Dust Be My Destiny (Warner Bros.) (1939)

ADVANCE PUBLICITY —“DUST BE MY DESTINY” John Garfield and Priscilla Lane are the fugitive, cop-dodging lovers in “Dust Be My Destiny,” the poignant drama coming to the Strand. (Mat 201—30c) Garfield Shows A New Kind Of Love In His John Garfield is a different sort of guy. That’s probably one reason why he became a screen star overnight. He intends to stay different and that undoubtedly means he’ll remain a star for a long time. The first time he touched a match to a cigarette in “Four Daughters” Garfield became an arresting screen figure. No actor ever had lighted a cigarette exactly like that before. No actor ever had done a lot of little commonplace things exactly like Garfield did them in that picture. Now, after several comparatively light bouts with romance, Garfield is emerging as a screen lover. He had a hectic heart affar) witb Priscilla Lane in “Daughters Courageous,” and marries the same girl in “Dust Be My Destiny,” the Warner Bros. picture coming to the Strand Theatre next Friday in which he and Priscilla are costarred. And it isn’t at all surprising to discover that he makes love as differently as he lights a cigarette. It isn’t so much what he says to the girls—the dialogue writers supply the lines—it’s the way he looks at them. In “Daughters Courageous,” he was overbearing to Miss Lane to the point of outright rudeness. He let her pay for his lunch, make their dates and ask him to kiss her. But his eyes kept her aware of the fact that he wasn’t indifferent. In “Dust Be My Destiny,’ he again makes Miss Lane do the romantic leading but the loves scenes the two did for that picture were the talk of the Warner Bros. Studio. Garfield admits his love making lacks polish and that some people may find it difficult to believe it would bring results in real life. “Tt’s the only kind I could do,” he said. “I couldn’t make flowery John Garfield (Mat 104—15c) Latest Film speeches, turn compliments and dance attendance on a girl; it wouldn’t ring true. “The kind of fellows I’ve been playing on the screen... and the kind of fellow I am in real life, for that matter, feel a lot more than they can say. They freeze up when it comes to putting emotional thoughts in words, or cover up with bravado or cynicism. “Sure, they can say ‘I love you,’ but they have to have a lot of encouragement to get that far in words. They can look ‘I love yow much more convincingly.” CITY-BRED STAR GETS A KICK OUT OF MILKING COW John Garfield recently learned about milking a cow from experience, and got a big kick out of age It happened on the barnyard setting where Garfield was doing scenes for his new Warner Bros. film, “Dust Be My Destiny,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. The star was handed a tin milk bucket and a little wooden stool. Then he was led to a shed where seven cows were lined up in stalls, placidly munching alfalfa. “You take the one on this end,” Director Lewis Seiler told him. “You can just pretend to milk.” “Don’t worry,’ said Garfield. “That’s all Vll be able to do. Where do you want me?” “On the left side,” said Seiler. “Okay, we’re rolling.” “Moo,” said the cow. “Take it easy,’ implored Garfield, but the cow apparently didn’t understand. She lashed out with a hind foot. Garfield caught it in the ribs and went down. It was a perfect drop kick. “You got on the wrong side of her,” explained the owner of the cows. “The right side is the right side for milking.” “Yeah?’?? grunted Garfield. “Well from now on, both sides are the wrong side for me.” BOY GETS GIRL IN drd TEAMING FILM BY PUBLIC DEMAND Judging by public reaction as expressed in letters to the studio and the two stars concerned, Warner Bros. may have hit upon a new and exceptionally effective method of launching a screen romantic team in its handling of John Garfield and Priscilla Lane. Garfield was made to lose Miss Lane to Jeffrey Lynn in ‘‘ Four Daughters,’’ the first picture in which the two were cast together. In ‘‘Daughters Courageous,’’ the romantic interest between them was heightened, but Garfield again loses her, a sense of his temperamental unsuitability for matrimony sending him away to leave her to such consolation as Lynn can provide. If the public had not cared, Garfield and Miss Lane probably never would have gotten together as a bona fide romantic team in a happily ending romance. Apparently, however, it did, and does care very much. There were rumblings of discontent over Garfield’s tragic death in ‘‘Four Daughters.’’ After ‘‘Daughters Courageous’’ was released, letters poured in from people who approved of the picture but wanted to see Garfield win Miss Lane and keep her. Naturally, they’ll get their wish. When the letters began to pour in after the first sneak previews, Warners promptly cast Miss Lane opposite Garfield in ‘‘Dust Be My Destiny,’’ which comes to the Strand Theatre next Friday. It is a boy and girl story that has its poignant moments but which ends happily, with the lovers together. Almost needless to say, the Warners are happy over the outcome of their experiment in trial romaneces. They figure that a couple the public itself has joined will not lightly be put asunder. NO “MEANIE’ ROLES FOR ARMETTA, GOOD WILL ENVOY To the average motion picture fan, Henry Armetta is a good comedian with a very funny accent, who gets very, very angry very, very quickly, and gets over and breaks into a broad and beaming smile just as quickly. And they like him very much for it. To millions of his countrymen, he is that and a lot more. He’s their ambassador of good will; a representative who shows to the world the kindly, emotional side of his people’s nature. Armetta has been acting in motion pictures since 1914. Since the screen became audible, he has been playing Italian dialect roles. In all that time he has never received so much as a single protest from Italians against his accent or his comedy characterizations. Armetta is deeply proud of the esteem in which the people of his own race hold him and he jealously guards it by resolutely refusing to play anything but sympathetic characters. He wouldn’t play a villain or blackguard if the refusal meant the sacrifice of his career. That would be betrayal, in his code, of the people who have come to love him and regard him as their ambassador of good will. And far be it from Armetta to betray them. The role Armetta plays in ‘“Dust Be My Destiny,’’ the Warner Bros. picture coming to the Strand Theatre next Friday, is typical of those which have built his peculiar standing with his own people. He’s the owner of a little restaurant into which John Garfield and Priscilla Lane come hungry and broke. When they can’t pay their check, he makes them work it out, then gives them a steady job and becomes their friend through thick and thin. [5] Priscilla Lane Tells Why Girls Go For Garfield! ‘“A woman will forgive the man who wrecks her heart and tramples it in the dust — but she’ll never forgive the man who is dull and uninteresting.’’ — Having delivered this thoughtprovoking morsel, a dreamy look came into Priscilla Lane’s eyes and she curled comfortably in a huge office chair. But it wasn’t of the men in her love life she wanted to talk (she PRISCILLA LANE (Mat 103—15c) never does!) but of John Garfield and the dynamic appeal he has had in their three Warner Bros. pictures, ‘‘Four Daughters,’’ ““Daughters Courageous,’’ and now ‘‘Dust Be My Destiny,’’ which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. ‘“Dullness is the wunendurable thing that wrecks homes, breaks up marriages and spoils picture,’’ Priscilla opined. ‘‘John Garfield is dangerous but never dull in his characterizations. ‘As Gabriel Lopez in ‘Daughters Courageous’ he was everything that a girl deep in her heart yearns to find in a man and everything that for her happiness and welfare she should not have. But the average girl, given her choice between the man he portrays and the perfect male with no faults, would choose the gay, irrepressible lover every time.’’ ““Most girls,’’ she continued, ‘“are always a little indifferent to heroes who are too perfect and to film roles which show them that way. And I’m inclined to believe the same rule applies to private life. Men who are either too good or too bad are apt to be frightfully dull company.’’ ““The man I marry will not be chosen for his perfection. (Priscilla’s eyes were dreamy pools of reflection.) We will have delightful clashes of ideas and ideals and we ’ll both profit from them. There will be, I hope, a middle ground of understanding and tolerance that will make for permanent hap piness. But there’s one thing you can be dead sure of — he won’t be the dull sort of person who does the same things at the same time day after day. I’ll always be just a little uncertain of what he’s going to do next — and [’ll love LG? : “¢Would you marry a John Garfield type?’’ we asked. ‘‘T wouldn’t want to say ‘no’ for sure,’’ Priscilla said thoughtfully as she prepared to leave. ‘¢Because, you see, after all, I think I am an average girl.’’ NO MOON, NO ROSES AID IN TODAYS SCREEN PROPOSALS Every season and in almost every picture, screen proposals are becoming more realistic. Perhaps it’s because the married scenarists of today have better memories than those of yesterday and the single writers have acquired more experience. Or maybe it’s just another manifestation like streamlining and jitterbugging. Flowery speeches delivered from bended knee position are definitely out. They’ve gone with the final clinch and the sunset fadeout. The heroines prompt, and encourage, and help the heroes over the final hurdles. Sometimes they even take the initiative, as Bette Davis did in “Dark Victory,” when she came right out and asked George Brent if he didn’t know she loved him. More often they help the proposal along a little more indirectly, as Priscilla Lane did in “Daughters Courageous” when she snuggled a little closer to John Garfield, pursed her lips provocatively, and said: “If you kiss me now, you'll save a lot of time.” Even the settings for film proposals have changed. Moonlit gardens or rugged cliffs overlooking the sea, into which an obliging sun is dipping, no longer are requisite. Men say the fateful words in kitchens, subways, skating rinks or quick lunch booths as frequently as they do in more conventionally romantic settings. John Garfield and Priscilla Lane, who seem to have acquired the habit of falling in love in pictures, are sitting in a hay wagon in a farm barnyard when he proposes to her for their new Warner Bros. feature, “Dust Be My Destiny,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. The stars and the moon are hidden but they have an audience — the cows and the chickens. Stanley Ridges, John Garfield and Priscilla Lane in a tensely emotional scene from the forthcoming “Dust Be My Destiny.” (Mat 207—30c)