World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

PEOPLE OF THE STUDIOS 0 Great Britain Denham MA K or da's plan for dis covering Br i tain's _ p otent i al stars and starlets . . . talent scouts spot likely young actors and actresses who are given roles in a series of short films. Oscar Deutsch will play these in his cinemas, and audiences register their opinions of the newcomers on provided cards. Mr. Korda casts accordingly. Latest outcome of the Goldwyn-Korda-United Artists deal . . . Goldwyn hopes to make two pictures at Denham next year, and Walter Wanger one. Korda himself promises between twenty-four and twenty-eight pictures, to cost £2,000,000. Basil Dean brought genuine stall-holders from a London street-market to adorn a Soho set, built for First and Last, a Galsworthy story starring Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. Out in the grounds the South Riding Agricultural Society's Annual Show was reconstructed for South Riding — cameraman Harry Stradling tracking his camera through acres of cattle, sheep and men . . . carefully avoiding Spanish Galleons and Russian buildings in the background. * * * * Ruth Chatterton, playing opposite Anton Walbrook, Prince Consort of Victoria the Great, in The Rat — new version of Ivor Novello's silent success. Hans Remeau, who worked with Walbrook on Austrian film Maskerade, preparing the film, Marjorie Gaffney scripting, and Jack Raymond directing. Satisfactory verdict passed on first few thousand feet of The Drum, new Sabu vehicle from story by A. E. W. Mason. Zoltan Korda shooting near the Khyber pass. Annabella still at Denham . . . making Follow the Sun with David Niven, Paul Lukas, Romney Brent, Stewart Rome and Frederick Dewhurst. Harold Schuster directing. Barry K. Barnes, playing lead in Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel, never been filmed before. Barnes is twenty-eight, born in Chelsea, threw over architecture for the stage. Basil Wright and Ian Dalrymple making a film of the Basque refugee children for Victor Saville productions . . . shooting in the refugee camp, in the homes to which some have been drafted, and in the studios. Arthur Jarrett of Gaumont-British and Oscar Deutsch of Odeon Theatres are securing distribution. Elstree Albert de Courville is directing Old Boy with Albert Burdon. Joe Rock, managing director of Rock Studios, is an old hand in the industry. Entered business during the war with Vitagraph, writing, directing and acting in comedies for five years. Made comedies and dramas for most U.S. companies; 22 spent a year in Japan, China and Java experimenting with Howard Hughes Multicolour system. Produced famous Java volcano film, Krakatoa,wh\ch earned the Hollywood Academy Award for the best novelty picture of 1934. Came to England to supervise a picture for Wainwright Productions — stayed to form his own company at Elstree, since producing light comedies with Nellie Wallace, Archie Pitt, Claude Dampier, the Mills Bros., etc. Latest pictures: Cotton Queen, with Will Fyffe and Stanley Holloway, and The Edge of the World, a film of Scottish life on an isolated island. Pinewood Alfred Hitchcock, Nova Pilbeam and Derick de Marney still working on A Shilling for Candles. Bernard Knowles, cameraman, turned on Good Companions and Jack Ahoy for Gaumont at Shepherd's Bush. Gangway clear of the cutting room, Jessie Matthews and Sonnie Hale starting Full Sail with Roland Young, Barry Mackay, Noel Madison and Jack Whiting. Glen MacWilliams at the camera. Big surprise of the month . . . Jack Buchanan's company to make a film version of Gordon Daviot's stage play Richard of Bordeaux — with John Gielgud. Film is first on the 1938 schedule. No director assigned yet. Cricklewood In Old Mother Riley the name part is taken by Arthur Lucan, the first man to play a woman in a full-length feature film. Oswald Mitchell, the director, has been General and Production Manager of Stoll Picture Productions since 1927, and is Director of Visual Education. He has written and produced for Butcher's, Danny Boy, Shipmates o' Mine, King of Hearts, Variety Parade. DENHAM ECONOMY AXE Disquieting news has reached W.F.N, of the so-called economy measures slowly breaking up the finest equipped and most organised special effects department outside Hollywood. London Films' greatest asset is tobogganing into oblivion. Already several members have been transferred to other departments to secure a small saving in monetary outlay with a resultant loss in cooperative organisation. Due to this, Lawrence Butler the present head of the effects department, one of the most skilled miniature builders in the world will not renew his contract which expires on August 16th. He intends to return to Hollywood. Members are applying to other studios for employment and so a valuable team of technicians trained at heavy cost by L.F.P. is being disbanded. One man writes : "Fear of unemployment has completely changed the once friendly atmosphere of these studios to one of suspicion and depression, while red tape slowly strangles the loyalty of employees without whose aid top grade pictures cannot be made." The complaint is hereby registered, but it should be remembered that Korda, like other producers, is having his difficulties. £ America Warner Bros. Anatole Litvak directing Charles Boyer, Claudette Colbert and Basil Rathbone in Tovarich . . . cost expected to top all films on the current list. Robert Lord producing. Leslie Howard-Olivia de Haviland starrer, It's Love Vm After (formerly The Love Derby), in the cutting room. . . original story by Maurice Hanline (who wrote One Rainy Afternoon), scripted by Casey Robinson (who scripted Call It a Day), and directed by Archie Mayo. Eric Blore, Bonita Granville, George Barbier and E. E. Clive in the cast. Errol Flynn, busy as anybody just now, costars with Joan Blondell in Perfect Specimen with Michael Curtiz directing and Edward Everett Horton supplying comic relief. Kay Francis teamed with Preston Foster in First Lady, Dick Powell with Lee Dixon in Varsity Show — both pictures now shooting. * * * * King and the Chorus Girl temporarily held back from this country till the topical background is a thing of past memory . . . maybe we won't see the picture at all as American newspapermen say Fernand Gravet bears striking resemblance to the Duke of Windsor. Title now changed to Romance in Paris, to avoid danger of libel. United Artists Selznick International's nine months' search for a Tom Sawyer ends with the discovery of twelve-year-old Tommy Kelly, picked from 25,000 boys whom Selznick claims to have interviewed. Tommy lives in East Bronx, New York's poorest quarters . . . father drawing poor-relief. * * * * A new company, Mayfair Productions, formed by four former Disney associates, making Skippy cartoons in technicolor. Skippy has appeared daily for the past fifteen years in more than 100 American newspapers. * * * * Archie Mayo taking over Marco Polo from John Cromwell. Cromwell threw over the direction of this Gary Cooper picture after four days of production . . . reputedly because of story differences with Sam Goldwyn. William Cameron Menzies, Things to Come director, signed by Selznick as production assistant and co-director of picture with Robert Sinclair. * * * * Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell, husbandwife writing team, signed on with Goldwyn to dialogue The Goldwyn Follies and script A Kiss in the Sun, Gary Cooper-Merle Oberon picture with William Wyler as director. * * * * Selznick negotiating to import Hitchcock . . . nothing fixed yet.