Jezebel (Warner Bros.) (1938)

(Current) Henry Fonda Mid-West Boy Makes Good Two years ago, Henry Fonda’s wife gave him a trumpet for Christmas. He is still learning to play it. His Hollywood neighbors say he is better than he was a year ago, but not very good yet. Fonda says it isn’t his fault that he isn’t a virtuoso on the trumpet. The trouble is, he doesn’t get enough time to practice. When he was on the stage last fall, he couldn't practice at all because the New York police had a drive on against unnecessary noise. And when he came back to Hollywood he could practice only half an hour each evening because he was working so hard in the Warner Bros. drama of the Deep South — ‘Jezebel’ —which is now showing at the Strand Theatre. Fonda is a middle _ westerner, however. He was born in Nebraska, in a town called Grand Island, on May 16, 1908. He attended the University of Minnesota and then went out looking for a newspaper job. He didn’t get it, which was just as well. Had city editors been impressed, Fonda might be covering the city hall in Omaha or sitting at the rim of some copy desk instead of playing a southern dandy in *“‘Jezebel’”’ opposite Bette Davis. Back in 1928, Fonda was playing bits and painting scenery in the Cape Cod playhouse. He says the scenery wasn't very good. His acting at the time wasn’t very good either, he says. But it was so good in “The Farmer Takes A Wife” that they brought him to Hbollywood and he has divided his time between the stage and screen ever since. “Of Mice and Men” is his favorite play and he would love to play ““Lennie.’’ However, he won't make any attempt to do it because he realizes that he couldn’t look the part. With him in “‘Jezebel,”’ are Bette Davis, George Brent, Margaret Lindsay, Fay Bainter, Richard Cromwell, and a score of other noted players. Mat 106—-l5c VISITORS ARE WELCOME Visitors are never barred from the set of a Bette Davis picture. Forthright Bette thinks it’s bosh for an actress to pretend she doesn’t want an audience. ““What’s the point in acting?’’ is the way she puts it. CAST OF CHARACTERS Bette Davis Henry Fonda George Brent Margaret Lindsay Dr. Livingstone Donald Crisp Aunt Belle Fay Bainter Richard Cromwell Gen. Bogardus Henry O’Neill Mrs. Kendrick....Spring Byington Jean La Cour John Litel Dick Allen Gordon Oliver Janet Shaw Theresa Harris Stephanie Kendrick Margaret Early Irving Pichel Eddie Anderson Stymie Beard Lou Payton George Renevant Mat 202 — 30c SHE’S MEANEST WHEN SHE’S LOVIN’ MOST — Bette Davis as ““Jezebel”’ and Henry Fonda as her hapless lover in the romantic drama of old New Orleans now showing at the Strand Theatre. Bette Davis In ‘Jezebel’ Scores Splendid Success (Review ) STORY SYNOPSIS: — (Not for Publication) Julie (Bette Davis) is a spoiled, heartless and beautiful belle of New Orleans in 1850. Engaged to Pres Dillard (Henry Fonda), she is half in love with Buck Cantrell (George Brent) a hottempered Southern dandy. She quarrels with Dillard over a ball gown and he goes North. Cantrell becomes her favored suitor. Then an epidemic of yellow fever breaks out. Dillard comes South again on business. She meets him at a ball and confesses that she still loves him. But meanwhile he has married. Mar garet Lindsay plays his bride. Humiliated, Julie tries to get him to fight a duel with Cantrell so that he will be killed, but Cantrell is killed instead. Dillard is stricken with yellow fever, and real izing that he and Julie really love each other, his wife steps aside and leaves them alone in his last hours. The story ends with the once heartless Julie accompanying the fever-wracked body of her beloved to a quarantine island off New Orleans. No young actress of the screen seems to be quite so excellent in the portrayal of selfish, impetuous, hot-tempered (and sometimes even nasty) girls, as Bette Davis, the blonde Warner Bros. star. She brought the most striking of her char: acterizations yesterday to the Strand Theatre where she appeared in “‘Jezebel,’” colorful drama of the old Deep South, the locale being New Orleans of the Bette early 1850's, a Davis decade before the Civil War. The audience which saw yesterday’s first local presentation of ““Jezebel,”” pronounced it even more exciting than her recent ‘Marked Woman” or “Dangerous” for which she won the 1936 Academy award, or even her celebrated “‘Of Human Bondage’”’ with Leslie Howard. She plays the part of Julie, a Mat 111 — 15c completely spoiled and self-centered young socialite of the Southern city. She is given the same name as the notorious wicked woman of Biblical lore because she defies all the traditions of the place and age. She drinks, she smokes, she toys with men’s hearts, and her greatest plea sure lies in having men fight over her. Her chief suitor, played by Henry Fonda, quarrels with her over this and goes to the north. Her other admirer, George Brent, a_ reckless young blade car— ries on with his courtship. The great epidemic of yellow fever strikes New Orleans a year later. Fonda is sent back to the city from New York to take charge of a bank. Meanwhile he Mat 108 — 15c has married, his Margaret bride being the lovely, dark-haired Margaret Lindsay. He has always been Julie’s first choice and when Brent is killed in a duel, all of her affection goes back to Fonda. Lindsay His wife realizing this, steps aside in Julie’s favor and it is the latter who accompanies him to a quarantine island in the Mississippi when he is stricken by fever. “Jezebel’”” was adapted from Owen Davis, Sr.’s stage play of the same name, by Abem Finkel and Clements Ripley and was directed by William Wyler. Other notables in the cast include Fay Bainter, Richard Cromwell, Henry O’Neill, Donald Crisp, Gordon Oliver, John Litel, Spring Byington, Janet Shaw and Margaret Early. Additional Publicity "OW Pages 10 and (Current) George Brent Has An Irish Love Of Life George Brent, the film star, in a grey top hat, grey coat and yellow pants is sitting on the ‘‘Jezebel’’ set at Warner Bros. studio. He is going over his lines with Dalton S. Reymond, the technical adviser, trying to. talk. like a New Orleans dandy of 1850. A Southern accent doesn’t come easy to Brent for he was born in Ireland and educated at Dublin University. He doesn’t talk like an Irishman, however. There is no ‘brogue in his speech... Nor does he go about flaunting“his Irish ancestry. He is an American citizen and hates songs like “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” and “Mother Machree,”’ 1a Brent is a big fellow with a merry smile—when he smiles. He doesn't smile often and one gets the idea that there’is a good deal of darkness in him. Watching him, one feels that he is an O'Flaherty character — an Irish rebel who has no love of life. In a measure, this is right. He was a rebel once — Michael Collins’dispatch carrier in the rebellion: of 1915 and there was a price on his head. He left Ireland with the English right at his heels, trying to put a bullet between his broad shoulders. Before he was a rebel, Brent was an actor with the Abbey Players of Dublin. When he came to America, he went into stock, played more than 300 leads and wound up owning six stock companies. His first Broadway appearance was in “Those We Love.’ Warner Bros. hired him to be Ruth Chatterton’s leading man. They were married but divorced a year and a half later. Brent is reticent about romance. His name has been linked to Garbo’s on many occasions but he has nothing to say on that score, save that he admires her tremendously and thinks she is the greatest of the film actresses. But he is reticent about everything. His own studio doesn’t know his home ‘phone number. They have to reach him through his manager. He has a great part in ‘‘Jezebel’”” with Bette Davis. He will be seen when the picture opens at the Strand Theatre next Friday. Mat 104—15c FAREWELL TO IRELAND George Brent, featured in ‘‘Jezebel,”” is now an American citizen. Early this winter he received his final citizenship papers. PRODUCTION STAFF Director William Wyler Clements Ripley Screenplay by.. ;Abem Finkel John Huston Stage play by..... Owen Davis, Sr. Photography by Ernest Haller, A.S.C. Film Editor Warren Low Robert Haas Robert B. Lee Orry-Kelly C Page Seven