TALKIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 109, 12 January 1940, Page 7

TALKIES

TYRONE POWER REFLECTS ON METEORIC RISE TO STARDOM The sight of a strikingly handsome young man, faultlessly attireel in top haL and tails, strolling down Broadway in liis stocking feet and carrying his shoes in his hand, made even blase Xew Yorkers gasp not long ago. ]ii.it they probably would have swooned outright if they could have known how soon that young man was destined to blazon forth as the screen's leading romantic star. For he was none other than Tyrone Power, en route home from a swank dinner party* at the Hotel Astor. The shoes? Well, it seems they pinched, and Tyrone was so broke he didn't even have a nickel for subway fare. So he carried them and walked all the way to 80th Street and the East River—a little matter of some lo city blocks. To-day, Tyrone who, at the time of the tight-shoes incident, had been making an unsuccessful attempt to crash Broadway, is at the top of the Hollywood heap and has just finished doing the title role in Darryl F. Zanuck's production, "Jessie James" the 20th Century-Fox Technicolour. epic of the life of the most colourful outlaw who ever lived. Tyrone's luck began to look up I when he was engaged to understudy Burgess Meredith':; role in Katherine Cornell's play. '"Flowers of the Forest." "When the show closed, he got a chance to play a small role with Miss Cornell in "Romeo and Juliet." It was in tills play that he was discovered by film scouts. His screen career began with a bit in "Girls' Dormitory." The fan mail rolled in and a larger part in "Ladies in Love" followed. This time the fans waxed so loud in voic ing their approval that Darryl F. Zanuck entrusted him with the romontic lead in "Lloyds of London." From that moment on. there was no more question about it —the screen had found its great new romantic star! JACK HQL'.T "WHISPERING ENEMIES" REVEALS NEW EVIL Thunder, the loudest common noise, never has been heard unmistakably more than 20 miles from the flash. But a whisper, so quiet that it cannot be heard three l'ee* away, will cross a continent in ten days or less, will be known to thousands of persons within a week! An ancient axiom, "bad news travels fast" is dramatically proven in Columbia's newest Jack Holt vehicle. "Whispering Enemies." Exposing the most vicious of all racketeer ing weapons, "Whispering Enemies" is a timely, dramatic story of a modern scandal syndicate. "Whispering campaigns" have made themselves a dangerous part of the American scene. That they are thoughtfully organised, brilliantly executed, has become evidenced by recent, incidents of their appearance. To-day, in America, an entire nation is battling desperately to dispel the shrewd whispers of foreign agents who preach intolerance and hatred of democracy. A few months ago, every drug and department store window bore a "reward" placard, signed by an internationally known cigarette company, which thus sought to expose a "whispering campaign" ruining its reputation FILM SHOWS 1 JESSE AS HE REALLY WAS Jesse James was a God-fearing man who carried a Bible, praj r ed for guidance, and never drew for his six-shooter except in self-defence. That unfamiliar picture of the notorious outlaw was drawn for motion picture director Henry King oldtimers in the Missouri Ozarks who once knew the Jam?s brothers. King was in the Ozarks seeking locales for Darryl F. Zanuck's production 1 , "Jesse James" the 20th Century-Fox Technicolour epic of the most colourful desperado who- ever lived, which stars Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Xaney Kelly and Randolph Scott. "Those who knew him or heard about hi in as youngsters," said Director King, ."believe that Jesse James was d riven to a life of crime by the persecution of enemies, and that the efforts of unscrupulous railroad officials to seal his mother's farm at Sedalia, Missouri, for a right-of-way, started liim on his* bloody trail of banditry. "In the film,, we do not glorify him: neither do we picture him as entirely black. We have tried to respect the judgment of historians, without forgetting wiiat those moun tain people who were Jeese James' sworn friends thought of him."