Showmen's Trade Review (Jan-Mar 1943)

February 27, 1943 SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW 43 HOLLYWOOD STTDIO ROUND-UP The weekly list of new pictures put into production are as follows: COLUMBIA RIGHT GUY— Principals : Claire Trevor, Edgar Buchanan, Jess Barker. Director, Ray Enright. SAMUEL GOLDWYN NORTH STAR — Principals: Walter Huston. Teresa Wright, Ann Harding, Walter Brennan. Director, Lewis Milestone. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER A GUY NAMED JOE— Principals : Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson. James Gleason. Director, Victor Fleming. MONOGRAM WILD HORSE STAMPEDE — Principals: Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, Betty Miles. Director, Robert Tansey. REPUBLIC PRODIGAL'S MOTHER— Principals : Mabel Paige, John Craven, Dorothy Morris. Director, Robert Siodmak. SWING YOUR PARTNER — Principals: Lulu Belle & Scotty, Dale Evans, Pappy Cheshire, Vera Vague. Director, Frank McDonald. 20th CENTURY-FOX JITTERBUGS — Principals: Laurel & Hardy. Vivian Blaine, Douglas Fowley. Director, Malcolm St. Clair. SWEET ROSIE O'GRADY (Tech.) — Principals : Betty Grable, Robert Young, Adolph Menjou. Director, Irving Cummings. UNIVERSAL OH, SAY, CAN YOU SWING— Principals : Gloria Jean, Donald O'Connor, Peggy Ryan. Director, Charles Laraont. NEVER A DULL MOMENT— Principals : Ritz Brothers, Frances Langford, Mary Beth Hughes. Director, Edward Lilley. I WANT TO SING — Principals: Patric Knowles, Evelyn Ankers, Rose Mary Lane. Director, Felix Feist. WARNER BROTHERS SARATOGA TRUNK — Principals: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Flora Robson. Director, Sam Wood. TITLE CHANGES Swing Your Mother (Rep.) now SWING YOUR PARTNER Blanche Ring's MGM Contract MGM has announced the signing of Blanche Ring to a long-term contract. The famous stage star, whose early success goes back to the days of James N. Hearn, Nat Goodwin and Chauncey Olcott, and who became the toast of New York with Rings on My Fingers and Bells on My Toes, is scheduled to arrive in Hollywood soon. At the same time, the studio celebrated the tenth year in pictures of Spring Byington by signing her to a new long-term contract. She is currently on loan to 20th-Fox for "Heaven Can Wait." Boyer-Hawks Sign Ella Raines Producer Howard Hawks and ProducerStar Charles Boyer have formed a million dollar corporation with Miss Ella Raines as their sole asset. Miss Raines is 20 and a recent graduate of the University of Washington, and was selected from an imposing array of talent to co-star with Randolph Scott in Producer Hawks' "Corvettes in Action" now being filmed at Universal studios. Believing the young lady has a future, the duo have signed her and each other for all-round protection. 'Come On, Lady Luck' Jean Arthur holds the money while John Wayne makes it in a hurry in this scene from "A Lady Takes a Chance," now before the cameras at RKO Radio. Teaming these two stars for first time, story concerns a New York working girl who meets a rodeo rider while on a transcontinental bus tour and goes on a romantic jag with him in Wyoming. William Seiter directs. Note mugging of the moose head in the upper right-hand corner. Dear Mr. Exhibitor's Wife: Over at Monogram they're working on "I Escaped From the Gestapo," their special budget picture with Mary Brian, Dean Jagger and John Carradine. We're going there today, for today's action takes place on an amusement pier and it should be fun. Let's get there early, for if we do we'll be able to see them shoot a police chase, which precedes the action on the pier, and that's something we haven't seen as yet. We enter the forward end of a pier and start walking down towards the camera. On each side of the road are the usual amusement concessions, such as the Tunnel of Love, the Fortune Teller's Booth, a place to eat Chop Suey, pin ball machines and restaurants selling hot dogs. Milling all around us are the extras, each dressed in his own clothes, for they are the cash customers, with uniforms predominating. From behind the camera we look down the street, whicli ends in a flickering screen; background of ocean and sky. Also down at that end is a black-and-white police car waiting for the action to start and inside are two policemen and Dean Jagger and Sidney Blackmer. Director Harold Young has in the meantime gotten everything set for a "take." When he gives the order "go" the car speeds towards us, stopping short within a few inches of the camera . . . causing us all to duck for safety. The doors fly open and out jump all four men, rushing towards us as though we were the criminals they were seeking. We notice when Blackmer gets close enough that he has a scar over one eye, the result of an accident during yesterday's filming. Meanwhile the camera keeps right on grinding, for the spectators, who are also part of this scene, must be photographed . . . one group in particular stand and talk while a close-up is taken. When all is over, we look around for the other players, only to learn that Miss Brian isn't workiiig today; but we do see John Carradine sitting over in the corner waiting for his call. Since it will be some time before they're finished setting up for the next scene, we must leave. So until next week. Ann Lewis Jean Brooks as Movie Diplomat Signed to a contract by RKO recently and used for feature roles in "Cat People" and "Leopard Man," both produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur, Jean Brooks will be used by the studio in a series of pictures that will do full justice to both North American and South American peoples. The actress was born in Texas but spent most of her girlhood in Costa Rica. Result : her Spanish is as fluent as that of any native, and she has been used for Spanish and English roles. W ANDERIIVft AROUND HOLLYWOOD At least we got back to New York, figuratively if not literally. The set for "Heaven Can Wait" was on the New York street of the back lot at 20th-Fox, and the street corner that constituted the scene was marked West 18th Street and Broadway. In about 1875 Brentano's was on 18th, so Broadway and the store has been duplicated. The styles were way back, too : Dickie Jones wearing pants that reached to his knees. Trim buttons made it a snappy outfit. The bowler hat that Don Ameche sported went well with the Pie Wagon (Black Maria) that rode through, drawn by horses. Director Ernst Lubitsch, doing his first picture for 20th-Fox, a comedy in Technicolor, didn't mind the street signs quite as much as I did. As far as he was concerned, the signs wouldn't be in the picture. But for me, my sense of propriety rebelled. The signs said Broadway and West 18th Street when I know that 18th Street and Broadway is East. Will I get over it? I can console myself because it was dated by the horse-drawn street car that went by. Get away from that 19th Century set where the streets are wrong and come to the 18th Century set ivhcre the bedroom looks like a dungeon. It zms a long trip back to the "Jane Eyre" set. While waiting for them to start we heard the booming voice of that tall fellow. JVhat's his name? Welles? Orson Welles! The scene was between Joan Fontaine and Margaret O'Brien, the sensational youngster of "Journey for Margaret." Joan, in an ISth Century dress, lay in a canopied bed and Margaret came over to talk to her. To the camera it was a private scene. Within a foot of the bed and just out of the camera range, stood half a dozen men, the director, Robert Stevenson, the cameraman, several assistants. It's amazing what an impression of privacy that scene will create in the finished picture. If the Army in the field is having weather trouble on the desert, they should get some of the movies' technical experts. In Columbia's "Somewhere in Sahara," photographer Rudolph Mate required shadows on a series of sand dunes for effect in a long shot of approaching tanks. All he did was tell Director Zoltan Korda, who .gave an order, and the desert was painted. For more than a mile going away from the camera, the painter sprayed black paint shadows on the dunes. Imagine what the Army could do? What mirages. But that isn't all. Another studio shooting on desert location found that recent rains had left the sand too soggy and made it difficult for men and horses to walk. So what? They shot some 1,100 bags of bran through a wind tunnel and coated the location where they were working. 'Seek! Strike! Destroy!' Paramount has launched plans to film the story of the American Army's tank destroyers under the title of "Seek! Strike! Destroy!" Executive Producer B. G. DeSylva has assigtied Joseph Sistrom, who produced "Wake Island" and "Star Spangled Rhythm," to produce. New Pact for Joan Leslie Jack L. Warner, executive producer at Warner Bros, studio, has presented Joan Leslie with a brand new long-term acting contract. "Sergeant York," "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "The Hard Way" are the pictures that have built Miss Leslie into a nationally known star.