The Conspirators (Warner Bros.) (1944)

WARNER FILM COMING 10 STRAND FRIDAY (Advance Reader) Warner Brothers’ newest excursion into the field of romance and intrigue, ‘The Conspirators,” opens at the Strand Theatre Friday starring Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid. The vehicle also serves to bring back that priceless triumvirate of international knaves composed of Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet and Victor Francen. Fredric Prokosch’s widely read novel of the same name provided the foundation for the film which depicts graphically the stirring account of the hidden war carried on against the Nazis from the neutral city of Lisbon. Mr. Henreid and Miss Lamarr assume the burden of the film’s sympathetic lovers. Messrs. Lorre, Greenstreet and Francen portray furtive figures of frightening propensities and are surrounded by a competent supporting cast which includes Jo Will Pay Deer(Ly) For Good Detective On the heels of a recent trunk murder in Los Angeles, a second blood-stained trunk, purchased from a second-hand store, caused a flurry of excitement with Hedy Lamarr and others at Warner Bros. during the filming of ‘’The Conspirators,’ currently at the Strand. The trunk was one of seven being used in the Lamarr-Pau! Henreid picture, amd its. discovery prompted Director Jean Negulesco to get in touch with police at once. The stains were tested and the municated to the studio. SusPpicions were confirmed. The trunk had contained a body—a deer’s body. laboratory results com seph Calleia, Carol Thurston, Edward Ciannelli, Kurt Katch and Monte Blue. The screen play was fashioned by Vladimir Pozner and Leo Rosten. Jean Negulesco directed for Producer Jack Chertok. The original music was supplied by Max Steiner with orchestral arrangements by Leonid Raab. Henreid Americanized Except For Film Kiss Paul Henreid, although fast adopting American ways, is determined to cling to much that his native Austria gave him. That is because he realizes the dollar-and-cents value of his European inheritances—the so-called Continental Flair. His mannerisms are the things that set him apart from rival, American-born actors. They are the little facets of his character that send the feminine motion picture theatre ticket buyers into gasps of delight when he romances on the screen. So far, they have done much to assist him in attaining screen success—and he knows this well enough to hang onto them. He has employed them advantageously since being in Hollywood, but never to a greater extent than in ‘The Conspirators,”’ currently at the Strand, in which he makes love to the beautiful Hedy Lamarr. When he makes love on the screen, it is in the manner of a suave, bowing to the waist, hand-kissing gentleman; none of the brusque, get-it-done-in-ahurry manner of the ever alert American. For instance, in “Now, Voyager,” and again in “Between Two Worlds,” he many times kissed the very kissable Bette Davis and Eleanor Parker. But he took his time about it, working up to the point where lips met like diplomats angling for power. He always got the kisses he Mat No. Peter Lorre 104; Still PL15; 15c wanted—but not until his love had been expressed concretely and in such forms as a gift of rare perfume. The European way, no less. The hiyah-babe _ technique, which involves a rapid embrace and quickly placed smack on the lips, is not for Henreid. Definitely not. And never will be. He’s earned his reputation by falling back on the mild, suave, slow-going manner — the sort that calls for (and gets from Henreid) words that are spoken softly, a bit huskily and faintly suggestively. His method of love-making may take longer than that of a fast-working American actor —but none can say it’s not just as effective. Some, as a matter of fact, there are who’ll swear it’s more effective. 42 FEET LONG, BREAKS RECORD The long kiss is back! After an absence from the screen of about nine years, it has just returned due to the joint efforts of Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid. Its announcement was made by Rudi Fehr, a man who measures kisses, and who brought as proof a tape rule in one hand and 42 feet of film in the other. The lengthy piece of film registered a lingering kiss exchanged between Miss Lamarr and Henreid for a farewell scene in Warner Bros.’ picture, “The Conspirators,” currently at the Strand. “In the old days a 42-foot kiss was a commonplace,” said Fehr. “Some were even longer. Then the pendulum swung, and kisses were brief—as brief as six feet. The average was probably between 10 and 13 feet. “Gradually they have been getting longer, especially during the war. The Lamarr-Hen reid kisses in this picture are . the longest on the screen in Hollywood today.. And the 42-foot one tops them all.. The long kiss is not only back, but I think it’s, here to stay.” _ Actor Displays Art of HandKissing In ‘The Conspirators’ “T kiss your hand, Madame,” says Paul Henreid, in effect, and in sixteen thousand theatres the Sinatra swooners relapse into a state of delicious unconsciousness. Hand-kissing is not exactly an old American custom but rather one that has been imported by handsome leading men from places across the seas. The best examples of the “art” are still those given by the polished actors from other climes such as Henreid, Errol Flynn, Paul Lukas, Charles Boyer, Helmut Dantine and a few native Americans who have acquired the talent. And women love it! ‘Perhaps the best primer on the gentle art of kissing a lady’s hand in Hollywood is the set of instructions given a few years ago to Errol Flynn by Director Michael Curtiz, who won the coveted Academy Award as the best Director for 1948. Mike’s now famous instructions started off with the admonition that the hand-kisser should not approach “as though you are going to bite the hand that is meeting you. Smile, but do not show the teeth,” warned Mike. “Just touch the hand lightly with your lips,” Curtiz advised Flynn at the time. “If your mustache tickles her hand and she giggles, ignore it. It is nothing. “When you kiss a_lady’s hand,” Curtiz continued, “you should hold her fingers with your fingers, very lightly, very elegantly. Do not kiss the palm of the hand, so. No! The back of the hand, she is for kissing. In Europe, where I used to live, we know.” Mike paused here in his instructions to let his observations sink in. “Do not drag her hand to your lips,’ he began again. “Bend at the waistline, so, lifting her hand a very little to your lips. And the lady, she does not hold her fingers stiff and outspread. No. She lets her fingers droop gracefully, like this.” Here Mike let his own big hand that belongs to a former weight-lifter and that has often demonstrated how to “draw from the hip,” hang loose from his wrist. “You watch the hand, not the lady,” he warned, “after you start to bend. You do not hurry. Never hurry when you are kissing a lady’s hand. It is bad business to hurry with kissing. “And the lady? She unbends a little, too, a very little. She likes it. Every woman likes to have her hand kissed. Try it at home some evening and see for yourself. “She does not hand the gentleman a bag of bones to kiss. She bows a little, a very little, she smiles happily, so, a little, and maybe she winks, a little, at some other man across your shoulder. Except in my pictures. That is out, in my pictures. “Now,” concluded the Director at that time, “we rehearse. Mr. Flynn knows my method. It is successful. Everybody else may practice during the lunch hour and so not waste any more of my time and the company’s money, learning how to kiss a lady’s hand.” Perhaps Paul Henreid knew all the rules before he worked with Curtiz in ‘“‘Casablanca.” Certainly he takes to it as naturally in “The Conspirators” as Errol Flynn ever did. With Hedy Lamarr’s hand on hand to be kissed, who wouldn’t? Even without Michael Curtiz there to show him how. Henreid’s flair for hand-kissing will be on view locally beginning Friday when “The Conspirators” opens at the Strand, — Lovely Hedy Lamarr is co-starred. Mat No. 203; Still PH107; 30c Paul Henreid, who has to fight "The Conspirators” practically single-handed, in the Warner Bros.’ film by that name which opens Friday at the Strand. BEAUTIFUL AND MODEST, HEDY DEFIES RULES Many women of average looks have expressed the belief that beauty and self-assurance went together, and that if they were only beautiful, they would be able to stand up against anything. Hedy Lamarr was _ recently put forward as a refutation of that belief by her director, Jean Negulesco, who declared that the actress, despite her famed beauty, was one of the most diffident and modest women he has ever met. “Incredible, but true, is the fact that Hedy has an overdose of modesty,” said Negulesco, who directed her with Paul Henreid in Warner Bros.’ “The Conspirators,” currently at the Strand. “She is one of the most selfcritical persons I have ever met. She will stop herself in the middle of a rehearsal and say, ‘No, that isn’t right,’ when as a matter of fact she was doing the scene excellently. “This auto-criticism, however, has served a purpose, even if I have had to oppose it on several occasions. “IT have seen every picture she has made. She has shown constant improvement as an actress to the point where, in this picture, she has vied for acting honors with Victor Francen, whom I regard as one of the most experienced and finished artists on the screen. “She did a scene with him the other day in which Francen, playing her unloved husband, was to have had the dominant role. So we believed on the set. Later, however, when we saw the scene in the projection room, we realized that Hedy had scored a triumph as an artist. Her acting was superb. Sensitive and emotional, it was the finest she had ever done. The result was that the ‘takes’ focused on her, rather than on Francen, went into the finished ‘picture. “When I met her outside, I congratulated her. She shook her head pensively and said, ‘No, I must do better than that.’ If anyone has a cure for hypermodesty, I wish he would get in touch with me.” ACTRESS WINS PAINTING NOT YET PAINTED During the filming of Warners’ dramatic love story, “The Conspirators,”’ now at the Strand, the beautiful Hedy Lamarr stood on her tip-toes, looked up, and Paul Henreid, holding her close, brushed her lips with a kiss. “Almost, almost,” danced Jean Negulesco, the director, “but not quite. It is like this—” Negulesco is first a portrait painter, then a motion picture director. He started to describe one of his more famous paintings, a pair of lovers in a kiss, titled “Rapture,” which hung in the Louvre. “Hedy, I will give you that painting if you will kiss that way for me in this scene,” he said. She tilted her famous profile again, and Henreid’s kiss this time was not quite so fragile. The make-up man came over and wiped Hedy’s rouge from the tall actor’s lips. “You must get up higher on your toes, Hedy,” protested Negulesco. “A woman’s body is most beautiful when she is on her toes. Let me show you.” He drew her out of Henreid’s arms, and at his command she lifted on her toes. “Look, how beautiful — the curves in your leg, your body slim and straight, your bosom tilted up, the graceful set of your head,” said Negulesco, gesturing. “Tt is what women try for but don’t quite achieve when they wear high-heeled slippers. Now once more, Hedy, and you and Paul will be the lovers in my painting.” Twice Hedy tip-toed to kiss Henreid, the third time the cameras rolled, and Negulesco cried out with glee: “That’s it, Hedy, that’s it! You are the lovers of my painting come to life!” Hedy let out a sigh, and then said: “By the way, Jean. Do I get the painting ... ? The one that hung in the Louvre?” Negulesco was mildly perplexed. He knitted his brows. “Oh, yes, the painting. The Louvre awaits it, Hedy, Now I shall paint it,” :