Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

7 «vfo ***&>* o-P oe *V $e<^ THE fair-haired boy in all Hollywood at the moment is a dapper, dashing Walter Wanger. Since "Algiers" made him a million dollars and Hedy Lamarr the number-one glamour girl of the screen, the question is — "What will Wanger do next?" We make finding out the first order of business on our monthly set of merry-go-round, because the predicament of Joan Bennett's favorite producer pretty neatly sums up the situation of Hollywood in general at this point. Wanger had two strikes of uninspired pictures on him when he slammed out the "Algiers" hit. The rest of Hollywood, too, has just climbed out of the worst slump in years with a bunch of circuit smashes like "Marie Antoinette," "Four Daughters," "Boys Town," "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Sing, You Sinners," and "You Can't Take It With You." But the question mark still looms big — "What next?" More Hollywood hits or strike-outs? Can the studios keep up the pace? The only place to answer that is right on the movie sets, right now. At Wanger's we find "Trade Winds" blowing up what Walter hopes to be a box-office hurricane. When we see Director Tay Garnett giving Freddie March orders with his famous cane, we aren't too surprised to learn that "Trade Winds" really started shooting some three years ago when Tay and a picked Hollywood crew skippered his boat, the "Athene," around the Orient shooting pictures of everything in sight, remember? On the 70,000 feet of bona fide travel film and a Hollywood-concocted, love-adventure-chase story rests the follow-up fate of Walter Wanger productions. Fredric March is a combination of Don Juan and Sherlock Holmes, who trails pseudo-mur wr movie-go-rounder proves that 'Motion Pictures Are Your Best En tertainment" with the latest news of circuit-smashers in the making BY JACK WADE deress Joan Bennett across half the globe in this one. Before he gets his woman he leaves a path of broken hearts in Honolulu, Tokio, Shanghai, Singapore and points East. You'd never call making movies work if you could see Freddie as we catch him when we arrive, surrounded by cute little Japanese geisha girls with obi bustles and patent-leather coiffures. They hand him cups of saki, fan his fevered brow and croon Nipponese nifties in his ear. When they finally tear him away from the slant-eyed charmers — and it's a job — we watch a long scene where Master-Mind March uncovers fugitive Joan's trail from Tokio. In the middle, Ralph Bellamy, playing a dumb, thickheaded flatfoot, breaks in with a loud off-stage voice. Every time, right after this, Freddie blows his lines. And every time Ralph kids him. Finally, after his third blow-up, Freddie falls over in a surprised geisha's lap. "I know what I need," he announces calmly. "More money!" A yelp comes from the sound-stage door. It's Walter Wanger himself. "More money?" he sputters. "Why I ought to dock your wages!" The situation has all the elements of a European crisis, so we ease out and over to Selznick (Still Gone-With-the-Wind) International, where we're told Carole Lombard and Jimmy Stewart are "Made For Each Other." We amble right in for a look at Selznick's semi-windup before the eternal main event — "Wind" — as they call it now around the lot. "Made For Each Other" marks Carole's return to the straight dramatics after a series of eccentric assignments. It presents her as a female scribbler whom fame suddenly snaps by the skirts when she writes a best-seller novel. This pretty well gums up her marriage with Jimmy when success, wealth and adulation change her life. But you ought to know love always wins out in the end. Oddly enough, Carole's script name in this is her real name, Jane Peters. We watch Director John Cromwell try to get just the right scene out of Carole and Jimmy. It's after they've been married and they're packing for the honeymoon boat. Before every take, a make-up man runs up to Jimmy and wipes the lipstick off his face. Carole is generous with the stuff when she kisses. They're about set to go when the same make-up man yells "Stop!" like a jilted lover at the altar. Carole whirls with a resigned look, "Am I shiny again?" she asks. He nods and fluffs powder all over her frown. It's very hard, for some reason, for Carole to say "Very nice" with just the right ring to it. The rest of her lines roll out in apple-pie order but the "very nice" is very bad. "Maybe I'm not 'very nice'," she finally cracks. "Oh, yes you are," says Jimmy, "or I wouldn't kiss you." "You're getting paid for it," Carole comes back very nicely. Any time anyone gets the last word with Lombard! 54