Screenland (Nov 1942-Apr 1943)

SEAL-COTE Sensational New Aid To LONGER NAILS • SEAL-COTE is amazing! A thin coat applied daily over your polish quickly forms a crystal-hard, microscopically-thin transparent film that gives protection to nails. Seal-Cole also protects polish from chipping and fraying— adds lustre. 25<t at Cosmetic Counters SEAL-COTE Seat-Cote Co.. Hollywood, Calif. THE GREATEST WEAPON WE CAN PUT IN THE HANDS OF OUR MEN IS THE FEELING THAT AMERICA CARES DEEPLY FOR THEIR WELFARE. GIVE TO THE U.S.O. TELL ME A STORY . . . FROM childhood on, all of us like a good story well told. We love to learn about other times, other places, the loves and sorrows and achievements of other men and women. Now, more than ever before, the grandest stories in the world are being written . . . tales of war, of romance, of adventure in strange lands in which your own sweetheart or brother might be the hero . . . thrilling, haunting stories that send a tingle down your spine, tug at your heart and hold your interest to the breathless end. Every week Liberty Magazine brings you a half dozen or more such stories, written by the foremost story-tellers of today. In addition, authorities on politics, war and world affairs share their knowledge with you. The best cartoonists delight and amuse you. Right now you can take advantage of a special offer we are making to new Liberty subscribers. You save money and get Liberty delivered to your door by U.S. mail. By subscribing now you get the next twenty issues of the new, bigger Liberty for only $1.00. Send the coupon TODAY. LIBERTY. Box S-2 205 E. 42 St. New York. N. Y. Enclosed is $1.00. Send me the next twenty issues by mail. Name. . . Address. City . State. tice the new air of quiet dignity and reserve in Nova's gentle face, an expression grief has given her, for her young husband Lieutenant Penrose Tennyson was killed at sea only a few months ago. The romance of the pretty twenty-year-old star and the man whom so many considered the most brilliantly promising director in British films was truly a love story of the studios and everybody from producers to call-boys attended their wedding. Then Pen joined the Navy soon after war was declared and now his girl-widow acts again on the same familiar stages where he directed her and tries bravely to be as gallant and courageous as he would have wished. These two productions are our only offerings completely divorced from modern themes. For the rest, the British studios are devoted to making war-time pictures. Not ponderous propaganda films which choke you with exhortation and bore you with their far-too-obvious "messages." Just entertainment films with a background of our present war conditions, pictures related in speech and action and even in romance to the real world in which we are living here in Britain today. There is "Went the Day Well?" which they have just finished shooting at Ealing, the story of a quiet English seacoast village when the Nazis made an attempt at invasion— it begins where "Mrs. Miniver" left off ! Even more ambitious is "We're Not Weeping," which takes you behind the scenes with the thousands of girls in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the girls who wear the Army khaki and love it. I went to watch them on location at a big camp in the heart of the Surrey pinewoods. There Leslie Howard was sitting in the director's chair with only two elderly male technicians to support him while he ordered more than a thousand girl soldiers about. Blonde Lilli Palmer is the star, wearing a surgical plaster on her arm for she was cut by flying glass in an air raid recently. She and Rex Harrison and Harold French were sitting discussing the film when a bomb fell right outside and the blast blew all the windows into the room. Jade-eyed little Joan Greenwood and tall, pale, honey-blonde Joyce Howard have other leading parts. All the actresses had to take a month's intensive training course in the Army ranks, exactly like the genuine recruits do, before they were considered sufficiently the type to appear before the cameras. You haven't seen Joan and Joyce on the screen as yet but note the names because you'll be meeting them plenty in the future. They are both signed up to go to Hollywood for star-grooming just as soon as the war is over and they are allowed to travel there. So is lovely Carla Lehmann, Canadian-born stage actress. She has been leading lady for several British men stars and now she gets her own biggest chance as the heroine of "Talk About Jacqueline," which M-G-M is soon releasing on both sides of the Atlantic. Another budding young starlet is the slender Deborah Kerr, who was in Paul Soskin's film about Free Norway, called "The Day Will Dawn," and whom I saw playing one of the strangest love scenes ever directed in any studio. Dressed in the fashion of 1918, she sat beside a hospital bed in which Roger Livesey, his face completely swathed in bandages, lay and told her of his love and actually proposed to her entirely with his hands. His fingers gave a perfect piece of subtle acting and there wasn't a single retake needed. The film in which this unusual sequence takes place is "Colonel Blimp," the life story of a typical English Army officer of the old-fashioned school. Among the other players is Anton Walbrook as a German captain. It was hoped that David Niven could have taken the star part but Captain Niven is completely occupied with his Army duties and definitely states he is not interested in picture-making, even if he were given leave for it, until he has finished his job on Victory Day. The Army is in David's blood, you must remember. His father and grandfather and his two brothers were all soldiers and really David himself wanted to have a military career but got into pictures by accident when he was visiting California. His pretty socialite wife is sometimes in London, taking a brief vacation from her Red Cross job, but David is wearing battledress with his men and means to keep it on until the bells of peace ring out in Britain. Last time I saw Mrs. Niven was at the world premiere of "Eagle Squadron," at the Leicester Square Theatre, a typical war-time send-off with no decorations save the national flags and the guests in plain informal clothes or uniforms. Like lemons and silk stockings, glamorous evening gowns have passed into the lost limbo nowadays. Even when the Queen sees a film in the evening, she wears only a simpk short-sleeved dinner dress. The King and Queen and their twe daughters do keep in contact with all the latest productions, for they have their owr private cinema in a green and gold drawing room at Windsor Castle, and here the) regularly invite soldiers and sailors anc air men, both British and American, tc see a film with them. They've watchec "Mrs. Miniver" and Chaplin's "Gold Rush' and our own spy film, "Next of Kin," this fall. Sixteen-year-old Princess Elizabetl loves flying pictures, like most other young sters, but twelve-year-old Princess Mar garet prefers something with singing. Shi thinks Judy Garland is "perfectly lovely.' Among the Queen's favorite stars i Valerie Hobson and the Royal Famih lately watched her with Richard Greeni in "Unpublished Story," in which they usee the actual newsreel scenes of the Londoi blitz as a background for this film of news paper life. Valerie goes to the studio on he bicycle every morning now, wearing a thor oughly patriotic color-scheme of blue di vided skirt, white jersey and scarlet over coat. She has moved to a new cottage nea the Denham lot where she chiefly works Her husband, Anthony Havelock Aller is away in uniform now, like John Mill and Ann Todd's husband, Nigel Tangye and Frank Lawton, just promoted to Majo in the Army Welfare Corps. Robert Dona is still wearing civilian clothes, to his bit ter resentment, but he has not been able t< pass the medical examination for the fight ing forces. It's asthma, you know — recal how it took him out of pictures for nearl; two years and almost ended his career un til he recovered sufficiently to make a come back with "Goodbye, Mr. Chips?" He ha to take constant care of his health an< wouldn't be able to stand the strain of ac tive service life. Bob has just started worl at the Islington studios in "Sabotag Agent," which is exactly the kind of filr you would guess from the title ! Do you remember handsome, curly haired Esmond Knight, who played in bo't Hollywood and British films until 1939 Paramount was about to sign him up fo stardom but he joined the British Nav and took part in that famous Atlanti battle when the Nazi's battleship, the Bis mark, was sunk. One of the shells explode in front of Esmond's face and now he blinded for life. With tremendous courag; he has set out to master his afflictioi helped by his young actress wife, Franco Clare. He has learned to read and writ again and is publishing a book of hi stage and studio memories, called "Seel ing the Bubble." He has been on the radi with his life-long friend, Laurence Olivie in a special "Freedom Pageant" progran and now he is even coming back to film again. No longer can he play romanti roles, for close-ups would betray the sight 86 SCREENLAND