The House on 56th Street (Warner Bros.) (1933)

This bevy of beauty is the Floradora Sextette (which currently on exhibition in “The House on 56th Street,” If your eyes are sharp, you can see that third from the left is none Kay Francis, star of the picture. Mat No. 14 Price 15c you may or may not remember), and it is Warner Bros.’ hit movie playing at the Strand. other than your old friend, lovely Kay Francis, Star, Plays A Chorine for First Time Makes Her Bow As Floradora Sextette Girl In First Part of “House On 56th Street”’ AY FRANCIS had to give up an enviable stage career and become a motion picture star in Hollywood to get her first experience in musical comedy, as a chorine. This may sound like an odd statement, but it’s true. For the first time since Hollywood’s most stunning brunette donned theatrical makeup, she learned what it was to be a chorus girl when she led the famous ‘‘Floradora”’ sextette in the brief but colorful scenes which form the opening sequence of her latest Warner Bros. starring picture, “The House on 56th Street,’ due at the Theatre, on Incidentally, it may be said—on the evidence of numerous hardboiled grips, electricians, and property men who watched Kay sparkle on the set that represented the old Broadway Casino Theatre, in 1901— that Miss Francis has never looked more brilliantly beautiful than when she tripped up and down behind the footlights, singing the famous hit of the period, “While Strolling In The Park One Day.” The road to stage success has led through the chorus for more than one actress. But for Kay Francis who has beauty and charm enough to have won distinction in the most dazzling beauty chorus that Flo Ziegfeld, George White, Earl Carroll or any of Broadway’s other maestros of feminine loveliness ever as sembled, her success did not come from the chorus. Her first experience was in the role of “The Player Queen” in a modernized version of “Hamlet.” She spent a valuable year under the tutelage of Stuart Walker in his Portmanteau Theatre stock company. With the priceless training gained in that school, Kay returned to Broadway for important roles in “Venus,” “Crime” and “Elmer The Great,” in which she had played with Walter Huston. It was opposite Huston that she made her debut on the screen as leading woman in “Gentlemen of The Press.” The curtain fell, from that moment, on Kay Francis as a stage actress, and rose upon her as a coming screen star. The rest is familiar history. Kay’s histrionic of ability is, course, no accident. The daughter of a well-known actress, Katherine Clinton, it would have been surprising if the call of the footlights had not sounded with increasing insistence in the girl’s ears as the years went on. “It is funny, though, isn’t it,” laughed Kay, “that I should have to become a star before I had a chance to be a chorus girl! It’s a fascinating experience and I was really sorry to see that sequence of the picture finished. Of course, it’s only the starting-point for the real drama of ‘The House on 56th Street.’ But I rather think I should like to do a backstage story some day, particularly an interesting one written around a big musical show.” That statement may lead to interesting developments later. ' “The House on 56th Street,” taken from a novel by Joseph Santley, is a dramatie story of a “Floradora Sextette” girl who marries a wealthy and aristocratic youth only to have her happiness shattered by the ghost of a former love affair. Robert Florey directed the production, with a cast that includes Margaret Lindsay, Gene Raymond, Frank McHugh, John Halliday, Walter Walker, Phillip Faversham, Nella Walker and Henry O’Neill. The other five girls in the sextette seen with Kay Francis are Sheila Terry, Lorena Layson, Renee Whitney, Pat Wing and Helene Barclay. Robert Florey directed the picture from the screen play by Austin Parker and Sheridan Gibney. Cortez Plays First Role as New Warner Bros. Star Appears Opposite Kay Francis as Her Gambler Partner in “House on 56th Street”? Drama HEN Ricardo Cortez—which wasn’t his name when he was born—first saw the light in far-off Vienna, his parents little dreamed that they had given to the world a future motion picture star. From Vienna to Hollywood is a long journey. Without quite knowing where he was headed, and caring little at the tender age of four, the boy started on that journey when his parents left their home in Vienna for the New World. His boyhood was much like that of thousands of other lads in the metropolis of New York. When his public schooling was finished, Ricardo got his first taste of the world of business in a stock broker’s office as a messenger boy. But business—even the excitement and tumult of the financial district of New Work—had no appeal to him. It was a passing phase. His inclinations already lay strongly toward the theatre. To satisfy his thirst for personal contact with the world behind the footlights, he got a job as a “super” in various Broadway shows. He got no further than the ranks of the supers then, but he made up his mind to be an actor. But if the theatre failed to offer the ambitious youth any encouragement, the newer business of motion pictures, eager for new talent and ready to give anyone a chance who looked promising, was more democratic. Cortez turned his back on the world of the footlights for the domain of the kliegs. In the Fort Lee, New Jersey, studios, he began as an extra, but recognition came fast. Presently he was playing small parts, then bigger ones. He showed such promise and ability that he was brought to Hollywood. Since his arrival on the west coast, Ricardo Cortez has been a recognized star and featured player. Twice he has had the unique distinction of long-term contracts with the same major studio. In such recent pictures as “Flesh,” “Thirteen Women,” “Symphony of Six Million,” “Big Executive” and “Torch Song” he has demonstrated his unusual ability as an interpreter of vivid roles. Quiet in manner, darkly handsome, incisive of speech and keenwitted, Cortez is a popular figure in the motion picture colony of the Pacific Coast. He is an excellent dancer, an able raconteur, reads and speaks several languages, and is a keep student of current affairs. His characterization opposite Kay Francis in “The House on 56th Street” won Cortez a long-term contract with Warner Bros., where he is slated for several outstanding roles during the present season. In “The House on 56th Street,” which comes to the Theatre the role of gambling partner of Miss Francis, the pair taking in the suckers on ocean liners and later Ricardo Cortez, one of the four male leads who play in support of Kay Francis in “The House on 56th Street,” ‘coming. 2. 3..005.6., Sneek to the Strand. Mat No.17 Price 5e¢ in the New York speakeasy and gambling house on 56th Street. The picture is a drama based on Joseph Santley’s novel, which follows the fortunes of a beautiful “Floradora” chorus girl, who marries into society. In the cast with Miss Francis and Cortez are Gene Raymond, John Halliday, Margaret Lindsay, Frank McHugh, Sheila Terry and William Boyd. Robert Florey directed the picture from a screen play by Austin Parker and Sheridan Gibney. American Women To Follow Kay's Hairdress in Film Young and Old Alike Will Admire Beautiful Star’s Headdress in “The House on 56th Street” F Hollywood fashion dictators can be believed, American women will be dressing their hair as Kay Francis has her’s dressed in her latest Warner Bros. picture, ‘‘The House on 56th Street,’’ which opens at the on Theatre And judging from the advance photographs that have been seen showing Kay Francis in her new Style hairdress, it won’t be very hard for American women to follow the star’s example. The arrangement of hair Miss Francis wears with such bewitching charm in this picture goes back centuries before 1900, however. Experts say it was first employed by Poppex Sabina, Empress of Nero. Then it went the way of all fashions, until it was revived by Josephine de Beauharnais after her marriage to Napoleon. Once again thereafter it passed into temporary oblivion until it was re-discovered at the turn of the cen Page Four tury and became the reigning headdress on both sides of the Atlantic. Now stylists say it will re-appear once more with Kay Francis as perhaps its loveliest exponent. Heretofore new styles in hairdress have been designed to appeal solely to the girl in her teens or early twenties. For those the Kay Francis headdress in the early sequences of the picture, will be an inspiration. But the middle aged American wom ful hairdress. Mat No.16 Price 5c en, will have their treat when they see the glamorous star in the latter Kay Francis shows you her beauti part of ‘‘The House on 56th Street.’’ Her’s is a stunning coiffeur, with almost white hair, beautifully done, Kay Francis very becoming gray, looks as regal as a queen. No wonder she still retains her beauty and personality that made her the reigning toast of Broadway in her hey day as the most popular member of the ‘“Floradora Sextette.’’ ‘‘The House on 56th Street’ ’presents the absorbing story of a beautiful show girl married to a millionaire New Yorker, who innocently becomes involved in the death of a former lover. It is said to be stark drama stronger than any in which Kay Francis the star has ever appeared. The picture, based on the novel by Joseph Santley, directed by Robert Florey from a screen play by Austin Parker and Sheridan Gibney. In the cast with Miss Francis are Ricardo Cortez, Gene Raymond, John Halliday, Frank McHugh, Sheila Terry, William Boyd and Phillip Faversham. was = The Vitaphone Trailer on “House on 56th Street” is one of the most cleverly planned pieces of advertising you have at your command. Angles for women—angles for men—every inch of it an irresistible sales ment. argu Start it running now— the longer it plays the more it pays! Tic A ee ae , Cortez plays |