The Moon-Spinners (Disney) (1964)

BROADWAY’S ELI WALLACH IN FIRST WALT DISNEY ROLE Eli Wallach, a method actor who has long been one of Broadway’s most admired dramatic performers, is rapidly achieving the same reputation in Hollywood. Currently starring with Hayley Mills, Irene Papas, Pola Negri and Peter McEnery in Walt Disney’s suspensemystery, “The MoonSpinners,” Wallach won Broadway’s highest honors — the Antoinette Perry and Donaldson Awards — before appearing in his first motion picture, “Baby Doll.” Although he now intentionally alternates between stage, screen and television work to “exercise all my acting muscles,” the talented performer has starred in four major pictures in the past year, including “The Moon-Spinners,” “The Victors,’ “Kisses for My President,” with Fred MacMurray and Polly Bergen, and “Lord Jim” with Peter O’Toole. Wallach started out in life to become a high school teacher, but turned to acting when the New York School Board refused his application for a teacher’s permit in 19388, and he enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in Manhattan. Unlike many of his co-workers, Wallach does not want to become a director or producer, just a very good actor. Off-stage, he is candid, friendly, intelligent, articulate, vigorous, optimistic, sensitive to people and surroundings, and every inch a family man. He is of average height and weight and keeps in perfect physical shape with calisthenics and tennis. Wallach’s mobile face helps to make him one of the most versa Mat MS-1E ELI WALLACH tile actors in New York or Hollywood. Like Paul Muni, he is capable of making any character believable, and each one different from the other. His technique is to “try to get myself to a plateau where I can react to words, colors, sounds, bodily contact and other stimuli with the utmost sensitivity.” In color by Technicolor, “The Moon-Spinners” stars Hayley Mills, Wallach, Peter McEnery, Joan Greenwood and Irene Papas. Also, Pola Negri returns to the screen. Bill Anderson co-produced with Walt Disney, and Hugh Attwooll was associate producer. James Neilson directed the Buena Vista release. Walt Disney Signs Greenwood Voice And Talent for ‘The Moon-Spinners Mat MS-1F JOAN GREENWOOD Take away Joan Greenwood’s voice, and all you’ve got left is a very fine actress — a point she made as the mute heroine of the British picture, “A Girl in a Million,” a few years ago. But with her voice — and what a deep, husky, resonant, beautifully modulated one it is — the petite English leading lady makes an indelible impression. Currently starring with Hayley Mills, Eli Wallach, Pola Negri, Irene Papas and Peter McEnery in Walt Disney’s suspense-mystery, “The Moon-Spinners,”’ Miss Greenwood’s unique voice has much the same effect on audiences as that of Tallulah Bankhead. In this, her first picture for Disney, Joan uses it effectively to play a friendly English tourist who travels to Crete in search of folk song material and becomes entangled in a web of intrigue. Joan was born in Chelsea, England on March 4, the daughter of a prominent English painter, Earnshaw Greenwood. She was educated at St. Catherine’s School in Surrey, but left at 15 to study drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her first appearance on the Page 6 7 stage was in 1938 at _London’s Apollo Theatre in “The Robust Invalid.” Several leading roles followed, and in 1941 she played in her first musical revue, “Rise Above It.” Joan was discovered for the screen by the late Leslie Howard, and cast in his production, “The Gentle Sex.” Howard died before he could fulfill his plan to make her an international star, but he had a worthy successor in prominent British producer, Sydney Box. Box signed her to a long term contract and cast her in hits like “A Girl in a Million,” “The Man Within,” “October Man,” “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” ‘Father Brown,” “Saraband for Dead Lovers,” “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “Tight Little Island.” Dividing her time between stage and screen, Joan played a number of roles with Sir Donald Wolfitt’s Shakespearean group. The elfin actress’ first working trip to the United States came in 1954 when she appeared on Broadway in T. S. Elliot’s “The Confidential Clerk.” The following year she starred in “Bell, Book and Candle” on the New York stage, then appeared with Henry Fonda and Susan Strasberg in “Stage Struck” on the screen. More recently, in London, she has appeared in “Lysistrata.” “The Grass is Greener” and “The Irregular Verb of Love.” She also contributed her talent to Sir Laurence at s Chichester Festival during Prior to leaving for the Crete location of “The MoonSpinners, + Joan played Lady Bellaston in “Tom Jones” with Albert Finney. Of all her star portrayals Joan has cause to remember her role in Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” the most. She played opposite actor Andre Morell, whom she married in 1960. “We'd known each other most of our lives,” Joan says. “We were just old friends, then suddenly...” To complete their happiness, the eae had a baby son in March, 1963. Joan’s hobbies are eircuses, ballet, reading and talking. In color by Technicolor, “The Moon-Spinners” stars Hayley Mills, Eli Wallach, Peter McEnery, Miss Greenwood and Irene Papas. Also, Pola Negri returns to the screen. Bill Anderson co-produced with Walt Disney, and Hugh Attwooll was associate producer. James Neilson directed the Buena Vista release. SYNOPSIS (Not For Publication) Two English tourists, 17-year-old Nikky Ferris (HAYLEY MILLS) and her Aunt Frances (JOAN GREENWOOD), a _ musicologist, travel by bus to the picturesque village of Aghios Georgios on the Island of Crete to record provincial folk tunes. They are met by Alexis (MICHAEL DAVIS), a 12-year-old Cretan lad, who befriends them and takes them to the Hotel Moon-Spinners, belonging to his mother, Sophia (IRENE PAPAS). Alexis’ cousin, Lambis (PAUL STASSINO) his uncle Stratos (ELI WALLACH), an astrologer recently returned from London, and Sophia all are suspicious and belligerent toward the strangers. That evening at a wedding celebration, Nikki meets another hotel guest, a good-looking young Englishman, Mark Camford (PETER McENERY). Romantically attracted to Nikky, Mark reveals that something sinister is going on. His suspicions seem confirmed when Nikky later catches Stratos searching her room. After promising to take Nikky swimming the next day, he bids her good night and follows Stratos to the Bay of Dolphins (where a legendary treasure supposedly has been lost). From a boat, Stratos turns a spotlight on Mark who is ashore, enabling Lambis to shoot him. In the morning, Nikky is convinced that she has been stood up when Mark fails to appear. She walks along the beach until she happens upon an isolated little church. A long smear of blood beside the door draws her into the interior. Horrified, but bound to investigate, she enters a dank crvpt and finds Mark, still alive, but bleeding from a shoulder wound. Mark insists she return to the villa. On her way back, however, she runs straight into Stratos and is forced to reveal Mark’s whereabouts. Fortunately, Mark has escaped. When Nikky doesn’t return, Frances becomes worried and so does Sophia, who already suspects her brother of skullduggery. Later on, Mark meets Alexis and they find out that Nikky has been kidnaped by Stratos and tied up in an old, abandoned windmill. They help Nikky escape from the mill in the nick of time before Stratos returns. Alexis turns back to Aghios Georgios, while Nikky and Mark escape to the nearby town of San Nicolaos, where they find refuge for the night in some temple ruins. Here, Mark finally tells Nikky his story: Some time ago in London, he was working as a bank messenger, and was delivering jewels to the Countess of Fleet. At her doorstep, he was knocked out and robbed. Suspected of being the jewel thief, he was fired from his job. To vindicate himself, Mark tried to find the real thief. He has come to suspect Stratos, and believes the Cretan has hidden the jewels in the Bay of Dolphins. The following morning Mr. Gamble (JOHN LeMESURIER), a dapper gentleman who claims to be the British Consul, finds Nikky and Mark in the ruins and offers to drive them to his summer villa where his wife (SHEILA HANCOCK). a former nurse, can tend to Mark’s shoulder. While relaxing in the Gamble mansion, Nikky views the harbor through a powerful telescope and happens to describe the Minotaur to Mark, who immediately recognizes it as that of Madame Habib (POLA NEGRI), the infamous jewel collector. This new information leads Mark to believe that Madame is in the area to buy the stolen jewels. He surmises that Gamble is the mastermind behind the theft, and that Stratos actually stole the gems and hid them in the Bay of Dolphins. While Mark makes his way back to the Bay of Dolphins, Nikky steals a speedboat and chases the Minotaur. Mark follows Stratos to a rocky gorge where the villain removes the hidden jewels from a lobster pot in the sea. Nikky succeeds in getting aboard the yacht. Still weak from his wound, Mark attacks Stratos in his boat, but the wily jewel thief dumps Mark overboard, and attempts to kill him with a harpoon. When the Minotaur reaches the bay, Stratos comes aboard with the jewels. While waiting for payment, he discovers Nikky hiding in the stateroom. Before the robber can attack her, Mark crashes the party and a wild free-for-all takes place. The police soon arrive with Alexis and Aunt Frances leading the way. Everything now under control, the Minotaur turns and heads back to San Nicolaos with Stratos as prisoner. As the palatial yacht churns out of the Bay of Dolphins, Mark and Nikky wave good-bye and promise to return soon... ona honeymoon. BEST SELLER, ‘THE MOON-SPINNERS’ MADE INTO FILM BY WALT DISNEY The combining of highly popular books and Walt Disney’s showmanship is always good for the best in family film entertainment, and “The Moon-Spinners,” exception. his latest Hayley Mills vehicle, is bound to be no The original best-seller by Mary Stewart is a poignant description of a young man’s fight to clear himself of a crime he did not commit. It is a case of the hunter being hunted when a young couple track down a suspected robber on the Isle of Crete but must flee for their lives from the scoundrel’s high-powered rifle. Miss Stewart’s book, a tale of romance and courage, was on the best-seller list for 22 weeks and reached the number five spot in sales. Disney’s interpretation of the original is aM with the accent on suspense and tense drama. Moonlit scenes of austere windmills, grey remains of once-proud temples, and a bizarre carnival, produce a phantasmal affect audiences will long remember. Hayley Mills plays an impetuous teen-ager who risks her life aiding a handsome young man in his attempt to capture a money-hungry criminal. She has more close calls in this thriller than in all her previous pictures combined, and receives her first real screen kiss in the process. Miss Stewart’s mystery joins the list of top-novel-plus-Disney combos, which include Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island,” “Kidnapped;” Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and “In Search of the Castaways,” Eleanor H. Porter’s “Pollyanna;” Erich Kastner’s “Dos Doppelte Lottchen,” from which Disney made “The Parent Trap;” the late T. H. White’s “The Once and Future King,” from which “The Sword in the Stene” was derived; Sheila Burnford’s marvelous “The Incredible Journey,” and Paul Gallico’s “Thomasina,” on which “The Three Lives of Thomasina” is based. Mat MS-2G TIGHT SPOT — Hayley Mills finds herself in the clutches of arch-criminal Eli Wallach in Walt Disney's suspense-mystery, ‘The Moon-Spinners.” The Technicolor feature, based on a best-selling novel, also stars Peter McEnery and Pola Negri. A Buena Vista release. HAYLEY FILMS 4 IN 1964 -AND 2 ARE FOR DISNEY Hayley Mills, probably the biggest young star on either side of the Atlantic, is fast becoming the busiest. During 1964 the effervescent English actress will have starred in four major motion pictures — an enviable track record by any standards. Hayley completed her first real romantic role — in January — as a girl who falls in love with a young man on a perilous search for stolen jewels in Walt Disney’s “The Moon-Spinners.” She stars with Eli Wallach, Pola Negri, Peter McEnery, Joan Greenwood and Irene Papas in the cliff-hanger. Then the much-in-demand Miss Mills filmed the final scenes in Ross Hunter’s psychological drama, “The Chalk Garden,” in which she stars with Deborah Kerr, Dame Edith Evans, and her famous father, John Mills. Currently, the brilliant young actress, who turned 18 on April 18, and her dad are in Spain for three months of shooting on “The Truth About Spring,” a UniversalInternational release. After resting for a few weeks in London, Hayley will come to California and her sixth picture for Walt Disney, the title of which has not been decided. In color by Technicolor, “The Moon-Spinners” was co-produced by Walt Disney and Bill Anderson. ONLY POLA NEGRI FITS CHARACTER IN ‘MOON-SPINNERS' The role of a middle-aged beauty whose great wealth and penchant for priceless jewels set her up as the most likely of international fences, posed a pretty problem for Walt Disney in casting the part of Madame Habib in his fast-moving whodunit, “The Moon-Spinners.” The variegated type proved a large order until Walt heard that Pola Negri was in town, retired from acting for twenty years but now reportedly willing to consider a movie role. Walt invited her to have lunch at the studio, there to discuss the role with himself and members of his staff. “I liked them, and they liked me,” she reported later. “My only suggestion was to change Madame Habib’s pet Siamese to a cheetah, and Walt loved my idea. So then I was ready to go.” Madame Habib is a slinky, ravenhaired Mrs. Gotrocks whose _ incredibly lavish home is a linersized yacht on which she tours the globe looking for jewels no one else can afford to buy. Miss Negri, slinky, raven-haired and independently wealthy, the vamp of vamps in the silent Twenties, who kept cheetah’s as pets in her Hollywood heydey, who started many a fad for women, and who was linked romantically with some of the most fabulous personalities alive, was made to order for the part — or vice versa. In color by Technicolor, “The Moon-Spinners” stars Hayley Mills, Eli Wallach, Peter McEnery, Joan Greenwood and Irene Papas. Also, Pola Negri returns to the screen. Bill Anderson co-produced with Walt Disney.