Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1944)

32 SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW November 11, 1944 3TR West Coast Offices 6777 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood 28, Calif. Telephone, Hollywood 2055 PRODUCTION NOTES FROM THE STUDIOS Paramount to Make 'Blue Skies' as Irving Berlin Special/ Picbel to Direct Colbert/ MGM Renev/s Marx as Producer ►"The Man Who Couldn't Lose," recently introduced as a radio dramatization with Gene Kelly enacting the title role, was purchased by MGM for feature length filmization. Jerry Bresler will produce. ►Jackie Moran, Sidney Miller and Wanda McKay have been signed for featured roles in "Make Way For Kelly," second in Monogram's "Kelly" comedy series. Phil Karlstein is directing, with William Sirohbach as associate producer. Tim Ryan wrote the original screenplay. ►Paramount has completed plans for the production of Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" to be produced and directed by Mark Sandrich. Based on an original idea by Berlin, the story is being developed by him and Sandrich for filming in Technicolor. Twenty of Berlin's most famous tunes will be used. ►Otto Kruger will impersonate Earl Carroll in "Earl Carroll's Vanities," co-starring Constance Moore and Dennis O'Keefe. Albert J. Cohen is producing for Republic. ►Frank Ross and Mervyn LeRoy have started negotiations with D. O. Selznick to borrow Ingrid Bergman for the role of Diana in "The Robe." Meanwhile, the book continues to make publishing history, with no diminution in its sales. Current plans are to put it into production early next year for RKO release. ►Allyn Joslyn gets the assignment as Captain Purvis in 20th Century-Fox's "A Bell For Adano." Produced by Louis Lighton and directed by Henry King, the picture will star John Hodiak, Gene Tierney and Bill Bendix. ►Cleve Adams, novelist and author of "The Crooked Finger," "Evil Star" and other books, was signed by Producer Edmund T. Hartmann to write the final screenplay of the third Universal Abbott and Costello comedy, "You Hypnotize Me." ►Victor McLaglen and Chester Morris were signed by Columbia to team in the co-starring roles of "Men of the Deep," action film based on the operations of the salvage division of the U. S. Army Engineering Corps. It is scheduled to go into production November 13 with Del Lord directing. ►PRC's biggest picture to date, "Crime, Inc.." which will have 78 speaking parts and utilize 35 sets, gets the starting gun at once, with Leo Carrillo, Tom Neal, Martha Tilton and Lionel Atwill in the leading roles. Lew Landers is directing for Producer Martin Mooney. James Brown is cameraman. ►W. R. Frank is circularizing all public school departments in cities of more than 15,000 population t(5 plug "A Boy, a Girl and a Dog" which has special appeal for juveniles. Frank hopes to arrange for Jerry Hunter, his eight-year-old contractee, to appear before various West Coast groups interested in child welfare. ►MGM has signed a new long-term contract with Samuel Marx, who resumed production on "Son of Lassie" this week, after the canine returned from location shooting on another film. Donald Crisp, Peter Lawford and June Lockhart head the cast, with Sylvan Simon directing. ►William Goetz, president of International Pictures, has engaged Irving Pichel to direct Claudette Colbert in "Tomorrow Is Forever." George Brent is the first male name selected for the David Lewis production. ►"A Royal Scandal" had to wait until Tallulah Bankhead recovered from laryngitis. The Ernst Lubitsch production at 20th Century-Fox is being directed by Otto Preminger with a cast that includes Charles Coburn, Anne Baxter, William Eythe, Vincent Price, Sig Ruman and Mischa Auer. ►Dr. Miklos Rozsa, world fanjous composer and conductor, has been signed by Selznick to compose and conduct approximately 70 minutes of original music for the background score of the Ingrid Bergman-Gregory Peck starrer, "Spellbound." ►"On Stage Everybody," which Universal recently purchased from the Blue Radio Network, has already been turned into a screenplay by Dorcas Cochrane and turned over to Universal Producer Warren Wilson. ►Edgar Buchanan, who has more gravel in his voice than And}' Devine, has been assigned to an important role in "Kiss and Tell," being made by an independent company for Columbia release. Starring Shirley Temple, the film is being made by F. Hugh Herbert, who wrote the play, George Abbott, who presented it, and Sol Siegel, former Columbia producer. ►Frank Morgan gets a top spot in MGM's tropical musical, "Yolanda and the Thief," with Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer. Arthur Freed produces and expects to get the film rolling very soon. Director Peter Godfrey and star Dennis Morgan are diligently trying to impress Barbara Stanwyck with the importance of something or other on the set of Warners' "Christmas in Connecticut," completed recently and now awaiting a release date. IN HOLLYWOOD IT'S NEWS... Roger Pryor, who stepped into the Pine-Thomas film, "High Man," after three years as a civilian flight instructor, will be a city editor in "You'll Be the Death of Me" . . . Richard Aden's next for Republic will be "Johnny March," a psychological drama . . . "The Magnificent Tramp" is the title temporarily selected by RKO for the first picture starring Cantinflas, Latin-America's motion picture comedian recently signed by them . . . When he finishes "Where Do We Go From Here," Gregory Ratoff will go to New York as the guest of baritone Leonard Warren of the Met. . . . Elwood Bredell will handle the cameras on Universal's "It's Never Too Late" . . . Jack Carson will appear opposite Joan Crawford in Warners' "Mildred Pierce" . . . They're still scoring the Columbia color special, "Tonight and Every Night," which stars Rita Hayworth and Janet Blair . . . Gene Kelly does a dance specialty in MGM's "Anchors Aweigh" climaxed by seven-foot leaps and a vine-swinging forty-five foot rooftop jump forty feet in the air (it says here) . . . Acquanetta, recently placed under contract to Monogram, was the full-page pinup girl in a recent issue of Yank, which isn't difficult to understand . . . Lillian Fontaine, mother of Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland, makes her film debut as the mother of Jane Wyman in "The Lost Weekend" . . . Republic is looking for a good reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa for "Scotland Yard Investigator"; sort of puts the cart before the horse ; why not have the Scotland Yard investigator look for the copy? . . . Don McElwaine, formerly assistant chief of publicity at MGM, has started his duties as national advertising and publicity director of PRC . . . Actors are still being discovered in unusual places: Phil Hanna, new MGMer, was discovered by Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney while the three were making a recording for Decca .... Richard Mealand, new head of Paramount's story and writing departments, has arrived at the studio from New York ... A home-sweet-home where four hundred clocks are striking and coo-cooing on the hour and oftener will be seen in a coming Jerry Fairbanks' "Unusual Occupations" . . . And one of the most extensive collections of cookbooks (over 300) belongs to Dinah Shore. 20th-Fox Buys 'Forever Amber' Screen rights to "Forever Amber," recently published novel by Kathleen Winsor, have been purchased by 20th Century-Fox for a price said to be one of the highest ever paid by a film company for a novel. The deal is contingent on the Hays office's approval of the screen treatment of the book new being prepared at the studio, according to report. Da Silva to Do Tavern' Sketch Howard Da Silva, latest addition to the cast of Paramount's "Duffy's Tavern," will do a dramatic sketch with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. He is now working in "The Lost Weekend," film version of the Charles Jackson novel. Rickenbacker Story Titled "First, Last and .Always" will be the title of the forthcoming 20th Century-Fox film based on the life of Eddie Rickenbacker. Winfield R. Sheehan will produce. Starring Role for Peck at 20th-Fox Gregory Peck has been named for a starring role opposite Gene Tierney in "Dragonwyck."