The Keyhole (Warner Bros.) (1933)

Advance Feature **The Keyhole’’ Brings New Big Star Team to Screen Kay Francis and George Brent Tagged “Ideal Combination” First Day By Shrewd Stage Crew FEATURE STORIES (Advance Feature) Kay Francis Still Remains An Enigma to Hollywood Tho Easy To Interview, Star of “The Keyhole” Studiously Refuses Information About Her Past NEW screen team looms on the motion picture horizon of 1933, and shrewd observers predict that before the end of the year, they will rival in popularity any similar combina tion on the sereen. Kay Francis and George Brent, both favorites on the Warner Bros. roster of stars and featured players, are the two who have given rise to this enthusiastic forecast. Their initial appearance >) together is in ‘‘The Keyhole, By the time the “rushes” of the first few days’ work had _ been viewed by production executives, the teaming of Kay Francis and George Brent had ceased to be an experiment. The success of the combination was assured. These two players, interesting as they were by themselves, spelled something, together, that was much more than just the simple addition of two interesting personalities. Put two colors together and the result is a third, distinctly different from the first two, with a power and an individuality all its own. That’s the sort of thing that has happened in the case of Kay Francis and George Brent. Such “teams’—for the want of a better word—are not easy to find. Any producer will testify to that fact. They can’t be made to order, nor called into being by an executive ukase. There are not more than half a dozen such ideal combinations—if that many—in all filmlanu at this moment. From now on, there will be an : ‘emand for stories, that Francis and Gorge in“aa «em, yet vecause of its outstanding entertain ment values, it sets a pace that must be equalled or surpassed dur ing the current season. Already the Warner story scouts, east and west, have orders to keep alert for anything that looks like an unusual Francis-Brent vehicle. | Form Ideal Team . The new team is significant in more ways than one. First of all, it is a combination of two of the most popular players on the Warner Bros. lot and the biggest in stature. Kay Francis, as the tallest woman star on the screen, stands five feet seven inches. George Brent, a perfect specimen of stalwart Irish manhood, is six feet tall, towering over his fellow-players by several inches, and both are very dark brunettes. They are an ideal team, in stature and physique. Temperamentally, they are an equally happy match. Early during the production of “The Keyhole” Miss Francis and Mr. Brent received an accolade of approval from what is probably the severest body of critics in the world—the electrical and production crew on the set. Names and _ reputations mean nothing to a “juicer,” a property man, a boom boy or a cameraman. They have been watching stars come and. go for years. They are no respecters of persons, and the greatest star that ever stepped in front of a camera is no hero—or heroine—to them. Yet their judgments are sharpened, rather than dulled, by continual association with the stars, and their appraisal, cruel though it sometimes may be, is as keen and swift as that of a horse trader appraising a new piece of horseflesh. Okayed by Stage Hands It didn’t take the “iron wranglers” more than a day to make up their minds about Kay Francis and George Brent. In fact, before noon of the first day’s shooting, the verdict was in. And it was one a drama touching on a new angle of the present-day divorce question, which comes to the SS EHCALPE: OMS ~ co: ad Wits SEAL AO RTUTI NG Vac ne le ages en aI Ex ae GT GEORGE BRENT, i es the part of a private detestive in “The : _—— sshich comes *~ +t ~ : eon Kas Francis is co-starred. Cut No.4 Cuti15c Mat 5e hundred per cent in favor of the new team. “That’s the best combination they’ve had on this lot since I’ve been working here,” said one big “Juicer” to his neighbor. The other nodded vigorously. “You said a mouthful,” he came back. “Those two can make a spark jump up and down your spine while youw’re watchin’ ’em.” Similar votes were being cast throughout the crew as the gang streamed out toward the _ studio restaurant. In the nature of a straw vote, to be sure, it is nevertheless the kind of a straw vote that shows which way the wind is going to blow from the general theatre going public later. With that kind of a _ sendoff, Kay Francis and George Brent have a fast track ahead of them, for 1938. Michael Curtiz directed “The Keyhole,” which is based upon a novel by the famous writer, Alice D. G. Miller. The supporting cast includes such artists as Glenda Farrell, Henry Kolker, Monroe Owsley, Helen Ware and Allen Jenkins. PROGRAM SQUIBBS Kay Francis earned her first money as the “Player Queen” in a modern dress version of “Hamlet.”’ * oO Ok An injury sustained while playing polo makes it impossible for George Brent to say “no” with the accompanying gesture of the head. Now he’s talking straight from _ the shoulder. * * % Kay Francis began her commercial career as a social secretary, occupying such positions in the households of Mrs. Dwight W. Morrow and Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt. is First National ioe is: HERE are many things that most people don’t know about Kay Francis, who has the leading role in ‘‘The Keyhole,’’ a Warner Bros. picture which comes to the Thats. 2. No one in Hollywood is easier to talk to or more difficult to get information from. Compared to the private life of Kay Francis, the career of Greta Garbo is an open book. Nobody can see Miss Garbo but everybody knows a great deal about her. Any properly authenticated interviewer can visit. Miss Francis but she remains the real mystery of Hollywood. As an example, no one knows, apparently, what Miss Francis’ real name is. Answering a written questionnaire Miss Francis wrote that her real name is Katharine Edwina Gibbs. Whether or “not that is her maiden name or her legal name before her marriage to Kenneth McKenna, seems a bit uncertain. Her mother has been variously reported as Catherine Clinton, well known actress, and as a small town dressmaker in the middle west. Kay Francis was born in Oklahoma City. Her own questionnaire does not name her mother or father but the fact that she is the daughter of the actress seems well substantiated. Her nationality is more indefinite. There seems to be some Irish in it. She was educated in convents and the name of Gibbs adds to the evidence. Her husband’s legal name is Milziner. Behind this triple camouflage of professional names is the true story of Kay Francis, one of the screen’s most popular stars. Another question to be answered on the customary questionnaire preseuiee sai a new eee neni ttle “How did you Tapper to go on screen or stage.” Short and Sweet To that Miss Franeis wrote in careless but legible back hand, “Hong story.” She has never been persuaded to enlarge upen that cryptic comment. Back of it may be many hardships, disappointments, exciting moments, but they are secrets locked tightly in the breast of the lady who talks willingly but tells nothing. It is rumored that Kay Francis served several socially prominent women as secretary before she started her stage career. The names of Mrs. Dwight Morrow, Mrs. Minturn Pinchot and Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt are mentioned as her former employers. It is difficult to find any authority coming directly from Miss Francis for these stories. As a child Kay Francis lived in California. There is a story that she played child roles in very early pictures. She has never admitted as much nor has she authenticated the story that she tried, unsuccessfully, to storm the Hollywood studios as an extra before she made her first successful attempts to get on the New York stage. | Married at 17 | She has, in unguarded moments, admitted previous romances. At least one of these, it is known, culminated in her marriage at seventeen. The name of the man has been lost to the public, if indeed, it was ever generally known. That marriage lasted two and a half years and was ended by a Paris divorce. It was then, she has told someone, that she made up _ her mind to try the stage as a career —a career which she once intimated, her mother did not want her to try. The years in between are all a blank so far as those who come to interview Miss Francis know. She talks freely of pictures, of her husband, of the home they have established in Hollywood and the farm they are developing in Massachusetts, and of their thirty-six foot schooner in which they prowl about the California coast line and which her husband sails while she does the necessary cooking. But about herself and her family and the story of her life up to the time she appeared in a minor role in the production of “Hamlet” in modern clothes, she says nothing. Hither preceding or just following this, the record is indistinct even here. Katherine Francis, as she was called then, went to the Stuart Walker stock company playing in Indianapolis and Cincinnati. She was there one season—perhaps two. When did she take the name of Francis? When did she shorten Katherine to Kay? When did she drop the name of Gibbs? Was she in pictures as a child? Did she try to break into pictures a number of years ago, as an extra? Was she secretary to the social’ yminent women named aboy’ her ‘mother an actress? —— “lried when she arrived in Hollywood. and if so, to whom? A less important player than Miss Francis, arriving in Hollywood for the first time professionally, would have been subjected to a grueling cross examination about her life and career to date. Kay Francis came when her reputation as an actress was already established and she was able to fend off the questioners and allowed to be vague when she wished. With that first golden opportunity to ask questions gone, no studio where she has worked since has ever been able to fill in the blank places in her life story. First Stage Role Luck | Asked how she got her first stage role iiss Francis’ recorded reply is just as terse and meaningful as all the other answers she has made. Her answer is one word, “Luck.” She has never modified nor enlarged that simple statement either. What name did she go under in her first stage appearance? When did she marry F. Dwight Francis, whose name she still uses professionally? At least twenty of her twenty-seven years are still shrouded in more or less complete mystery. Her first picture was with Walter Huston in “Gentlemen of the Press.” Her latest picture, under her present Warner Bros. contract, is “The Keyhole.” The years between the making of those two productions, years which have seen Miss Francis progress toward stardom and tremendous popularity, hold few secrets from an adoring public. But there are still many, many things that most of us don’t know about Kay Francis. In “The Keyhole” Miss Francis has the role of a beautiful dancer who marries a wealthy middle aged man. He is so jealous of her he hires a spy to trail her. Learning of this, she promptly quits the husband and falls in love with the spy. The cast includes George Brent in the leading masculine role, Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins, Monroe Owsley, Helen Ware and Henry Kolker. The screen play by Robert Presnell is based on the story “Adventuress”’ by Alice D. G. Miller. Michael Curtiz directed. Page Seven