TALKIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 238, 15 November 1940, Page 3

TALKIES

ALSO RAN!

BETTER TO LOVE AND LOSE?

Screen Romeos who say they*re tired of playing the great lover should, change places for a while with Lee Bowman! For Lec, who's gone through picture after picture as the principal in the situation — "boy meets girl, hoy loses girl, boy doesn't get girl,'" says that he'd jump at the chance to play the part of a successful suitor on the screen.

Bowman, who plays the ardent but rejected suitor of Mary Martin in Paramount s "The Great Victor Herbert," has been "turned down" by some of the screen's first ladies recently. The good-looking 3*ol.1 11 g actor played the unsuccessful suitor <>t Claudcttc Colbert in "f Met ITim in Paris," Ginger Rogers in "Having Wonderful Time" and Irene Dunne in "Love Affair." He's been beaten out by such, popular male stars as Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.. and Charles Boyer. liis latest screen rival is Allan .tones, the screen's singing star. 'Bowman's latest lole is that of a small town doctor who is rejected I>3' Miss Martin when she leaves home to seek fame on Broadway.. The picture deals with her romance with Jones, the matinee idol of the day and the sweetheart's friendship' with Victor Herbert as played bv Walter Connolly. EVEN MOVIE ARMIES MOVE ON TIJMMIES An army, Napoleon once said, travels on its stomach. And doesn't Paramount's Com-liiis-sary Department know it! They had two armies to feed during the filming of the "Rudyard Kipling slory, "The Light That Failed," starring Ronald Colman, There was the British Array and an army of native. Sudanese—and could they eat! But every cloud has its silver lining. The lining'in this case was the that the two-hundred mounted men assembled b3 r Paramount to play the part of the British Army, are members of the New Mexico's National Guard and knew how to be fed. That is, they knew how to get on line Avith their plates and wait for the dish-out. It Avas different, however, with the two hundred native t3*pes assembled to play the Fu/zy-Wuzzies. When the dinner bell rang these lads knew they Avere hungry and it AA'as time to eat —so they made a mad dash for the commissary, often Avith disastrous results.

TASK TO ENTERTAIN. DEAD END KIDS Ann Sheridan, the screen's new "oomph"' girl, hardly made a mow 011 the stage at the Warner Bros, studio one -Monday without saying "Oomph" or emitting a groan which sounded very much like it. Sore muscles were crying out hecause of the unaccustomed . jitterbugging she had been- doing the day before, when she entertained the six "Dead End" Kids and their ladies at her San Fernando Valley Home. California. The wild dancing came at unexpected intervals during an afternoon and evening that saw Ann's house graduallv become a shambles, in spite of the maid's efforts to maintain a semblance of order. At, six o'clock the rambunctious Kids called a temporary bait in their destructive antic?: and devoted a few minutes to a whirlwind clean-up of the house, but half an hour after the mess was worse than ever.

At eleven Gabriel Dell decided to bake a cake—and did it. Billy Halo]) made coffee, and at midnight the exhausted Miss Sheridan,' Dell, Halop, Bobby Jordan, Hunt Hall, Bernard Punsley, Leo Goreey and six fun-gloving ycung ladies topped oft a hard evening "with a more-or-less quiet repast. Hostess and guests had to be up at (>.30 the next morning, to answer, an early studio call for ' "The Angels Wash Their Faces," in which Ann and the Kids are co-starred. VERSATILE Allan .Tones, popular singing star of radio and screen, has toiled at such diverse occupations as con) mining, running-errands for a cloth ing store, singing in a church choir carrying messages for a bank ano running a steam shovel! Now tha! he's a Hollywood celebrity his tasks are pleasanter, especially the lates!. playing the lead opposite Mary Martin in "The Great Victor Herbert."