THE SCREEN

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 250, 23 October 1942, Page 6

THE SCREEN

FILM STARS AND PICTURES. In them roles in the RKO Radio comedy "Playmates" both Kay Kyser and John Barrymore, who play themselves, suffer frcm a lack of publicity, but the reasons are very far apart. Kay cannot get any newspaper breaks because he has n-ever done anything newsy enough i to warrant one. John, on the other ! hand, has been in the news so often with his antics, that there now remains nothing new that he can do. Jack Haley plays the part of a starry-eyed bell hop in his first film in over a year, "Moon Over Miami," featuring Don Ameche, Betty Grable and Robert Cummings. Although a seasoned trouper, Haley is just the man to add that necessary light touch, and he and Charlotte Greenwood share comedy honours between 1 them. They do more than that. They provide one of the heartiest laughs of the entire film when they put on their adagio burlesque and Jack is kept busy dodging Miss Greenwood 's long legs. If that was all he had to dodge, it wouldn't be so bad. Charlotte is after her man, especially when he tells her he has $150. With Jack always good for a laugh, Hollywood and the motion picture audience will miss him if he goes through with his plan to become a Broadway producer. But the one consolation is that they always come back, and as he's already proven, Mr Jack Haley is no exception. To those who wonder what is behind the title of Samuel Goldwyn's big time production, "The Little Foxes," it is suggested that a peep into the Bible will help. In case one is apt to miss out on Biblical allusions, let it be known the title derives from the following :— "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines; for our vines have tender grapes." Lillian Hellman, who wrote the famous stage play from which the Bette Davis starring picture is made, also collaborated on the screen play and made few changes in either lines or action. One mninr rhcron^

ter has been added, however, in the person of a romantie male lead, played by Richard Carlson. He plays opposite 20-year-old Teresa Wright as Alexandra Giddens, daughter of Regina Giddens, played by Miss Davis. A cowboy first, last and all the time — -that's big, good-naftured Andy Devine. Andy was born and reared on a cattle ranch in Arizona. He lives on a ranch now and is never happier than when he is playing a cowboy on the screen, as he is at present in "Road Agent." A lot of things have happened to Andy Devine since | his boyhoodi days on his fath-ers ranch. Andy was a professional football player, a lifeguard, a sailor, and filled many jobs before he got his first "break" in the movies. But no matter what work he was doingj, Andy never forgot that he was a cowboy at heart, and now that he has settled down to the life of a comedy star he hopes he can be- a cowboy both on and off the screen from now on. Five years of research. five months' preparation and almost five hours of daily work were required by Jack Pierce, Universal studio make-up chief, in making a werewolf of Lon Chaney for the horror drama, "The Wolf Man." Creator of the "Frankenstein" monster, "Tlie Mummy" and other movie horror make-ups, Pierce was originally taught the make-up art by Lon Chaney, Sr., late character star known as "the man with a thousand faces." Pierce spent five years combing countless histories of England in a vain attempt to find a descfiption or illualtraition of a werewolf. Finally, Pierce decided merely to create a make-up eom-

bining human features with those of a wolf. As title player in "The 1 Wolf Man," young Chaney is said to become one of the most bloodcurdling horror characters of all time. It took four hours for Pierce to apply the make-up on Chaney. It is recorded in history that one of the early day McKenzies back in England several centuries ago was hanged for being a clown! But the instinct for blithe, exutaeranthumour did not perish in the McKenzie family, and Fay McKenzie, Republic contract player who plays the leading feminine role in "Sierra Sue," with Gene Autry in the 1-ead, carries on the family tradition in the present g-ener^tion. Accibdlted as being one of the most promising song-and- dance starlets of the current crop, she first won recognition through her prominent role in "Meet the People," Hollywood musical production, in which she played "Mlle. Hollywood." Fay comes by her flair for the theatre naturally. Her parents were both show people and Fay spent much of her childhood barnsltorming- with her mother and father. Her father owned his own stock company, "The McKenzie Players," and Fay and her sister Ella — who was later to marry Billy Gilbert, the comedian — had numerous kiddie roles. V_