The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 88

BROADWAY IN REVIEW 2 Part jani. 27, 1 957 tot angclcg (Times Total Caled Hollywood This Season's Woman Is Either Frigid or Stupid Producer Doesn't Catch Up With Trends-He Makes 'Em Gene Kelly in 'Les Girls and may team her with Danny Kaye If she clicks. Also Leslie Phillips, from' England, husband of Kay Kendall; and Jacques Ber-gerac, husband of Ginger Rogers. "It's good busines to gamble this way and it's nothing new. Metro did it for years took a young person, put her opposite Gable or Bob Taylor and, if she made it, had a new star.

"Hollywood has been re- '4 Copyright, 1967. HT, Hertld-Tribune. Inc. BY WALTER KERR I keep seejng whole issues of rather fat magazines being devoted to long, long articles on what the American woman of 1957 is like. I think I can save everybody quite a bit of reading I've been going to the American theater faithfully all season and I can now thanks to the insight and precision of our alert dramatists give you the complete story in a couple of phrases.

The contemporary woman is either frigid or not quite bright. Frigidity Is the newest minor ailment to keep drama alive and sobbing. These ailments change with the seasons, of course: Each theatrical year must have its handy capsule diagnosis to explain why everybody is unhappy enough to have a play written about Problem of Past Three years ago the big problem was brutal fathers: There wasn't a gambler, a gunman, or a mountain desperado who hadn't taken up his work because daddy was a bit of a (I don't mean tp suggest that the old man is being let off these days. Just last week we had a fellow in golf knickers taking swigs out of his pocket flask while he heartlessly ignored his quivering daughter. But he's not the enjoyable.

He gets believable performances out of Kathryn Grant, Martha Hy-er, Charles Bickford, Henry Daniell, Russ Morgan, even Curtis. He Edwards still looks like a almost Jimmy Dean ingenuous gray eyes, studious glasses, fiat haircut, sharp suit. A third-generation film worker, he is the grandson of the late J. Gordon Edwards, director of Theda Bara spectacles, and the son of Jack McEdward, a production manager. (The family name is McEdward.) "I knew from the says, "that my destiny was in the picture business.

That or as a horse-thief." He delivered scripts, worked in the art department at Fox, acted. He and a friend, a law student at Stamford, decided they could write a better, screenplay than Gary Cooper's western. "The Plainsman" and they did. At least they ended up producing one starring Rod Cameron), with the "friend's money, at Allied Artists. Blake acted in it too.

and toying speculatively with a noose? His wife whenever she noticed an ardent look in his eye rather liked to take long trips to the countryside, alone. Was the to ugh-talking hero of "Girls of Summer" forced to rip half of Shelley Winters' apartment to shreds in order to suggest that he had something in mind? 1 1 preferred sleeping pills. Heart of Ice Do the assorted men in "A Clearing in the Woods" have to get away from Kim Stanley and all that foliagf in order to preserve their re spective egos? Miss Stanley has a trembling lip, a look of yearning, and a very warm tremolo to guarantee pity- but her heart, as it happens, is the heart of Stonehenge. The modern woman is clearly a frost. The minute you begin to cite exceptions to the new rule of our stages, you come up against the other half of our Sunday-morning truth.

Nobody in his right mind would call Rosalind Russell, or Judy Holliday, or Ethel Merman in any way, glacial. These are the girls who melt whatever ice cakes happen to be floating in the vicinity. But pay attention to the vision their authors have of them: they are, not to mince words, birdbrains. Backward Beauties Miss Russell cannot put her hand to a Macy's sales-book without reducing it to shredded cabbage, cannot step to a telephone switchboard without doing undersea battle with an unfriendly octopus, cannot visit the Alps without losing a husband. Miss Merman, as her playwrights have it, cannot distinguish between an "entourage" and a Cadillac, cannot grasp the mating habits Turn to Page 4, Column 3 ken man was hurling his gin bottle at the mirror in front of Jiim and screaming "I never touched him!" (I don't suppose for a minute we've heard the last of this bounder, but ha's resting quietly just now.) Guileless Creatures This year we've at last caught on to the women, those guileless creatures who have had such a.

fine time in the past standing around accusing everybody. ROSALIND RUSSELL Cabbages and Husbands They're cold cookies, ice to the core, and if the whole male world is cracking up nightly not to mention the Wednesday and Saturday matinees it's because the temperature is so low at home. Does the once-promising statesman in "Separate Tables" lurch drunkenly at the dining-room furniture, mumble besotted regrets, Did the virtuous police of-' ficer in "Too Late the Phala-rope" wind up consorting with native women, betraying his own high principles, disrupting his pious family, 41 al rights of the loyal citizen. The picture is perhaps somewhat dated now but who would have dared make it four years ago, or even at the height of the hue and cry? Then few would have heeded the simple and terrible logic of Borgnine's anguished question; "How do you prove you DON'T know some- POETESS Jennifer Jones portrays Elizabeth Browning in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street," to screen Wednesday at the RKO Pontages Theater in Hollywood, John Gielgud and Bill Trovers enact the male leads. Security Risk's Ordeal Vividly Told in Film Continued from First Page, traitors and spies, the gov-Btart.

We're for him. ernment recognizes the need So, apparently, is the for protecting the individu- big wheel villainously, and clench one fist in the speaking he used to be. other to keep his fingers Two years ago it; was from rattling? It's all be-college chums football cause of that Margaret players, types like that Leighton wench, so glossily who were causing all the lacquered, so snakily invit-trouble. The hero's wife ing, so moistly appealing could tret to wondering what and so chilling when the BY PHILIP K. SCHEUER the time you have caught up with a trend it's past you," says Producer Sol C.

Siegel. So he makes his own. For instance, he put together an all -big -names package deal for "High Society" Crosby, Grace Kelly, Celeste Holm, Louis Armstrong, score by Cole Porter. It is, apparently, MGM's moneymaker of the year. With "Man on Fire," now filming, Siegel swung to the MARY FICKETT Something New other extreme new faces.

The exception is Crosby, an old face. What's more, Bing won't sing a that has been developing through "Little Boy Lost" and "Country Girl." The reason Bing won't sing is that "Man on Fire" is essentially a drama and there is no occasion for it. Story of Trapped Boy The story has an 11-year-old boy caught in a tug of war between his divorced parents, the wife having remarried. Script and direction are by Ranald Mac-Dougall, veteran screen writer whose, only other directing was on Joan Crawford's "Queen Bee." "To get back to the new faces," Siegel proceeded: "The dominant role is the male one, Bing's; the women have good parts, but not up to his. So Bing, Ranald and I went to New York, where, after dozens of interviews, we came up with Mary Fickett, Inger Stevens, Richard Eastham, Anne Sey-mour and Malcolm Brod-rick." All Professionals All are professionals stage, TV, an occasional film.

Blond Mary Fickett followed Deborah Kerrin "Tea and Sympathy." She will play Bing's ex-wife. Paramount beat Siegel to the signing of Inger Stevens, also a blonde and "a Grace Kelly type," so Siegel borrowed her for the young lawyer's assistant who has a secret crush on Crosby. Anne Seymour enacts a lady judge. A busy character actress, she appeared briefly in "All the King's Men" and "Whistle Stop at Eaton Falls." He Holds Options Eastham, also from stage and TV, sang the Pinza role in "South Pacific" for the Civic Light Opera here. His one other movie: "Call Me Madam." And Malcolm Brodrick, the boy, 11, came from Broadway's "The Desperate "I hold future options on all these people," Siegel explained.

"If lightning strikes 111 use them again. And I'm not stopping there I've given Taina Elg her first big break, opposite ROBERT RYAII TH LIIUTINANT wta'd ld kit mtn nywtaft "Its is LAST 3 PAYS MGM's "THS TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOOH" The play that captured the heart of the world a magnificent new motion picture l.Ai--r$r, Worked With Quine He has collaborated with Quine on a "flock" of films, including "My Sister Eileen" and the forthcoming "Notorious Landlady" for Glenn Ford, which Quine will direct. Edwards has one-a-year directing deals with Columbia and U-I. His two with Frankie Laine were "Bring Your Smile Along" and "He Laughed Last." "In radio," he relates, "I used writing as the wedge to direct, inen teievision.now pictures. I've been very for- tunate in that respect; the timing has been rieht." Everything, so far.

that -he Blake has directed wrote. "And I'd rather direct somebody else's work for a change," he says, pulling a real switch on the writer and his eternal plaint. "It's hard to be objective, to change your way of thinking, when you're faced with your own words on the set and a crisis arises. Pretty hard, I mean, to second-guess yourself after you've been en a screenplay four months." Judging by "Mister Cory," I'd say he's doing fine 'ItalyVWill Put bpOtllght On IOmC Rome highlights in "Italy," new color travel film which Stoneall O'Brien, presents at the Wilshire Ebell Theater on Feb. 16, are Pope Pius XII, Vatican Palace, St.

Peter's Cathedral and the Swiss Guards. Southern footage includes Naples, Capri, Sorrento, Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius and Palermo. Florence sequence shows paintings by Botticelli and Da Vinci, cameo carvers, lace makers, basket weavers and Ponte Vecchio. Other standouts are the Tuscany pageants, Siena, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Italian Riviera covers Portofino, Lerici, Nervi, Alassio, Camogli and Rapal-lo and many cities in the north.

Navy, which authorized the Herbert Swope Jr. produo tion and (through Jagger) publicly admits- its mistake in having suspected him. The point is made that, while continuing to safeguard the nation against Olivier' 'Richard 111' Back for Limited Run Sir Laurence Olivier pro-duction of Shakespeare's "Richard III" has returned to the Vagabond Theater for a limited engagement, at popular prices. Some of the finest players of the English theater portray roles. BISVIOLIHCIand project fKlina of atntmtt of JOd 1 Jtruqqlf Hollywood Srtdotl annrnjfflf approaches HOLLYWOOD WOULD taw Mf4hn A CONTENDER FOR AN i ACADEMY AVVARD!" tiMiiMkr.iA Top Suspense Film! Jtclviiy NOWPUriNB Mnt-s, im am (THIS PICTUlf CANNOT II SUM Al ANT OTHU THCATRI) "A TRULY GREAT MOTION PICTUREr 1 "Editorial V.

iwrMi-AnMfcM "ASSUREDLY CECIL B. DeMILLE'S MASTERPIECEf "Norman Clark llllM project fplirKj of dinowow 1 jUuqqlf Hollvwood eidomi BLUSH AT" WOW lTIMt Rescued her "PRISON" TO KNOW LOVE FOR THE FIRST TIME! INGER STEVENS Something Borrowed miss in fighting this problem and I certainly can't solve it single-handedly. Universal proved what can be done with new faces like Rock Hudson and Tony Cur-tis and so has Hal Wallis. Now Fox is trying again. It's about time." Incidentally, an on Fire" will have a theme song behind the titles, and Bing won't even sing that.

I suggested Sinatra. Meet Blake Edwards, a Director to Watch In 1954 I sang the praises of a little suspense sleeper, "Drive a Crooked Road," starring jmcKey nooney. The writer was Blake Ed wards, the director Richard Quine. Both have since done well in their respective fields; now Edwards has turned director, too, and I am more enthusiastic about him than ever. I caught his "Mister Cory" his firsi after two Bs with Frankie Laine at U-I recently, and young Edwards, 34, does himself proud.

His direction as well as his writing has the sure-ness, the professionalism, you would expect of a veter an, almost any veteran you can name. The theme rise La PM0 kinAof able heel," played by Tony Curtis is none too savory and throws Rnm trirlrv some tricky curves, but Edwards keeps it continuously alive and Singer to Star at Million Dollar new singing sensation of Latin America, Amaha (La Tariacuri) Men-doza, a recording artist with several solid-gold discs dn her collection, flies in from Mexico to star on the Million Dollar stage together with Paco Miller this week, Frank Fouce announces. Irene Romero is featured in the revue, The screen for the same week will offer Armando Silvestre in "Kid Tabaco" (Kid Tobacco). The final screenings of gorgeous Sarita Montiel in el Circulo Termina" (The End of the Circle) are set for today. ALDO RAY Tito IIIOIANT wh'd UlUw dim int hIUjut 9f vnl M1 uftiltt ll'utl i v.

I I the hero and his buddy had been to each other during those muddy days on the field, the hero would pick up the infection and begin to wonder himself, and the first thing you knew a bro- f-HriJ ft I 1 i -i. 1 l' I BILL EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT! M-G nmm aim as deadly and true as a sniper's JENNIFER JONES JOHN GIELGUD Thit Splsndorttf' jStltr mori Iseiutiful $ncf romtntic thin tvtrl if TRAVEBS VIBGINIA McKENNA OatB.beAiat5 bullet!" 3. i CmEMAScore 61 CfieCfiiOmniaiwnifiit? A rMWNT (CTUi VHTAVION TtCMWICQUOW ii HeiBoCowa ir'u nmn is 'A A9 MtuyiiNoji IT RFORMANCf TODAY MATINEE 2:00 M. EVENING 7:30 h. jhtitiuy Vantef fit lull I l-l i lii linn-iti ii il tn 'i 14 1 in IsS II il If IM I 'ti No.

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