Screen and Stage

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26641, 11 December 1947, Page 2

Screen and Stage

By JAXON

One unexpected result of British film companies’ policy of allowing the utmost freedom in production to their directors and actors has been a reversal in the westward flow of talent across the Atlantic. Technicians and players who have felt cramped by Hollywood’s many restrictions in matters of policy and personal approach to roles are now seeking to regain their artistic integrity in Britain. The latest Hollywood director to join British picture-making teams is Orson Welles. And now one of Hollywood’s most prized box-office attractions, French-born Michele Morgan, has shaken the golden dust of Holywood from her shoes and signed a long-term contract with Sir Alexander Korda. The transfer is an important one, because America and Britain are fighting for the Continental market, and Michele Morgan has a large following throughout Europe.

Robert Douglas, British stage and screen actor, added to the Warner Brothers’ talent roster this year, makes his United States film debut in a leading role opposite Alexis Smith in “ Christopher Blake,” under the direction of Peter Godfrey. Ted Donaldson, boy actor, already has been set for the title role in the film version of the Moss Hart Broadway play Douglas, chosen for the role after intensive tests of many candidates, played many leads in London and America, and for years has been a luminary of the British screen and stage. * • • The drive to accelerate production schedules at British film studios is already under way. This follows the announcement of the J. Arthur Rank Organisation’s new £9,250,000 programme for British films. The companies associated with Mr Rank arc now engaged in the actual production or active preparation of <l3 fulllength feature films. » • o The tramp’s outfit which Tyrone Power wears in “ Nightmare Alley ” was more expensive than any of the other clothes lie wears in the film. The studio had to make the clothes specially, age them and wear holes into them. William Powell, whose last picture on the Universal lot was "My Man Godfrey " in 1936, is now before the cameras at that studio in “ The Senator Was Indiscreet.” Powell plays a United States senator in the new political comedy, being produced by Nunnally Johnson and directed by George S. Kaufman. * * * M.G.M. have acquired the screen rights of Gustave Flaubert’s famous novel, ” Madame Bovary.” Many top-ranking stars are being considered for the name role, but so far the studio has made no decision.

Screen rights of the sensational play “ Edward My Son,” by Robert Morley and Noel Langley, which, with Morley starred, is a current hit on the London stage, have been purchased by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The play, which deals with the between-wars career of a British tycoon who destroys his best friend, his wife, his son, and eventually himself in his ruthless rise to success, will be brought to the screen impressively, according to plans, with an all-star cast headed by Spencer Tracy,

Florence Marly, beautiful and talented European actress, has been placed under contract by Paramount, and will make her Hollywood film debut in “ The Sealed Verdict,” opposite Ray Milland. Miss Marly, a Czech by birth, speaks English, French, and Spanish fluently. She has appeared on the stage, made three Spanish language films in Argentina during the war, and since has played the lead in a French film, “ Les Maudits.”

“ Your Red Wagon,” John Houseman’s current production at R.K.0., is not a gangster picture, according to Mr Houseman, even though it is based on “ Thieves Like Us.” a 1937 crime novel by Edward Anderson. The story was shelved as a loss by the studio in 1942, but last year Houseman revived it, and he and Nicholas Ray, who is directing the picture, wrote a new treatment. For the benefit of the Production Code administrators, who have banned gangster pictures, they wrote a foreword to the photoplay, which may also appear as a foreword on the screen. Their introductory note says: “This is not an underworld movie—no lurid tale of blood or squalor. It is tender, not cynical; tragic, not brutal. It is a love story; it is also a morality story—in the tempo of our time.” « * • “ This Modern Age ” cameramen are now travelling .through Nigeria covering the story of local colonial development Another unit will also visit Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Somaliland on their way to film the talks on Italian colonies in Eritrea. In search of factual material for “ This Modern Age,” cameramen have been to Sudan, Palestine, Jamaica, Ceylon, Australia, and Germany this year. • • • “ Harvey,” the sensational stage hit, will go before the cameras at Universal some time next year. John Beck will produce the film. No star has been set as yet for the role which Frank Fay introduced on Broadway and which is still charming theatregoers, with no end of the run in sight. The play, which was produced by Brock Pemberton, also ran 42 weeks in Chicago with Joe E. Brown in the Fay role and closed only because of a film commitment that required Brown to return to Hollywood.