Swing (Jan-Dec 1945)

win^in^ with the stars Pictures expected in June • Kansas City LOEWS MIDLAND WITHOUT LOVE— Katie Hepburn and Spencer Tracy hold over well into the first part of June, with their crackling comedy about a marriage of scientific convenience. Philip Barry wrote the play especially for Miss Hepburn, and although the movies have changed it a lot, It's still enormous fun. Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn are in it, too. SON OF LASSIE — also comes home. The late Eric Knisht started something very good, and now Jean Bartlett has written a sequel to the famous "Lassie Come Home." The characters are grown up now but just as lovable. With Peter Lawford. June Lockhart. Donald Crisp, and Nigel Bruce. BLOOD ON THE SUN— Cagney Productions present James Cagney in a tremendous story of an American newspaperman in Japan, pre-Pearl Harbor, and the discovery of the Tanaka Memorial — called the Japanese Mein Kampf. Sylvia Sidney heads the supporting cast of this film, which premiered in San Francisco last month. THE NEWMAN SALTY O'ROURKE— holds over into June, with Alan Ladd, tough and fascinating as always, starred in a racy story that's just about what you'd expect of a bunch of jockeys, trainers, and professional gamblers. Gail Russell looks wonderful, and Stanley Clements (of "Going My Way ') is his usual cocky and engaging self. THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT— Jack Benny as a trumpet player who blows no good. He dreams he is sent to heaven, and back to earth again to herald the destruction of the world. Allyn Joslyn is a Fallen Angel who heirs the plot thicken, and Alexis Smith is an angel. A lot of heavenly nonsense which most of you will relish. MURDER, HE SAYS— Hillbilly hi-jinks, with Fred MacMurray, cute Jean Heather (of "Going My Way"), and Marjorie Main, who cracks a mean blacksnake whip. It's about the Fleagle family, who liked to kill off their enemies with the waters of a strange spring, and watch them light up with a peculiar phosphorescent glow. RKO ORPHEUM CHINA SKIES — Love among renegades. Randolph Scott and Kansas City's Ruth Warrick are a couple of American doctors trapped in a remote Chinese village with Randy's unpleasant wife. Ellen Drew. But through intrigue, treachery, and bombings, love finds a way. ESCAPE IN THE DESERT — Philip Dorn, Alan Hale, Irene Manning, and a lot of other people in a sort of Death Valley daze. It's a new edition of "The Petrified Forest," with Helmut Dantine cast as yet another Nazi running loose in the land of the free. Good, tight drama of the thriller variety. PILLOW TO POST — Featherbrained comedy about those familiar complications arising when two people pretend to be married for business purposes and aren't. Ida Lupino plays refreshingly for laughs, for a change, assisted by good-looking William Prince, nptso good looking Sydney Greenstreet, Stuart Erwin, and Ruth Donnelly. THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS — A gay romance involving Robert Young, Bill Williams, and Laraine Day — with Ann Harding cast as Laraine's mother. Rather routine plot, but very prettily played. THE THREE THEATRES Uptown, Esquire and Fairway BILLY ROSES DIAMOND HORSESHOE— With Betty Grable, which means it runs on into June from a May start. A ponderous and involved story gets slightly in the way, but all around it are gorgeous production numbers in technicolor, and the famous Grable figger in feathers and stuff. Dick Haymes is charming and melodious; Phil Silvers is charming in a hysterical sort of way. Watch for those dessert hats! WHERE DO WE GO FROM 1-IERE? — One of the bigger, better fantasies to come out in technicolor with music. In other words — the works! 20th Century Fox rings the bell on this one, with Fred MacMurray as a 4-F who wants to get into the Army and can't — until an obliging genie takes him back to the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries and shows him what's uhat. It's gaggy and bright and hardly ever too clever. Joan Leslie and June Haver share femme honors. Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin supply the pleasant songs. Gene Sheldon as the genie almost steals the show. DON JUAN QUILLIGAN — A whole bunch of fun — and no wonder! Look who's in it: Big Bill Bendix. Joan Blondell. and Phil Silvers!