hope left for England the minute the film was finished to make personal appearances at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London for an English charity. He later flew to Germany and France where he entertained our troops . . . Johnny Mercer and Robert Emmett Dolan wrote the “I Wind Up Taking a Fall” number and Jay Livingston and Ray Evans composed “Just a Moment More” which Hedy sings — and for the first time on the screen. Francis L. Sullivan, the ample Englishman who plays the villain, was so broken up by Hope’s antics he could scarcely get through his scenes . . . Mike Mazurki interrupted an exhibition wrestling tour to fly to Hollywood for the role of Monkara, one of Sullivan’s henchmen. Mazurki, who began his wrestling career in 1935, has alternated from camera to canvas ever since . . . Hank Hope, Bob’s nephew, made his final appearance before the camera as a foreign agent, before reporting for active duty with the Army. Hank hopes there’s nothing prophetic about the fact he gets considerably bumped off in his Uncle Bob’s film. For Complete Casts of Current Pictures See Page 87. For Best Pictures of the Month and 22