Give Me Your Heart (Warner Bros.) (1936)

"GIVE ME YOUR HEART" CALLED PERFECT KAY FRANCIS FILM STAGE PLAY BELIEVED TO BE TAILOR-MADE FOR THE STAR "A stage play plot and character tailor-made for Kay Francis, and peculiarly adaptable to the screen, which Should make it vastly more effective, even, than the New York stage presentation." That was the report submitted to Warner Bros. studio on Jay Mallory's stage play, "Sweet Aloes," which comes to the LHneaLre Cn aes. a Cosmopolitan production under the title of "Give Me Your Heart." When studio experts read the play in manuscript the meaning of the theatre scout's report became instantly apparent. The temperament of the heroine and the situations in which she found herself offered such great possibilities for the dramatic ability of the film star that studio heads felt no time should be lost in purchasing the screen rights. Moreover, as the scout had observed, the plot offered ideal screen material. So "Give Me Your Heart" was purchased, and one of Warner's ace scenarists, Casey Robinson, was turned loose on the manuscript. Director Archie Mayo, with "Petrified Forest" and "I Married a Doctor" to his credit as the latest of his long string of Successes, was chosen to direct. Then came the problem of a supporting cast. The nature of some roles virtually pointed a finger at certain actors, notably George Brent and Patric Knowles, to play opposite Miss Francis, and Roland Young, to enact the role of the genial playwright who, throughout the Story, seeks to solve his friend's vital problems of love and happiness by the dramatic method. In fact, only one major role seemed to present great difficulties in the casting. It was not the starring, central part, naturally; that was for Miss Francis. But throughout the story runs one of the most remarkable feminine characters ever created, that of Rosalind, invalid wife of the man in love with Miss Francis. And after adopting as her own, the child of her rival, at last she meets and becomes friendly with that rival, after the latter, Miss Francis, has met another man, Brent, and married him. This part called for a woman of great charm, evident intelligence; a thorough and convincing lady and at the same time a great actress. Frieda Inescort, daughter of the great English actress Elaine InesScort, was selected. This young actress, having scored a succession of hits on the stage, had at last listened to a movie bid, made one picture, and before it was released another and another. Casting the rest of the production was relatively easy. Helen Flint, playing a feminine doctor; Zeffie Tilbury and Elspeth Dudgeon, as aunt and friend of the heroine respectively, Henry Stephenson, Halliwell Hobbes and others were chosen in rapid succession. Ser 50tee KAY FRANCIS CAN WEEP AT WILL FOR MOVIE SCENES "GIVE ME YOUR HEART" NEVER RESORTS TO ARTIFICIAL TEAR PRODUCERS Watching a beautiful film actress weep for the camera, without benefit of artificial tear producers, has always seemed something like witnessing a miracle. Of the various stars who can do so, we can think of no one who touches our masculine heart and gives us the urge to rush up, take her in our arms and comfort her, so much as Kay Francis. Recently we finally got up the nerve to ask her how she does it. She had just been crying for a scene of her latest picture, "Give Me Your Heart," the Cosmopolitan production Bich comes to thes) Sen 2 aS Warner Bros. release. All alone, hedged in by glaring lights and faced by the unrelenting camera lens at close-up range, Kay said a few words of dialogue, bowed her head, and began to cry. Behind the scenes Director Archie L. Mayo presently began to cry, too. We found ourselves gulping. Our eyes smarted. Leading men George Brent and Patric Knowles, also behind the cameras, swallowed hard. Roland Young, a tender-hearted fellow, refused to watch, and walked away to a corner of the set. The scene finished, Kay walked back to her chair. Her head was still bowed. Tears still flowed, slowly. Shoulders drooped. How we wanted to walk over there and comfort her. And how foolish we'd have felt, on remembering it was all for a film scene. The scenarist had written in tears, and Kay had supplied them. As it was, we felt brutal when we approached the star, sat down beside her and begans: "Kay, how do you manage to turn on the tears like that?" "Turn them on?" she echoed. "I don't, exactly. I simply play the scene, and begin to cry. Just as one begins to cry in real life, I guess, when the situation calls for tears." "Then it's just as though something sad had happened to you in real life -a sort of putting yourself and your own emotions into the scene?" we queried. "Not exactly. In real life I'm not a very weepy persone Some of the characters I play would weep more easily than I do, or vice versa. make me cry before the cameras, might leave me dry-eyed in real Lifes" STAR OF Her Pea, 5 eee So a Situation which might Ome e -= Sean aecen aa ee eeennu ns Bi ei NT hi i lia bh aa lhe ah chal Velho iaaen aa ath eh. is _lmbamttlagneb csivsanis thane raaiesabadghababalnteiehehadaige so keh At LEE LT TERE LETTER EE ETE CEE EPEE ERE PEAR RAMEE RM CER SPR M ES en And Here You'll Find — Advance Features GEORGE BRENT ONCE HUNTED TO DECORATE THE GALLOWS MASCULINE LEAD IN "GIVE ME YOUR HEART" DIDN'T LIKE IDEA AND FLED No good Irishman can understand why George Brent's escape from the gallows is hushed rather than glorified in current biographies of the movie star's life. Brent, currently playing opposite Kay Francis in "Give Me Your Heart," the Cosmopolitan production which opens the theatre on as a Warner Bros. release, is about as colorful an adventurer as any who ever fled for his life from the Emerald Isle. Late in August, 1922, he left Land's End ina motor boat, leaped from it to a swaying rope ladder on the rusty hull of a tramp steamer bound for Montreal, and drew his first free breath in months. For Brent, as part of his colorful pre-acting career, had been a dispatch carrier for Michael Collins during the Irish revolution. He had been the object of a man-hunt which spread over the British Isles, an Irish rebel wanted for a gallows decoration. Only comparatively recently was the case finally cleared up, so that George was free to visit again the scenes of his birth. Brent came to America when his mother died in 1915, and stayed with an aunt in New York. She gave him an excellent schooling, but after a year of college he went on a tramp with another youth, and worked in lumber camps and harvest fields. Returning to New York he met a young Irish priest who was bound for Dublin to teach in the National University, so George journeyed with him, in 1920, back to Ireland, where he attended the University and got a taste of acting at the Abbey Theatre. The priest introduced him to Michael Collins, the Irish revolutionary leader, and the boy, in whom the old Irish traditions of revolt were inherent, was fired with ambition to participate. He became a dispatch carrier between Collins and De Valera. A hangman's noose awaited him if he were caught, and the average life of a dispatch carrier was said to be six weeks. Months went by with Brent successfully dodging capture by the English. But, when Collins was killed in 1922, however, Brent fled for his life. In New York, nineteen years old and stony broke, he tried for an engagement in stock and got it. When he got his first chance in Hollywood failure stared him in the face. His initial film was with Lois Moran in "Under Suspicion." Finally Warner Bros. cast him for a role with Ruth Chatterton, in "The Rich Are Always With Us." His screen success dates from that point. In "Give Me Your Heart" George has one of his best roles to date. Archie L. Mayo directed the picture from the screen play by Casey Robinson. leas | «ete HELEN FLINT HAS LIVED COLORFUL LIFE OFF STAGE ACTRESS IN "GIVE ME YOUR HEART" TOOK CARAVAN THROUGH ARABIAN DESERT Find an actress and you have a woman who was once in the Ziegfeld Follies. Helen Flint is no exception. chorus girl. Miss Flint is a chorus girl no longer. She's an actress, playing at the moment in the Cosmopolitan production, "Give Me Your Heart," which comes to the theatre on ______—Ss as':s a@:«*Warner Bros. release with Kay Francis in the stellar role. The fact that she was in the Follies is not Miss Flint's only claim to fame. She'd much rather talk about the time she was McClelland Barclay's first model, and how She modeled for James Montgomery Flagg and was called "the cameo," and how A. H. Woods picked her out of the Follies chorus and gave her a part in "The Nest." Warren William was once her leading man, as was John Cromwell. Once she went to the isle of Mallorea because She was intrigued by the biography of George Sand, and she took a caravan out on the Arabian desert and lived for two months with 14 camels and 11 guides and saw little boys learning to be priests. In "Ah Wilderness" on the screen Miss Flint played Belle, the lady of questionable character. "I liked that part better than any I ever had," She says. "I like parts with substance. The part I have in "Give Me Your Heart' has substancee I am a woman doctor. It's the first time in my life I ever playeda doctor. I've been society women, ingenues, street walkers, trollops, virginal young women and harridans but never a doctor until now." Miss Flint was born in Chicago, and graduated from the Carl Schurz high school. With a high school diploma in her pocket, Miss Flint became a model. Barclay was just starting out as an artist and she modeled for him. Then she went to New York and modeled for Flagg. Ziegfeld saw her and put her in the chorus. Woods saw her in the chorus anda put her in "The Nest." She was on her way. She says that the only question she was ever asked in Arabia was whether she knew Rex Ingram, the director. He had made a picture there and the sheiks were ardent Ingram fans. Right now, Miss Flint is living in Hollywood in a house overlooking Benedict canyon. She was a Ziegfeld Page Thirteen