The Very Thought of You (Warner Bros.) (1944)

PLAYS DRAMATIC PART Mat 201—Still DM 18—30c Dennis Morgan, who plays a straight dramatic role—that of a homecoming G.|_—in Warner Bros.’ thrilling new romance, "The Very Thought Of You," which comes to the Strand Friday. Lovely Eleanor Parker and Dane Clark are co-starred. Playing Nurse Is One Step Up To Stardom In the process of becoming a star a girl sooner or later plays the part of a nurse. It somehow always happens. To be sure, she also will find herself playing many another conventional role, such as secretary, saleswoman, housewife, or what-have-you, but long after these assignments have blurred into the general pattern of her histrionic apprenticeship, she still will remember the day she played the nurse. Angela Greene, the eye-filling Powers model recently signed by Warner Bros., knows this. She played a nurse recently for Director Delmer Daves during the filming of “The Very Thought of You,’ Warner Bros.’ new romantic comedy starring Dennis Morgan, Eleanor Parker and Dane Clark, currently at the Strand. She found it quite a routine. Almost the moment she emerged from the wardrobe department, looking white, crispy, starchy and altogether luscious, it started. A passing assistant director jibed, “Oh, Nursie, will you let me be your little blood transfusion?” Angela smiled Actress Reads Own Mail In Strand Film If Eleanor Parker seems particularly credible in a certain scene of her first starring picture, Warner Bros.’ “The Very Thought of You,”’ opening Friday at the Strand, there will be good reason. The scene in question is that in which she reads a V-mail letter sent by her film husband, a top-sergeant overseas. Director Delmer Daves decided it would be most effec tive to have Eleanor read a message from her own husband, Lt. Fred Losee, now on duty in the Pacific with the Navy. back sweetly. She didn’t think it required an answer, really. Further along the way to the sound stage she was assured, among other things, that (1) she looked much cuter than Nurse Kenny, (2) she probably collected a lot of nice temperatures, and (3) it would be fun to study her charts with her some time, any time. On the set, hers was to be the stint of assisting the doctor to deliver a baby to Eleanor Parker. This resulted in her having to listen to (and pretend to be amused by) all the standard father jokes, dating back as far as this one: Man: “Does this doctor have a good record?” Other man: “Well, ha, ha, he’s never lost a father yet.” Angela stood up under it all very well. When she went to the commissary Green Room for lunch, it started again. So it went. All day. Angela survived, but she was glad to turn back her nurse’s uniform when her scenes were completed. At the end of the day her own blood pressure was getting pretty low. Mat 113—Still AK 80—15¢ Andrea King ‘The Very Thought Of You,’ New Warner Romance, Arrives Friday At Strand (Advance Theatre Story) As a welcome relief from the flood of ‘delinquency’ propaganda that has been shoveled at us in large doses these past months, and which has done little to picture the soldier in his true light, Warner Bros. have taken a sensible approach to this everyday problem in their new topical romance, ‘“‘The Very Thought Of You,” starring Dennis Morgan, Eleanor Parker and Dane Clark, which arrives at the Strand Thea tre this Friday. For the obvious is easily ignored when confronted with the sensational. Is it so hard to realize that today’s soldier was yesterday’s college boy? That the young marine your daughter met last night at the U.S.O. was the boy who raced her to the float, in happier summertimes? That a few yards of olive drab wool, or navy blue yarn does little to change the boy, who has just recently changed his suit? Truthfully now, can a leopard change his spots? Yes, it was much different yesterday, there was time for long courtships and_ getting used to each other. But there was also time for long automobile rides, for college, for vacations; things we have stricken from our way of life until the war’s end, for we just haven’t the time... still, we are getting along. So will they. The story of Janet and David as told in Warner Bros.’ film would not warrant unusual consideration these days were it not for the fact that their problems are the problems of our youth today, a health loving ‘youth that would rather hold a few hours of happiness in its arms now, than stand by the wayside and search for it tomorrow. Janet met Dave on a bus. They talked, laughed, exchanged hearts, and fell in love, all in a few happy hours. Quickly Dave’s furlough days rushed by, and suddenly it would be tomorrow, and an outbound ship the day after. Gently, so as not to arouse the antagonism of a family split asunder by the antics of a near neurotic mother, a self-pitying brother rejected by the army, and the frivolous flirtations of a sister in love with herself, not her sailor husband, Janet sheds her cloak of unhappiness to become Dave’s wife. Dawn finds Dave gone, his happiness clutched tightly in Janet’s hands, the girl alone no longer. Summer, Autumn, Winter, lonely days, all packed tightly together, roll slowly by. The postmarks on Dave’s letters change. Frisco, then an A.P.O. and the youngsters have each other only by mail, endless chains of letters. And _ then, nursed by a love born in the haste of war, Dave’s son is born. Family roots reach out, and this time lovingly encircle the girl. Her mother, softened by the little child, slowly drops her veil of bitterness, and her sister, her happiness recaptured in the arms of her returned husband, brings contentment to the family. And with the turning of the leaves, Dave comes home. Not the same Dave who went away, but a man wounded in battle, returning to a wife he has learned to talk to in letters only. But now all the empty days are over, for in the eyes of his wife, and in his son, he has found the justification for his sacrifice. “The Very Thought of You” brings Dennis Morgan to the screen as the sensitive young engineer-soldier, Dave; Eleanor Parker as Janet, who found happiness and love overnight; and acts as a returning vehicle for Dane Clark, most recently seen as the embittered “Tin Can” of “Destination Tokyo,” now in the role of a fun-liking, lady-loving soldier, “Fixit.” Also sharing honors with these ‘stars are Faye Emerson as Fixit’s Cora, Beulah Bondi as Janet’s Mom, Henry Travers as Pop, and William Prince, Andrea King, John Alvin, Marianne O’Brien, Georgia Lee Settle and Dick Erdman. The special musical effects and scores were accomplished by musical director Leo F. Forbstein, and arranger Leo Arnaud, while the film’s direction was handled by Delmer Daves. Mr. Daves, with the collaboration of Alvah Bessie, prepared the script for filming, under the producership of Jerry Wald. VETERAN ACTOR IN WARNERS’ STRAND FILM Henry Travers, expert and veteran character actor to be seen importantly in Warners’ “The Very Thought of You,” now at the Strand, must have found his role pleasantly familiar. It’s the kind of part he does so engagingly. In this new picture, Travers plays the congenial head of a family which might charitably be tagged unorthodox. Its provocative members include an emotional mother, a cynical son, another equally cynical daughter, a peacemaking daughter-in-law, and a prematurely sophisticated ’teenage child. The formula, for Travers, is not a strange one. In one of his most successful Broadway plays, the George KaufmanMoss Hart item, “You Can’t Take It With You,” Travers played the eccentric head of the zaniest family yet to be planted behind footlights. That one turned out all right, dramatically. Again, in “Reunion In Vienna,” with the Lunts, he presided over an unorthodox household. In “The Good Earth,” he again was a family head. And one of Travers’ earliest films was “Too Many Parents,” his role in that being another familiar characterization. However, let it be immediately recorded that each new Travers chore is freshly interpreted and enthusiastically performed. He is too significant a figure in motion pictures and the American theatre to relax in his work. “The Very Thought Of You” has a cast headed by Dennis Morgan, Eleanor Parker and Dane Clark. Broadway, Hollywood— Hangouts Don’t Change On the corner of Fifty-first and Broadway in New York, Hanson’s drug store is much like any other modern drug store in the country. It sells everything from pots and pans to pills and potables. But it is a different kind of a drug store because it is also the quasi-official club house for all the Broadway backstage set —actors, agents, columnists and characters. In Hollywood, it’s Schwab’s, at the corner of the Sunset strip and Crescent Heights. Dane Clark knows both places —well. In days gone by he was difinitely a “regular” at Hanson’s. He used to day-dream between cups of coffee about making good on Broadway, then landing a contract in H-o.410 y's wood, and driving big, black. cars, wearing swanky, smart clothes, and making film love to beautiful, wonderful women like Ann Sheridan and Rosalind Russell. Now that he’s in Hollywood, he sits at the counter of Schwab’s, day-dreaming between cups of coffee, and he still thinks it would be fun to do those things. Sometimes he thinks his hopes looked better at Hanson’s. Not that Dane isn’t making good in Hollywood. He is. He clicked in his very first picture, “Action in the North Atlantic.” He did very, very well with Mat DC 102-——15c Dane Clark Cary Grant and John Garfield in “Destination Tokyo.” He does more than well with Dennis Morgan, Eleanor Parker and Faye Emerson in “The Very Thought of You,’ Warners’ new hit currently at the Strand. But no cars, no clothes, no Sheridans. They won’t even let him comb his hair in a scene. In “Action” he was a rough, tough merchant seaman in dungarees. In “Destination” he was a rough, tough sailorman on one of Uncle Sam’s fighting subs. In “The Very Thought of You” he is a rough, tough G.I. Joe. Dane is the type, and he knows it. He does that sort of job well, and he’s going places. But life is like this: prizefighters often want to, and do, open flower shops; dreamy-eyed poets become fighting fools in battle; and a couple of England’s most hardboiled generals get a terrific bang out of crocheting. Dane Clark would like a role with a big car, and very elegant full dress suits, and suave, polished lines of dialogue, and love scenes with someone like Hedy Lamarr. “That’s for me; that’s my meat.”” That’s what Dane mutters to himself, sitting at the counter of Schwab’s. It’s just about the same thing it was at Hanson’s. AND—TWO Special Features for Newspapers (See Page 14)