Island of Love (Warner Bros.) (1963)

Four Topcast In ‘Island Of Love’ Love triumphs—temporarily—on a romantic Aegean island in this scene from “Island of Love,” the rollicking Warner Bros. comedy opening ......... atthe i. 2%. Bene’ Theatre. While Betty Bruce as his blonde, ex-stripper wife looks on, Walter Matthau, as a New York mobster, congratulates Robert Preston, as the fast-talking con artist who clipped him for a couple million dollars for a flop movie, on his coming marriage to the gang lord’s lovely Greek niece, Georgia Moll. Producer-director Morton DaCosta shot most of the highspirited comic caper in Athens and on the Aegean island of Hydra. Tony Randall also stars in the Technicolor-Panavision production. Mat 2-A_ Still No. 463/31 Ain't Got No Body Can't Have Coffin, Film Director Told “The Case of the Cautious CasketMaker” posed a challenging problem for producer-director Morton DaCosta while he was filming “Island of Love” on the lovely Aegean island of Hydra. In one of the high comedy scenes in the film, which opens ........ at BING raatsacetsvereteese Theatre, a wedding party becomes entangled with a funeral procession. DaCosta commissioned the island casket-maker to build him a suitable casket for the scene. But the casket-maker asked to see the body. DaCosta said there wasn’t a body. The adamant islander said no body, no coffin. DaCosta finally had to send for Athens for one. Robert Preston, Tony Randall, Georgia Moll and Walter Matthau are starred in the Warner Bros. Technicolor comedy. A Belgrave Enterprises production, “Island of Love” was scripted by David R. Schwartz from a novel by Leo Katcher. Island Of Love’ Due Robert Preston, Tony Randall, Georgia Moll and Walter Matthau top the cast of “Island of Love,” the Warner Bros. Technicolor comedy opening ...... atthe: 223.4 Theatre. Morton DaCosta produced and directed the Belgrave Enterprises production from a script by David R. Schwartz based on the novel by Leo Katcher. High-Style Hoods Add Laugh-Loaded Comedy To Rousing, Rollicking ‘Island Of Love’ Four husky young men with classic noses and lots of white teeth play 9 a Greek chorus of hoodlums in Morton DaCosta’s “Island of Love,” the fastpaced Warner Bros. romantic comedy in Technicolor opening ........-. at Gass oe Betas #8 Theatre. Robert Preston, Tony Randall and Georgia Moll star in the high-humored tale of a smooth-talking con man and his tipsy accomplice who are forced to flee to an obscure Greek island in hopes of escaping the wrath of a New Tony Randall Romps As Preston's Hapless Crony In Island Of Love’ True to the topsy-turvy tradition of the theatre world, Tony Randall, who stars with Robert Preston and Georgia Moll in Morton DaCosta’s “Island of Love,” the rollicking Warner Bros. comedy opening ........ AL TNE scccaas ois Theatre is an unhappy clown. Randall, who has sent audiences all over the world tumbling into the aisles with his hilarious performances in “The Mating Game,” “Pillow Talk,” “Lover Come Back” and “Boys’ Night Out,” thinks of himself as a purely dramatic actor who happens to be able to make people laugh. “T made my Broadway debut in ‘A Circle of Chalk,’ and I’ve appeared on Broadway with Ethel Barrymore in ‘The Corn is Green,’ as Marchbanks with Jane Cowl in ‘Candida,’ with Katherine Cornell in ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street’ and ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ and with Lilli Palmer and Sir Cedric Hardwicke in ‘Caesar and Cleopatra.” And nobody thought I was funny,” he says defensively. “T don’t know how come all of a sudden I’m some sort of king of comedy.” Like it or not, Randall is all kinds of funny in “Island of Love,” in which he plays Preston’s three-drink-limit friend who spends most of his time on screen darting through the eyefilling scenery of the Greek island of Hydra pursued either by a quartet of mobsters or an over-ardent and marriage-minded Greek maiden. “I knew it was a typical ‘Randall’ role when I took it,” Tony admits ruefully. “But it was too good to miss —shooting on location in Greece, working with Preston and producerdirector DaCosta. But so help me, this is the last time I’m playing the leading man’s best friend.” Even when the script of “Island of Love” did give Tony, who was once described by LIFE magazine as “the finest new comedian the movies have found in a couple of decades,” a chance to demonstrate his versatility and an unexpected facet of his talent and training, it resulted in one of the film’s comedy highlights. While preparing for his stage career, Randall had taken dancing lessons, just in case they might come in handy some day. He was delighted to discover that in “Island of Love” the script called for him to join in a dance sequence. However, it was a Greek folk dance. DaCosta kept Tony purposely unerhearsed so that there would be very little resemblance between what he was doing and what the Greeks were doing. In his frantic improvisation, the frustrated serious PAGE 4 actor consistently managed to leap at all the wrong times. “Actually,” mused DaCosta, “Tony is a pretty good hoofer. And his ballet training helps him get off the floor. It also keeps him from stomping on the other fellows’ toes.” “Island of Love,” a Belgrave Enterprises production shot principally on location on islands in the Aegean in Technicolor and Panavision also stars Walter Matthau and features Betty Bruce. Randall Goes Greek With one of the New York gangsters hunting him standing menacingly in the background with drawn gun, Tony Randall breaks into a frantic Greek dance hoping to pass himself off as a native of the Aegean island in this amusing scene from “Island of Love,”’ the Warner Bros. Tech nicolor comedy opening ...... at the <4... Theatre. Randall stars with Robert Preston, Georgia Moll and Walter Matthau in the Morton DaCosta production which was filmed extensively on location in Greece and the sun-drenched Aegean. Mat 1-C_ Still No. 463/42 York gang leader murderously unhappy over the flop movie they had made with his money. DaCosta painstakingly searched for four young men of similar appearance to play the quartet of blankfaced hoods who stand attendance on the gang leader, played with an incongruous lisp by Broadway star Walter Matthau. Tony Rollins, Nick Dimitri, Vic Lundin and Greg Benedict have backgrounds and characters as diverse as their appearance is similar. Rollins is the baby of the group—he’s only six-two. Appropriately enough for a young man who hails from Six Shooter Junction, Texas, his current ambition is to become a television cowboy. Nick Dimitri is the only real Greek in the foursome—a body builder who tosses sacks of cement around as if they were bean bags. Vic Lundin is the tallest—six-four-and-a-half — and the loudest. He’s a singer. Greg Benedict, a Londoner by birth, is a Warner Bros. contract player and has frequently appeared on the studio’s TV shows. To heighten their similarity, all four of them wear identical broken noses (fashioned by the make-up department), black Madison Avenuestyle suits, black homburgs, tab collar shirts of varying shades of pink .. . and guns. All of them also wear facial scars—but these are tastefully different. They also occasionally wear beautiful, look-alike young women furclad and diamond-bedecked, with gowns identically cut way down to there. “Island of Love” is a Belgrave Enterprises production, produced and directed by DaCosta from a script by David R. Schwartz. What's In A Name? Actor Has Answer It had to happen. To embellish his production of “Island of Love,” the light-hearted, fast-paced Warner Bros. Technicolor comedy opening ........... at the DR re Theatre, with as much authenticity as possible, Morton DaCosta not only spent months shooting on location in the sun-drenched Aegean, but also cast local Greeks in key supporting roles wherever possible. For his starring roles he imported Hollywood-Broadway thespians Robert Preston, Tony Randall and Walter Matthau and lithe, luscious Italian Georgia Moll. And the Athenian actor he selected for a small role as a tavern keeper proved to be a real Thespian. Petros Thespian. Director Scours Europe, Discovers ‘Island Of Love’ Beauty In U. S. While Georgia Moll, a shiny, well-scrubbed Italian actress with 21 films in her own country to her credit, was subjecting her saucer eyes, Mediterranean smile and bikini figure to the rigors of New York’s famed Actors Studio, producer-director Morton DaCosta, fresh from his triumphant screen version of “Music Man,” was scouring Greece, France, England and Italy, for a young woman to star opposite Robert Preston and Tony Randall in “Island of Love,” the raucous Warner Bros. romantic comedy opening..... . athe oe ee Theatre. Luscious Young Star Luscious, lithe Georgia Moll stars opposite Robert Preston and Tony Randall in “Island of Love,” the Warner Bros. Technicolor comedy caper opening... . at the Theatre. The vivacious young Italian actress plays a Greek girl who becomes romantically entangled with Preston when he attempts to convert her native Aegean island into an international tourist trap as the legendary “Island of Love.”’ Morton DaCosta produced and directed the film. Mat 1-B_ Still No. 463/665 eevee eee Lisping Gang Leader Lends Merry Menace To Island Of Love’ A versatile Broadway star centributes one of the most unusual villains in screen history to “Island of Love,” the laugh-loaded Warner Bros. comedy opening ...... atthe’ si4%s'6s Theatre. Walter Matthau stars with Robert Preston, Tony Randall and Georgia Moll in the Morton DaCosta production which was filmed extensively on location in Greece and the Aegean. It’s a rib-tickling tale of a fast-talking con man who promotes $2,000,000 from a New York mob leader to produce a movie starring the mobster’s moll and turns out a flop picture, forcing him to seek a hide-away on a picturesque Greek island to escape the mob’s wrath. But Matthau and DaCosta have concocted a gangster unlike any ever seen before on the screen. Matthau’s Tony Dallas is an eye-rolling, fistshaking gang lord with a lisp. “Tt is probably the first time that a villain has spoken like a retarded first-grader on the screen,” observes DaCosta. Delighted with the veteran actor’s characterization, DaCosta proceeded to surround him with the most improbable group of gunmen and gun molls imaginable. The gangster’s girl friend, an exburlesque queen played by Betty Bruce, for example, has a problem when she sets out to star as the scantily-clad Eve in the ill-fated movie Preston makes—she breaks out in a rash when she eats apples. The script provides the gang lord with one redeeming feature—it’s his strong sense of “family.” He will not rub out a relative—a character trait of life-and-death significance to Preston and Randall, who suddenly discover that the two young Greek beauties with whom they have been dallying on the idyllic Aegean isle are his nieces. A few weeks after completing his fruitless four-month search, DaCosta “discovered” Miss Moll in New York. What must have seemed maddening to the travel weary producer did not seem to perturb the peripatetic Italian beauty in the slightest. She loves to travel—if not from country to country then from place to place in a given city. Georgia set some sort of all-time record by shifting apartments five times during the five months she was in New York City—‘because I wanted to get to know different sections of the city.” “Restless?” smiles the itchy-footed Italian star. “Not really. It’s just that I enjoy new surroundings, new faces, new windows to shop out of.” Georgia candidly confesses that part of the appeal of “Island of Love” was that it would take her from Rome to Hollywood to Athens and the island of Hydra. “On my way back to Rome, I hope to go by way of Manila, Tokyo and New Delhi. I’ve never been to those cities.” The lithesome 25-year-old daughter of a manufacturer of scientific products is well-prepared for her travels. Besides her native Italian she speaks fluent French, German, Spanish and Russian as well as slightlyaccented English. She has already travelled extensively in Europe, Indo-China, South America, Africa and the U.S. It is almost as if she were on a one-woman crusade to show the world that all Italian actresses aren’t unscrubbed and tousled. Georgia wears gowns by Capucci, a minimum of makeup and a luxuriant head of hair All in all, maintains DaCosta, she was the glowing personification of the high-spirited, intelligent, beautiful young Greek girl with whom Preston falls in love in “Island of Love.” Walter Matthau also stars in the Belgrave Enterprises production which was shot in Technicolor on location in Athens and the Greek Aegean islands. ‘Island Of Love’ Long On Romance Short On Water Never mind what two out of three dentists on television do, and never mind the half of the class that wound up with 23% fewer cavities. On the Aegean island of Hydra you brush your teeth the way Hydriots do — with bottled water. The colorful Greek island, site of the location filming of “Island of Love,” the Warner Bros. Technicolor comedy starring Robert Preston, Tony Randall, Georgia Moll and Walter Matthau, is without a natural water supply except for a couple of reluctant wells above the village. Bi-weekly, water arrives from the mainland in a monstrous plastic bag, 300 feet long, which stays for a day to allow everybody to replenish their supply in bottles and containers of every sort and description. But for DaCosta the bright Aegean sunshine, the sea as blue as a delphinium, the rocky hillsides splashed with white-washed houses and an over-all aura of irresistible romance were exactly right for “Island of Love.”? and the drinking, washing, brushing, bathing water problem was an insignificant inconvenience. “Island of Love” is a Belgrave Enterprises production scripted by David R. Schwartz from a novel by Leo Katcher. al