Daily News from Los Angeles, California • 17

a LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1147 baity ttetci 17 I rr, IF a sik IF A checkup on that unprecedented Liberty-MGM deal whereby -the independent unit will produce State of the Union" on the-Metro lot this summer, with Spencer Tracy in the top spot, brings forth "no comment from Liberty's home RKO; "nothing to add" from MOM. and insistence on the part of Liberty that this strictly a single picture deaL The redoubtable independent comparable to the Jody in "The composed of the talents of Yearling," Is open to speculation-Frank Capra, William Wyler, pending the announcement John George Stevens and Sam. Brie- Steinbeck himself, it is said, has kin wants it known that Lib- tackled the screenplay. iff iSH Arthur Moron! Olson merdy a and Rita' Glover will be co-dlreo othe SEffCftha hors. for th lrinMg.

Bowl, trading contingent on. any Hoi- lywood deal makes (he Ilk'll- Whiting is stage manager of, say Greer Garson and W. A. business Donna Reed in the two top fern- manager. Dick Try fans and qther nrfaPrfh-t in connoisseurs of Juvenile horrors workiJe wlth Anthonv Vehlir have look forward Howiird art Lindsay-Russel Crouse hit, orig- inally bought by Paramount for Claudette Colbert and Gary Gruem Gang.

Mph Cooper for a reported half mil- lion (dollars, that Is on an tectlve, and will find himself escalator" and part caah deal). "ith P081 In order to get "State" under bomb myrtery gas" that sus- the Academy wires and In time pends animation or something, to cash In on the 1948 presl- 1nn, Bremens Brooklyn ese dential campaigns, everybody version of a Ben Jonson Vene- will have to work fast, inriud- tlan cop in the Actors' Labs ing the makers of "Case Tim- current Volpone" has brought berlane," which Tracy must him a role in RKO's Counter- complete by June if he is to get point" State going by July. Joseph Callela will be Joel The Uberty-RKO deal, appar- McCrea'a faithful buddy in ently, calls for a minimum of They Passed-This -Way, En- four pictures, to be delivered to terprises second epic RKO exchanges at the rate of The studio says producer Harry at least one a year. Thus tar, -Sherman is looking for an unin their 18 months or so on that known" for the feminine lead, lot. Liberty has only made "Its and in the same breath admits a Wonderful Life," and there that its own Hazel Brooks may have been those who have won- be a likely candidate.

dered openly at the relative in- The Society of Motion Picture activity of the quartet, property Art Directors has brought three announcements notwithstanding, big Independents Into the con-It la said that Stevens asso- 'tract fold (same as majors) elation with Harriet Parsons on Walter Wanger Productions, the producing of I Remember Nero Films (Seymour Neben-wc. Mama. forthcoming Irens zal), and Vanguard (Selznick). Dunne-Barbara Bel Geddes ve- hide, will be counted as the There's life to the old house second commitment. All of which yet that is to say, El Patio pipves that the ties on the has won a reprieve as a legit' Gower lot apparently give plenty house with the booking of Jan of leeway, and all thats an- Boris' production of the Patter- bounced is not yet in the com- son Greene domestic comedy of party vaults.

a Mennonite family, Papa Is The Bob Mitchum stock Is todeflnlt -still -on the ascendant, (getting run Parting Aprfl another boost upward with the Produced by the Theater actors assignment to the ranch- Guild on Broadway back In hand role of Billie Buck in the 1941, the play had a subsequent Feldman Republic "The Red eight-month run in Chicago. Pony. Though It has been a little the- Mltchums services, divided ater favorite hereabouts, "Papa between David a Selznick and win. get its coast baptism as a have been made available professional production in the to Lewis- Milestone on a hands of a cast including Jane picture commitment by Bela- -Allen, Hugh Murray, Nancy -nick. and Rodger Paul, with Meanwhile that key boys role, Boris directing, Musi fc vie By MILDRED NORTON c.

"THE EGG AND characters come to rollicking screen life Saturday at the United Artists, Ritz, Iris, Bruin, Studio City. Left to right are Crow Bar (Vic Potel), Sport, Geoduck (Johnny Berkes), Betty (Claudette Colbert), Bob (Fred MacMurray), Ma and Pa Kettle (Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride). f--4' Virginia Wright Drama Editor Bill Bpicrs Suspense' program is getting a reputation as a writers agency. When Dore Schary wanted a thriller expert to put on the screenplay of The Spiral Staircase" he found his man, Mel Dinrlli, writing for that top-notch radio show. Dlnelll now has a 16ng term RKO contract.

When Warner producer Jerry 0j seii(ng candy in a department DON AMECHE and Alice Faye exercise their vocal chords in-Alexander's Raqtime Band," featuring Irving Berlin tunes, opening Easter Sunday at Loew's State, Chinese, Uptown and Loyola. For its fifth annual concert the Los Angeles Chapter Hadassah -selected Adels Marcus to officiate at the keyboard la a recital last night at the Philharmonic Auditorium. This extremely accomplished jjinor Intermeswi cf ydbng American pianist has i not Brahnia to introduce me to the here for onething rhythmic and tonal nuances she like shr yean. have not heard to achieve while never her before, hut on the basis of fbt of the last nights performance I would tmctural unitv years is witireg confirmed in the Rhapsody (E-Flat Major), absent from the local concert for although a rhapsody is often thu n8k a lot of ravelled odds' and Vnds of musical Impulses, Beethoven F-Sharp Swiata, Op. fj, meticulous Brahms could not TvJornfUff bere' her playing Miss Mrcs carefully maintained a rJnnin tension which was beautifully Falla, Scriabin, Chopin elastic but never alabk.

TW. I. "In addiUon to a commanding technical equipment, she brings i th kyb0rd s' musical In- ability, to conjure with telllgence sufficiently acute to- musical Idiom, from romantic haTe profited noticeably by her to contemporary, and the ap- atuy with Artur Schnabel. This proach Mi Marcus brought to lg refleefed In her pedalling. In both proved her to possess rare tht wty ghe formg ber phraaes, musical alertness as well as a Ability to atrip a romaiw somewhat awesome technical tie line of sentimentality, and to efficiency.

explore-, the musics interior Sines punctuality would seem without neglecting Its to be a virtue of Hadassah tectural features. ionaT members, arrived to find Mias gamut is wide, her' dynamics Msrcud already putting ths fin-, dean, and her percussive at- 1 ishlng touches to ths two-move- tacks. In the Prokofieff Sonata, ment F-Sharp Sonata with un- sufficiently vigorous to electrify equivocal dispatch and surety. It anyone who had not heard remained for the succeeding Horowitz perform It last fall. Wald wanted a fresh slant on Possessed," the Joan Crawford film, he looked in the same direction and found 'Silvia Rich-'ards.

With the completion of thaTlcript, on which she collaborated' with Ranald Mac-Dougle, Miss Richards declined a term contract and went back to writing for the Spier program. 81m was lured away the second time by producer-director Frits Lang in the interests of his Secret Beyond the Door, the Diana production he is making for Univejrsal-International. Lang had met. the writer at Warner but it was a script she had written for Suspense" which prompted him to offer her a screenwriting contract. She had adapted "The-Dunwlch Horror" from an H.

P. Lovecraft story, and Spier produced it Halloween night with Ronald Colman. Prompted by the success of that show Spier plans now to repeat it annually. Miss Richards still owed Spier one script when she aigned a long term contract ith Lang, who with Walter Wanger and Joan Bennett, owns Diana Productions, Inc. That is the organisation which made its debut with "Scarlet Street" This second production Is based on Museum Piece No.

IS" the Rufus King magazine story, which Silvia Richards turned into screenplay form. Co-starring the British actor, Michael Redgrave and Joan Benmitt, the film is an adventure in morbid psychology. Redgrave plays a schisophrenic with an urge to kill his wife. Miss Richards now is having herself analysed, but she insists this step was not prompted by The Secret Behind the Door." It was something she started more than a year ago after "the shock" of learning she was on her own. Now SI, with an employment background ranging from modeling to lecturing the New York Worlds Fair, Mias Richards has been writing for a living tor the last three years.

The daughter of sn English professor she grew up in Colorado Springs, and entered Colorado College on a scholarship. It wasnt her scholastic attainments that won her that sch'l-arship, she insists, but connections of her father, who died when she was IS. But college bored her, and she quit after a year and a hall. At 17 she took a fling at siting with the Colorado Springs Fhoenlx Players. Her were mofe apibitious than successful, and after the failure her appearance In Ibsens "lied-da Gabler" she abandoned hope of becoming an actreas.

There were a few months then store, working as a commercial artists model, and doing baby sitting. But boredom set in again and at 18 she married a boy she had known a They went to Santa Fe to live on a goat ranch maintained by his mothers alimony. After 'x weeks they abandoned the project, marriage as well as goat ranching. Miss Richards wasnt permanently rescued from Colorado Springs until she wee 21 when --a foriner school friend, then working on Time n.sgazine, sent her bus fare to New York. Settling in a community housing arrangement at the wrong end of Sutton Place she picked up a little radio writing work on soap operas but got her first steady Job lecturing on the worlds fair at an advance exhibit In the Empire State Building.

It wasnt worth keeping, however, after she met and married a radio producer, Bob Richards. In 1943 the Richards by now Included two sons, moved to Santa Monica. Ac-' cording to a previous understanding there was a separation at that point. Richards went, into, the Maritime Service, Sylvia Richards started writing', radio scripts. On the Cavalcade of America" show she became known as a speed burner.

Her record was a script for a 80 minute radio show which Was to star Ida Lit-. pino. She took a 400 page book home with her at night, and returned the next morning with a 30 page radio version. After a year of that Silvia Richards graduated to the Suspense" program, and ultimately to motion pictures. 4 JOLLY IS AS JOLLY DOES one of many clowns featured tonight in Clyde Beatty's Circus, MELVYN DOUGLAS assumes a pensive mood in postwar drams "Th GuiPt of Jsnst beginning first run sngsgsmsnt tomorrow at the Pontages and HiHsfrsst Theaters.

Rosalind Russell costers. Creighton Pcct NEW, YORK, -April ld-(Excluslve)-The Sunday before Bth-sheba," in which James Mason la making his first American stags appearance, opened, he. wee Interviewed by the New York Times. In this piece he etated frankly that hie play was simply terrible, and that he expected it would get a well-deserved panning from the critics. i As a crystal gazer Mason really a comedy, and should be rates A-l, higher, am afraid, plyd wch.

As th try- than he rates as an actor, de- outs continued a sort of dlrec- soits his popularity with ths torial tug-of-war went on, Ma-adolescent plugging for comedy, and Now, after having listened to nUtlng he had a serious a coupls of acts of Jacques De- dr vals hopped-up Biblical drama. Tbs only good thii ng abmit the 1 must add that the other ru- result is that sincssoms scenes mors about "Bathsheba also finitely comedy, ths sert- appear to ba true. The story oua Kenes srs also suspect, is that when it was tried out, which tekes ths rams Off them, audiences insisted on laughing The real trouble wltlv. Ruthin ths wrong places at ths big aheba Is that it is dull. It is dramatic momenta.

elaboration of tbs Blbls story After taking this for a few about King David and Bath-nights, Mason suggested to sheba, the beautiful wife of Deval that "Bathsheba was Uriah, one of his captains. 4 DEANNA DURBIN songbird in "100 Man and a rais-sue today at four Acadamias. HARRY BAUR in raissua "The Golem," today at National. "Blitha Spirit" is doubia billed..