World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

M.G.M. Interest is centred round two Ferenc Molnar plays at Culver City . . . William Powell and Myrna Loy starring in Double Wedding, from Molnar's legitimate play "Great Love " — Richard Thorpe directing. Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, Robert Young and Reginald Owen in The Bride Wore Red, scripted from "The Girl from Trieste" and directed by Dorothy Arzner, only woman director in Hollywood. Joseph Mankiewicz produces both. Florence Rice . . . featuring in Double Wedding . . . well on her way up the ladder. Daughter of Grantland Rice, America's ace sports writer and commentator, began her stage career with three successive comedies, June Moon, Once in a Lifetime and She Loves Me Not. Eddie Quillan, winner of Academy Award for his feature part in Mutiny on the Bounty, making screen come-back in The Umbrella Man, currently shooting with George Murphy, Rita Johnson, and Leo Carrillo. Quillan interested himself in the Hollywood Little Theatre movement in his vacation from the studio, producing plays to keep his dramatic technique up to scratch. Plays juvenile lead in The Umbrella Man, William Thiele directing. Freddie Bartholomew and Mickey Rooney together again in Thoroughbreds Don't Care. 20th Century-Fox Gregory Ratoff, versatile writer-actor-director, directing Lancer Spy, Marte McKenna's sequel to / Was a Spy, with Peter Lorre and Dolores del Rio. Born in Samara, Russia, Ratoff was trained for business at Imperial School of Commerce, Petrograd . . . became Moscow Art Theatre's bestknown character actor. Later held Blossom Time for two years on Broadway . . .went to Hollywood, writing Sins of Man and Cafe Metropole for Fox, and currently You Can't Have Everything, musical now on the editing bench. Among 66 features promised for the coming season : In Old Chicago, with Alice Faye, Tyrone Power and Don Ameche ; Hudson Bay Company (a unit has gone to Canada for location shooting); Stanley and Livingstone (Osa Johnson, widow of Martin Johnson, heading a party now in Africa for local colour); Second Honeymoon, with Tyrone Power and Loretta Young ; Moonstruck, with the Ritz Brothers; AH Baba Goes to Town and Saratoga Chips with Eddie Cantor ; Mother Knows Best, with the Dionne Quintuplets; a series of Mr. Moto films with Peter Lorre ; and Suez for Simone Simon, Paramount Unit aboard three-masted schooner Golden Gate off Cataline Isle getting marine and shipboard scenes for Ebb Tide . . . colour expert Robert C.Bruce supervising. Picture stars Oscar Homolka, Frances Farmer and Barry Fitzgerald. James Hogan directs. Homolka's next part will be a hard-boiled sergeant of Beau Geste in the colour re-make prepared by Lucien Hubbard. George Raft, Ray Milland and Richard Arlen set as three brothers. * * * * W. C. Fields joining up with the Big Broadcast 0/1838 cast. That Man's Here Again and Things Begin to Happen to follow. Radio Big picture here is Stage Door, directed by Gregory La Cava. Anthony Veiller scripted from stage play by George Kaufman and Edna Ferbcr — he did the same job on Michael Strogojf, Winterset, A Woman Rebels and The Ex-Mrs. Bradford. Cast includes Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Gail Patrick, Adolphe Menjou, Andrea Leeds and Constance Collier. Kurt Neuman, responsible for Bobbie Breen's two pictures to date, directs the boy star again in Make a Wish . . . Marion Claire, Basil Rathbone and Ralph Forbes in supporting cast. In same studios William Seiter directing Gene Raymond and Harriett Hilliard in The Life of the Party— and James Ellison and Marsha Hunt starring in Annapolis Salute (original story and direction by Christy Cabanne). Columbia Grace Moore and Melvyn Douglas at work on The Sound of Your Voice, comedy drama by novelist Stephen Morehouse Avery (he wrote screen play of The Gorgeous Hussy). Francis Lederer and Madeleine Carroll starring in Thanks for Everything (title changed from Thanks for Nothing). Grace Bradley in supporting cast. 0 France From the studios : Marcel Carne, once assistant of Jaques Feyder and director of Jenny, finishing Drole de Drama . . . Tourjansky shooting Le Maitre de Poste with Harry Baur ; Pierre Chenal Alibi, with Stro**■*> ■ heim ; Marc Allegret J' Accuse . . . Julien Duvivier finished Un Carnet de Bal. And the following films are announced : Le Roi de Bagnol for Marcel Pagnol ; Altitude 3200 for Jean Benoit-Levy; Le Diamant Bleu for Victor Trivas; and Une Femme au Bout du Monde for Jean Epstein. Nearly forty cinemas have been opened at the Paris Exhibition, representing various countries. Russia claims the largest, having 400 seats — others include Germany (240 seats), Denmark (200 seats), Belgium (175 seats), Switzerland, Roumania, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, etc. Britain is not represented, other than in the International Gala presentation of the Cinema. Le Palais de la Decouverte is showing scientific films — Les Cycles de la Nature, by Jean Painleve (after the theories of the Italian mathematician Vito Volterra on mathematic biology) ; two other purely mathematical films by Painleve, shot in collaboration with M. Dufour, La Quatrieme Dimension and La Similitude des Longeurs et des Vitesses. There are also astronomical films by Painleve and Leclerc and a meteorological film by Devoux. La Palace de la Lumiere is exhibiting films by Jean Tedesco, Jean Benoit-Levy and J. C. Bernard, which by a new process known as "Hypergonar" will be projected on to a large wall, 120 feet long and 30 feet high. Q Germany Plenty of activity at Ufa's Ncubablesberg studios . . . director Karl Ritter busy supervising the construction of a village street for Unternehem Michael ("The Michael Enterprise") — Matthias Wiemann in the lead. Georg Jacoby shooting interiors for his peasant comedy Spiel auf der Tenne ("'Play on the Thrashing Ground"), scripted by Alois Lippl from his own play . . . exteriors shot in Bavaria. Erich Washneck turning on Streit urn den Knaben Jo ("Dispute About the Boy Jo"), with Lil Dagovcr and Willy Fritsch. Lilian Harvey co-starring with Willy Birgel in her second film for the company, Fanny Eisner — a biography of the dancer. Paul Martin directing. Other films before the cameras — Daphne und der Diplomat ("Daphne and her Diplomat"), directed by Robert A. Stemmle; Der Landstreicher ("The Tramp"), directed by Carl Lamac ; Die Gelbe Flagge ("The Yellow Flag") by Gerhard Lamprecht; Die Warschauer Zitadelle by Fritz Peter Buch, and Gueule d' Amour, produced by a French production staff. Francoise Rosay . . . starring in Mein Sohn, der Herr Minister . . . wife of Jaques Feyder and star of his picture La Kermesse Heroique. Brought up in France, trained for the stage and opera. Made first film in America . . . the German version of Buster Keaton's Casanova Despite Himself . . . later made French films in Germany, spotted by Karl Ritter and engaged for character part in Die Insel ("The Island"), followed by Pension Mimosa and La Maternite. La Kermesse brought her international fame. % Japan Five hundred films to be made in Japan next season, according to Nagamasa Kawakita, head of Towa Shoji-Kaisha, Tokyo distributors. "This number of pictures is necessary," Kawakita said, "because of double or triple bills in the country. For sixpence, patrons can sit through a show lasting five hours." Approximately three hundred American features shown in Japan each year at present. Favourite stars : Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper. 1,600 cinemas now operating in the country, some seating 4,000. 0 Austria Outlook for the industry brightening . . . eleven pictures planned for June to December, against only two made first half of the year. Fritz Hirt of Berlin Tobis, after long consultations with Reich Film Chamber, obtained a permit to show Austrian films throughout Germany — provided they comply with the German Aryan laws. Eight of the pictures planned to be made by Tobis Sascha and three by Selenophon. Paula Wessely to star in two and Willy Foist in one. A film boosting German aerial achievement and featuring the Graf Zeppelin, which Forst was to produce, has been indefinitely postponed owing to the Hindenburg disaster. 23