World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

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0 America Paramount Rouben Mamoulian, director of High, Wide and Handsome, has scored again . . . this time by mixing music, history and drama. Born in Caucasus, Mamoulian graduated from a law school at Moscow University, turned to the theatre, and at the age of 24 had produced a play in London. George Eastman, president of Eastman Kodak, took him to the States where he scored a success with Maurice Maeterlink's "Sister Beatrice," following it up with "Porgy," which ran for three years on Broadway with a cast recruited from shops, cabarets and streets in Harlem. Thence to Hollywood to make Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Song of Songs, Queen Christina, Becky Sharp and The Gay Desperado . . . each made with the Mamoulian touch, a flare for the unusual, and disregard for traditional treatment. * * * * John Barrymore signed for Bulldog Drummond Comes Back. Louis King directing. Reginald Denny in the cast. United Artists Selznick planning to give the long-suffering newspaper profession a break . . . starting production on Freedom of the Press, depicting the history of the Associated Press of America and the part it played in the development of American journalism. Film to be made after the Lloyds of London style. Toss up whether Selznick's Nothing Sacred or Goldwyn's Marco Polo comes out of the studio first. William Wellman directs the former, Archie Mayo the second, with Fredric March and Gary Cooper in the respective leads. Ben Hecht wrote the screenplay of Nothing Sacred . . . once a Chicago journalist, Hecht has scripted many films to success, among them Scarface, Design for Living, Viva Villa, Crime Without Passion, Barbary Coast, and The Scoundrel (awarded Academy Prize for the best original story of 1935). He has now signed on with Goldwyn to write Sweet Land of Liberty, satire on the Federal Theatres. Seems as though United Artists' executives and actors are intermixing. . . . Producer Walter Wanger and Director Frank Borzage playing atmosphere roles in Stella Dallas, Lubitsch toying with the idea of playing Napoleon and Leslie Howard threatening to turn producer. General exodus of Wanger stars from Hollywood, as the producer insists that an unbroken spell in the Film City brings on staleness. Joan Bennett goes into repertory after finishing / Met My Love Again, and co-star Henry Fonda goes onto Broadway. Sylvia Sidney stars in the Theatre Guild production of Ben Hecht's To Quito and Back, Madeleine Carroll is holidaymaking in Europe, and Charles Boyer is Paris bound. Wanger himself is planning an elaborate picture to be made in Italy ... at present assembling information on production facilities and technical crews. He hopes to cement friendly relations between film industries of Italy and the States. Warner Bros. Mervyn LeRoy producing The Great Garrick with Brian Aherne, Worcester-born star, in the name-part. . . . Olivia de Haviland and Edward Everett Horton in the cast. Ernst Vajda, scriptwriter of A Woman Rebels and Man in Possession, responsible for the original screenplay. LeRoy's last four pictures, Three Men on a Horse, Anthony Adverse, The King and the Chorus Girl, and They Wont Fogret, all big hits. After one more picture Paul Muni plans a couple of years' holiday for rest and travel . . . talking of heading for the Orient, across Siberia and Russia. Final story not yet set . . . he has turned down Beethoven, Panama Canal, and Kimberley. Pat O'Brian, George Brent, and Wayne Morris putting over some tough stuff in Submarine D\, which Lloyd Bacon is shooting. Commander Frank Wead, author of China Clipper and Sea Devils, wrote the original. M.G.M. Carle Laemmle, jun., signed as producer as M.G.M. . . . among his big pictures for Universal are All Quiet on the Western Front, Show Boat, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and Journey's End. While still in his teens he was writing, casting, editing and supervising, and in 1929 was appointed general manager of Universal. Harry Rapf, one-time actor in a Denver minstrel show and now one of the company's leading producers, has two productions on the floor. . . Wallace Beery and James Stewart in Bad Men of Brimstone, and Robert Montgomery, Robert Benchley, Una Merkel, and Micky Rooney in Live, Love, and Learn. Luise Rainer teams up with Spencer Tracy in Big City, a racketeering picture. Norman {"Fury") Krasna wrote the screen story, Frank Borzage directs. Adrian, ace Hollywood dress-designer, on the prowl in Paris for authentic clothes for Marie Antoinette . . . production scheduled to start soon with Norma Shearer in the top spot. Saratoga, which Jean Harlow only threequarter finished, now completed and released with Mary Dees doubling for the star. Miss Dees has pocketed a seven-year contract as a result of her work. Shorts, almost annihilated by double-feature programmes, are coming into their own ... in point of volume Metro leads with Paramount, Radio, Columbia, and Warners as runners up. On the Metro schedule are four Pete Smith shorts (Olympic champions, bad cheques, professional football and radium), six Crime Does Not Pay films, six miniature operettas, ten Carey Wilson psychology briefs, ten Believe It or Not historical mysteries, several straight historicals and travelogues, twelve Our Gang comedies, and four Robert Benchley scientific and educational subjects {How to Start the Day, How to Raise a Baby, How to Figure Income Tax and How to Make an Impression). And Others .... James Cagney making Something to Sing About, reputedly his last for Grand National. Victor Schcrtzinger wrote and directs. Capra still refusing to report at Columbia . . . says his contract has been violated. Columbia state his next is Chopin, and that Sidney Buchman has been scripting. Arthur Kober writing screenplay for his own Broadway success Having Wonderful Time . . . Radio to shoot. A Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers co-starrer to be made in technicolor after Astairc's Damsel in Distress is off the floor. Also Radio. 0 Australia Stuart F. Doyle, managing director of Cinesound, Ltd., is quitting production in Australia, and the fate of the company is in the balance. Doyle says that the Government has given little encouragement to production, that the Quota Acts are badly designed, and that his own efforts to point out faults to the Government have been ignored. States that no trade knowledge has been apparent in the designing of Acts for the industry, and that local production is doomed unless revolutionary methods are adopted. A few months back Doyle was forced out of Greater Union Theatres Ltd., because of his insistence that the company should split with Hoyts Theatres. Greater Union has now decided to break away, which may lead to the return of Doyle despite his antagonistic outlook on the picture business. Meanwhile Norman Rydge, succeeding him at the helm, is left with the problem of where to get films. Charles Munro, of another circuit, recently tied up Columbia, Universal, United Artists, 20th Century-Fox and Warners, and both Paramount and Metro have their own houses. Rydge claims to know the solution, but will not divulge it. 0 Argentine President Justo's suggestion that all picture houses close down at midnight has caused considerable dissension in the daily papers. Justo argues that it is physically and mentally bad for the working population to hold out until three and four in the morning, when the late picture shows finish. Members of the Society of Cinema Owners argue that the customary minimum of five fulllength features per programme positively forbids the cutting of hours. They claim the loss of midnight patronage would be too heavy. The following placard was recently posted on all church doors in Buenos Aires: "Fathers and mothers, recognise your responsibilities. A single hour passed in the obscurity of a cinema that shows a bad film, destroys in the soul of your children a year's work accomplished by the Church, the home and the school." And the notice was followed by a list of current releases, under the headings "Acceptable," "Poor, "Bad." 23