One Way Passage (Warner Bros.) (1932)

“ONE WAY PASSAGE” Pi: TG ¥ World Well Lost For Love With just one month to live, Kay Francis and William Powell answer an eternal question around which is based one of the screen’s most unusual dramas, “One Way Passage,” the Warner Bros. picture now repeating its triumph at the... Theatre. Mat No. 203—20c Kay Francis Knows How To Live Alone And Like It Feminine Star of “One Way Passage” Finds Life ! an Interesting Game The word ‘‘glamorous’’ might have been coined to deseribe Kay Francis. On the screen, adventure and love intrigue seem to follow her quite naturally. Off the screen, she leads the simplest kind of life. : 3 : ‘ She regards acting as a business—one, for which, to be sure; she has an inordinate fondness—but nevertheless a business, which she tries to keep separate from her private life. For that reason, she avoids interviews, going into hiding from prying writers. But when she is caught off her guard, she is charming, because she just can’t help being that way. Her home in the Toluca Lake district is small, and designed for comfort and “hominess.” A1though furnished in the exquisite taste so characteristic of Miss Francis, there is not a piece of furniture in it that won’t stand wear and tear. “I would never dream of telling a guest not to touch something in my home,” says Kay, “so I am eareful not to have anything that won’t stand touching.” While she almost never entertains formally, her small circle of intimates have the run of her house. On her cook’s night off, she’s very apt, therefore, to find anywhere from two to six dinner guests on her hands. When that happens she invites all of them into the kitchen, and asks them each to prepare their specialty. “The result,” she says, “is sometimes pretty weird, but everyone has a lot of fun.” She has no elaborate system for keeping physically fit. With a crammed work schedule at the studio, she hasn’t time for other exercise. And she never puts on unwanted weight. If she feels the need of a “workout,” she goes to work in the house and cleans out closets. An occasional game of tennis helps her keep fit, too. Her two-car garage houses a Cadillac and a Ford, but she does her own driving and uses the Ford most of the time beeause it’s so easy to handle. She Page Twelve also navigates her own schooner, the “Pamet-Head,” and she likes to go off in it by herself for a long, restful day on the sea. For pets, she has two dogs, two cats, a parrot, a rabbit, a canary, goldfish and frogs. The dogs and cats get along together beautifully, but they tease the rabbit. The cats are out for the canary, and the canary is out for the goldfish, so she has a full time job keeping peace in her animal family. Schnitzler and Ernest Hemingway are her favorite authors, and she adores rainy evenings with the wind howling through the trees when she can get into bed right after dinner and read for hours. The “Wizard of Oz” books were her favorites at the tender age of six—and she still likes to read them. The tranquility Kay Francis is able to find when alone is possible because of inborn qualities which make her able to see things about her with much of the wonder and delight of a child. There is, of course, no real reason why sunsets should become commonplace — or opening flowers. One of her favorite memory bits is the poem which begins “My mind to me a kingdom is ..” After these periods of aloneness — but not loneliness — Miss Francis is able to go back to the studio with renewed mind and body. She can become the character the seript calls for — and portray it with the understanding which has placed her in the first rank of the stars. In “One Way Passage,” which comes to the ........ Theatre on noi Cee Ee » Miss Francis is ¢ostarred with William Powell. Beauty An Influence In The Life Of Kay Francis Star of “One Way Passage” Has Always Been Esthetically Inclined From the time that she was a mere infant, Kay Francis has worshipped beauty. While she has never let it become an obsession with her, her life has been guided by her love for beautiful things, and she cannot be happy in unlovely surroundings. From her mother, Katharine Clinton, a well-known actress, she learned the beauty of a clear and well-modulated voice—a lesson that stood by her well when she became _interested in the stage as a career. As soon as she was able to speak at all, she learned to use her voice to convey her emotions. And her favorite game, as a youngster, was playing theatre with Mummy. Her early education was _ received in convent schools, and there she found beauty in the quiet, orderly lives of the nuns, and in the religious ceremonies into which they poured all the fervor of their spirits. Then she was sent to Miss Fuller’s School in Ossining—a lovely old mansion set on a high hill above the Hudson. She was prominent in school athletics there, for her natural grace of movement made her quick and sure on her feet. And she was always the leader in staging the outdoor pageants that were a yearly feature of the school program. During her college course at the Cathedral School in Garden City, Long Island, she grew more interested in the theatre, and even wrote a play of her own, which she staged, and played the leading masculine role in. Being a very normal young lady, she also developed an interest in tea-daneing and Prineeton proms, and an accompanying interest in clothes. School uniforms being a thing of the past, her natural flair for clothes had a free rein, and she gained the reputation of being the _ bestdressed girl at school—a reputation that has followed her throughout her entire career. Finding that her college course hadn’t prepared her for any kind of a business career, she studied shorthand and typing at a secretarial school—but, unlike other girls, she found the usual type of business office too unbearably dingy. Through some _ friends, she found herself a position as personal secretary to a_ socially prominent matron. With lovely surroundings, her natural ability asserted itself. Her job soon expanded to cover interior decorating, and choosing clothes for her employer. She later was employed in that capacity by Mrs. Dwight Morrow, Mrs. Minturn Pinchot, and Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt. Her association with these women and her travels with them on the European continent proved a valuable education to Miss Francis. From them she learned to know the best in art—and her appreciation of beauty grew stronger and more professional. Eventually she decided to take a fling at the stage. It was an inevitable step for her to take —with the influence of her mother strong upon her. She soon achieved a marked success, appearing on Broadway, after a short period of “training” in “Venus,” “Crime,” and “Elmer the Great.” Her movie opportunity came when a leading woman was being sought to play opposite Walter Huston in “Gentlemen of the Press.” She had played opposite Huston in “Elmer the Great,” and his recommendation helped her to get the part. The movies have claimed her ever since, and her reputation as a finished aetress has grown with every picture that she has made. It is in Hollywood that Miss Francis has found her greatest happiness. Although = she © still travels whenever she has the opportunity, she is firmly convinced —like so many other Californians —that it is the Beauty State of the union. Acknowledged as the fashion leader of Hollywood, her clothes mirror the taste and refinement that is inherent in her. Working with Orry-Kelly, Warner Brothers’ inspired stylist she helps to create the costumes which make her pictures a fashion criterion for the women of all countries. But clothes never dominate her pictures—because she has learned Kay Francis More beautiful than ever, and rising to the greatest heights of her film career, Kay Francis, costarred with William Powell, is making another hit in “One Way Passage,” the Warner Bros. film drama at the Theatre. Mat No. 102—10c the secret of wearing smart clothes unobtrusively. And she will never wear a gown simply for its intrinsic beauty—unless it is the sort of gown that the character she is portraying would wear. On week-ends she likes to go off sailing in her small schooner. These long days alone with the sky and the water give her back all the energy she has poured into the week’s work at the studio. “Sailing alone on the boundless ocean gives you a sense of your own proportion that you might otherwise lose in the unreal world of motion picthres,” says Miss Francis. Miss Francis is co-starred with William Powell in “One Way Passage,” the Warner Bros. romance which comes to the...... Pheatrezon.) eee... ee “One Way Passage” is based on a story by Robert Lord and the sereen play is the work of Wilma Mizner and Joseph Jackson. Tay Garnett directed. Kay Francis Can Faint With Deft Look of Reality Kay Francis “passed out” early one morning during the production of “One Way Passage,” the Warner Bros. picture now showing at the Theatre, and it required the combined efforts of her personal doctor, the ship’s doctor and a trained nurse to revive her. In spite of this, she did not recover consciousness until well after noon. There was no excitement over the star’s collapse, however, because—fortunately—it was not real, but merely a sustained bit of acting which marks one of the most dramatic scenes in “One Way Passage.” As an invalid suffering from incurable heart trouble, Miss Francis sustains two shocks during the course of “One Way Passage.” The first follows her realization that William Powell, as Dan Hardesty, the man she loves, is not only a fugitive from justice but an escaped murderer, being taken back by a detective to pay the supreme penalty. The second comes as she bids her lover goodbye and sees him, handcuffed to the detective and taken ashore at San Francisco on his way to the gallows. It was her complete collapse after the first of these shocks that kept Miss Francis in a state of unconsciousness (even though it was only simulated for the camera) for several hours on this particular morning. Incidentally, the star regards these scenes as being the most trying she was called upon to enact during the entire picture. Miss Francis and William Powell are co-starred in “One Way Passage” and the support includes Aline MacMahon, Frank McHugh, Warren Hymer, Frederick Burton, Douglas Gerrard and Herbert Mundin. “One Way Passage” is based on a story by Robert Lord. The sereen play is the work of Wilson Mizner and Joseph Jackson. Author Consents To Become Actor For His Picture After preserving complete immunity to the bacillus histronicus ever since he came to Hollywood several years ago, Mizner, who has written almost every imaginable role, allowed the camera to sneak up on him during the opening scenes of the Warner Bros. picture, “One Way Passage,” now showing at the...... Theatre, with William Powell and Kay Francis again ¢costarred. It took all the high-powered persuasion of Tay Garnett, the director, supplemented by the wiles of Kay Francis and the eloquence of William Powell to tempt Bill within range of microphone. Finally Mizner capitulated and agreed to impersonate a slightly oiled gentleman who is aiding and abetting the cafe entertainers in song, at the saloon piano. Besides being an embryonie screen star, Mizner has been, at various times, fight promoter, gold miner, hobo, restaurant keeper, playwright and newspaper reporter. With Joseph Jackson he is author of the screen play for “One Way Passage,” a brilliant cast of supporting players, including Warren Hymer, Aline MaeMahon, Frank McHugh, Herbert Mundin, Frederick Burton, Douglas Gerrard and others: