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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 10

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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
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and Laurence Oliver in rTkI PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1940- a New He a a cl Screen Crawford STANLEY Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire "Broadway Melody of 1940." oes An About Face Joan's "Susan and God" A Far Cry From "Strange Cargo" 10 1 I I.I I to FULTOXhirleTernrde andJohnny Rnssell in AmxDeinna Dm.bin In "it's A Date." TEXX-Joan Fontaine By Mitch Woodbury Rnecial to the PittsburgD Hngt-Garetu HOLLYWOOD. March 28. Two nights ago we saw "Strange Cargo," toe new M-G-M drama starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. In this film version of Richard Sale's novel. ''Not Too Narrow, Not Too Deep," Miss Crawford plays a hardened, cynical cafe entertainer in a penal colony.

Yesterday at M-G-M we saw her doing a complete about face in characterization. This time she is depicting a self-centered and frivolous social butterfly, who adopts religion as a fad only to discoer that she must fall back on it in all seriousness to meet a crisis. It is smart, high comedy she is playing in "Susan and God, the screen edition of Kacnel Crothers stage hit. And it is as far distant from her "Strange Cargo" imper sonation as rtamier is rrom a Marx Brothers crazy-quilt. Directing her is George Cukor, once a man mountain whom vigorous diet has reduced to a mere mole hill.

He is a stickler for detail and sends them through the scene time after time. Miss Crawford looks very stunning in one of Adrian's latest ere-ations. It's a smart suit of light 'm. 'r yv i' i WfAi 4 4)' l'W v-- C-hJV'I -t ji i. Jk.

mm.4 4 weight white flanneL Joan has no less than 16 complete changes of raiment in this picture and some of her wardrobe doubtless will set new style or two. In "Strange Cargo." she had but three changes for which the total cost was slightly in excess of $5. You couldn't buy one of her "Susan and God" hats for five times that sum. But to go back to that comparison of roles. In 'Strange Cargo" Mies Crawford is always trying to reach out and find God.

In "Susan and God" she sets out salvaging lives which have gone on the rocks of irresponsibility and actually believes she IS God. DICK row ELL, has been making tests at Paramount for over a week and finally began shooting on bis new cinema, "I Want a Divorce." yesterday. Mrs. Powell, better known to the film fans as Joan Blondell. is his co-star in the picture.

Were we paternal yesterday," says Dick, one of the proud SENATOR -John 'arradine In HIT Walt Disnoy's "IMmw bio. WAKXEIt (in in Williams, Alan Hale, Enol Fljim in "Virginia ItARRY- Jr-(a Gvnt in "Tli. Hun MoiiMt-r. "The Grapes of Wrath" Fl Sh oor Tonight ow il A. The New Films sswtxxw NOW -i5c TO fjr I thf MifiUTY wnvri i ivccr tJ THE MIGHTY NOVEL LIVES! 2nd rtit; VVfk! DKAXNA HIRRIN "IT'S A DATE" Kr Francis.

Wnltpr Pidwoa formed that Miss Powell not only takes Ginger Rogers' place acceptably but, once she gets on the dance floor, makes you forget Ginger entirely. The Stanley's "Broadway Melody of 1940" is not only conspicuous for the first teaming of Astaire and Powell, but for the skill with which At Evergreen Gardens Evergreen Gardens will present in its floor show tonight Dolly Davis mistress of ceremonies; Shirley Lane, song and tap girl, and Gladys Delmarr, in character dances. Joe Curtis and his' orchestra will supply the music. Slh and Final Waek John Siemieck's 'The Crapes of Wrath' David O. "Rebecca" at Penn; Stanley Gets 1940 "Broadway James Stewart Margaret Sullavati 'SHOP AROUND THE CORK EI' it skirts around condemnation as a 1 PT WS0B OtaW REBECCA LAURENCE OLIVIER (T! km of Wmthtrfng Hf Js) JOAN FONTAINE By Harold W.

Cohen the second Mrs. De Winter, that frail and tortured young lady try gaudy, spectacle-type of musical revue and emerges as a delctalle WCkf SWfEJt Charles Laushion ''Ht'M'HBACK OF NOTRE DAME" BttV Whack, that's Mr. David O. (for oh, what a man) Selznick doing it compound of tune, dialogue and I I. ing to bury the ghost of Rebecca, and accumulating the suspense until you can stand it no longer, at W.

C. Fields Vfae West LITTLE CHICDE" dance. The emphasis, of course, is on the latter. The elfin feet of "IT cnen which time the teeming tale sud Charles Laughton HINfHBACK OF NOTRE DAME" denly explodes before you like a est papas in the Hollwoodlands. "It was our last free day before going to work, so we took the children to the mountains.

Boy, did we. have fun." Which only goes to show that most of the film luminaries, despite the world of make believe in which they live, are real people after all. Dick excuses himself to rehearse his lines with Sidney Blackmer. But he is quickly interrupted by Dizzy Dean and several other members of the Chicago Cuhs baseball team, who have come on the set. Dick went wild boar hunting with the Cubs on Catalina Island last week.

"Don't think you'll find any wild boars over here. However, we've got a few tame ones," flips Dick. DOUGLAS FOWLEY and Arthur Hohl are doing a scene for "Twenty Mule Team" at M-G-M. Fowley is supposed to have just taken a shot at Rambeau and killed her, and Hohl is telling him he'll eurely be lynched. His victim.

Miss Rambeau, is sitting on the sidelines talking with Queenie Vassar. who plays her mother in R-K-O's "The Primrose Path" and who has come over to M-G-M for a visit. Miss Rambeau FOR LAFFS TILL 2 A. M. "KERNEL." AL MERCUR'S ORIGINAL NUT HOUSE thunderbolt.

Here is a director's dream that might easily have become a nightmare, since it so much Jane Wither SCHOOL" Plillien tlit Frontier" Wm. Rovri "LAW OF THE PAMPAS" Tins "THti Shalt Htt Kill" again. Jumping from the fire of Miss Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" into the frying pan of Miss Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca," he has come up with another big-time winner, a photoplay so brilliant and penetrating and holding that it makes two hours and eight minutes seem like a fleeting stage-wait. "Rebecca" is one of those hands- -1 ranting ra nvfr narx Ml. 1.119) a matter of mood, and "Rebecca's" success is almost wholly Mr.

Hitch DANCE TO cock's. lroram Today! WAR NEWS SPORTS! Timely Short' Hits! ftiioTMiHIDaENIIIIIMY But just almost, remember. The ALL-STAR SHOW faturlnit NEARLY TWINS 0ANNY WHITE SHIRLEY KELLER JACK LANE'S LOVE BIROS SOPHISTICATED SEXTET Johnny Mitchell at the Hammond Electric HERMAN MIDDLEMAN'S OR(H. No Cover harge Choice Food Popular Price and Liquor Pittsburgh's Smartest Sight Club PHONE: COURT 9314 splendid performances can't be entirely his doing, although he must have been in some small measure across-the-sea successes, with Eng nmlni orktaH Mariinj 4:50 land's Director Alfred Hitchcock I DANCING CHARLIE AGNEW'S MUSIC at BILL GREEN'S Saturday Nit Dancing Till 2 a. m.

msam responsible for Miss Fontaine's. She has never been more than merely I BILLY MERLE'S ORCHESTRA The SILVER GRILL Hotil Hwrj an adequate actress, but as the un wanted of Manderley, Miss Fontaine is unbelievably good, so right and real for the role that one may HELD 2ND GREAT WEEK EKROL FXYNN-MIRIAM HOPKINS "VIRGINIA CITY" well wonder what she been doing with herself all these years. It a part that comes so close to has been killed off, but she isn't 9r An. l-MMHaflM Marttt lAi miiifciiiiii in I caricature the slightest off-key would have thrown the whole thing through in the picture. For Holly wood doesn't film stories in se HELD 2ND SMASH WEEK Walt DisQy's Sh4 Bif Clr CartMa Ftatr PINOCCHIO" into cheap melodrama, but Miss quence.

She'll be needed for action occ'urmg prior to her demise so ALICE FAVE rRPD MarVrFR' "LITTLE 01 NFW YORK KENT TAVLOR MM' "SLED FOR LIBEL" Fontaine keeps toed to the mark she's sticking around. "It was self-defense, I tell you and winds up being something not very far from absolutely magnificent. Mr. Olivier'3 excellent Max CAROJlK LOMBARD BRIAN AHERNE "VTGIL IN THE NIGHT' Miss Powell and the flawless technique of Astaire speak a magic language that enthralls. Too, there's George Murphy, whose ability as a hoofer suffers only in comparison with Astaire's.

Miss Powell is perhaps not the comedienne that Ginger was. She lets her feet do her acting, but that's practically enough to put the Powell tootsies in line for the Academy award. You wouldn't expect a "Broadway Melody" to offer much in the way of a story. The plot of the 1940 version is of the Damon and Pythias variety, wearing its hair slicked down and sporting a new-celluloid dickey. Astaire and Murphy are hoofers who haunt the booking agencies without getting the ghost of a Finally, through a mistake, Murphy gets the chance to dance with Miss Powell that should have gone -to Astaire.

There follows a "Comedy of Errors" that is more in error than in comedy, but the fade-out finds all three dancers united in a happy-go-lucky routine. Aided by effective photography, two of the dance sequences -are little short of superb. There's the "Pierrot and Pierette" number a striking choreographic excursion into the field of ballet. There's also the "Begin the Beguine," which is everything one might expect of it. And there are Astaire and Murphy in their cane-duel and Astaire in a solo dance in which he cavorts around with an imaginary Miss Powell for his partner and her picture on a song sheet for inspiration.

Ralph Morgan has his usual role of the amiable fuddle-duddy who can't stay away from the coryphees. And, behind it all. the tunes of Cole Porter are unobtrusively pleasant. "Broadway Melody of 1940" i3 that spring tonic you've been waiting for. V- J- claims Fowley.

"Anyway that isn't rAT r.i:oRf.E JAMES OBRIEN going to make any difference in BKt.M flanking Hollywood's Mr. Selznick on one side, and London's Mr. Laurence Olivier standing by Los Angeles' Miss Joan Fontaine on the other. It is Mr. Hitchcock's first American picture, by the way, and he must like the way they do things on this hemisphere, for here is the old Hitch again, the Hitch of "The Lady Vanishes" and "Secret Agent" and "A Woman Alone," and not the self-conscious stylist of "Jamaica Inn," which was less Hitchcock than Charles Laughton anyway.

The Hitchcock metier is the quick chill, the haunting suspense, the terror-titter and the shuddering note of beware, and the Du Maurier novel is rich food and vintage wine to him. "Rebecca" is something he can sink his teeth into, smack around his lips and roll over on his tongue, and Mr. Hitchcock charges it with a smouldering violence that hits hard, swiftly and often. Through the wringer you must go when Hitch plows into action, and here he is at the top of his style. "Rebecca's" mood had to be menacing, it had to grab hold and grind you down little by little, and CAGNEV FlfiHTING 69TH" De Winter isn't quite so surprising inasmuch as the role has a lot in common with his Heathcliffe in "Wuthering Heights," which He Wavne Morri.

Pncilla Tjine 'MOTHER RAT AND A BABY' also 6ER0NIW0 RONALD COLMAN IDA LUPINO mm I i- played with such melancholy fas i i "THE LIGHT JAMES V.V7;.N MORGAN STEWART cination, and this is merely a first-rate return engagement for him. "Shop Around the Corner M1THAT FAILED" Miss Judith Anderson deserves a NOW PLAYING Pjoan Bennett. Adolpbe Menjmt 1 TT I our plans. I'm going out immediately and stake that claim." Fowley rushes through the door. As soon as he is off the set and out of camera range, he strikes a very dramatic pose characteristic of the old-time villains of the 10, 20 and 30-cent top days.

The crew and all others present smile. It's little things like this that relies the tediousness of movie making. MEK-N LICKOY, who rivals Darryl Zanuck and Ernest Th Hoaseer i oanktar' paragraph of her own as the menacing Mrs. Danvers but because space is short, we must merely say that you will hate her as you have Falso "Birii 'Em (If 0 Coaniy" aAvin MVEN OLIVIA RAFFLES' DEHAVILA.vn mm Ronald folman. Id LitDino "THE LIGHT THAT FAILED" al HICH SCHOOL" afj.

I never hated a woman in the movies before, and the rest of the cast CHAEr.ES LAUCHT0S 'Tha Haacakuk af Hotrt Oania' J.mn Slewarl Marcaret could hardly have been inmroved also -EMERGENCY SBUAP' "SHOP AROUND Tiih uik Konila I'hn li' Jan Stewart, Marc. Snllavan 'Tin Sho Arntj Tht Crnr EMERGENCY S0UAO I rfdctj 'Nancy Drew upon Gladys Cooper and Nigel Bruce, the friendly relatives; Reginald Denny, the estate manager; Florence Bates, the society-baiting dowager, and Edward Fielding, the kindly and faithful old butler. it had to spawn from a brooding il Tl darkness something terrible and SPKM'KB TEAf HKIIt I.AMAKK I TAKE THIS WOMAN" W. C. FIELUS-flAt "mv I ITTI CHICKADEE" mysterious and psychologically sadistic.

Mr. Hitchcock is every Hollywood should be Hitchcock's inch of bis ponderous form its l'4itiri'4 H1 ill Wa-iie Pria-illa lanr -V JU- BB0THER RAT AND A BABY IVUi Jr.VTi 1.1-c "MIGHT OF NIGHTS DIM' by now. for "Rebecca" is his key to the city. CA equal as he squeezes out all the Br. MAX' GRANT rhwnks Jr.

Mars. Lockwood HIS GIRL FRIDAY' torments and all the demons and hangs them up to dry like taunt RULtR) 0 IHt it alo 'Tha Wariiiat Fly Hiah TV771 Snnia Henie. Ra Millanrt ing, forbidding skeletons. There i A -r- ti 1. 1 "Broadiuay Melody" Nancy Draw traaala SRMter must be a bit of Mephistopholes in the man, the way he tears an emotion to pieces.

T0V1 BROWVPEfW OH JOHNNY. HOW OL CN LO" 'THE PRISONER 4K ZF.MIA" "TARZAW FINDS A SON nistcn in the number of cigars smoked daily, is directing a scene for "Waterloo Bridge." In his mouth is you guessed it a lengthy stogie. Mervyn says he smokes from 25 to 30 a day. Robert Taylor, looking more mature and more handsome than ever, is standing in front of the camera doing a scene with Virginia Field. Taylor is wearing the uniform of a captain in the English army.

And, get this girls, he is wearing a pin stripe mustache. Vivian Leigh has finished her scenes in the picture. She is scheduled to start her tour with Laurence Olivier in "Romeo and Juliet" in San Francisco on April 8. So both her scenes in this film and Olivier's in "Pride and Prejudice" were rushed through to permit them to go into EVERGREEN GARDENS BABCOCK BOULEVARD JOE CURTIS' ORCHESTRA Catering in TartlM Bamint No Cover; No Minim'm; Perryvttie 913 T.imhlc"? jt 1 1 A romance together fit jj jj I Lj mJ Jl in the grandettjjl M-G-M musicals! If fil 25c fo 12:30 JyJS Jj FRED If by rAy eleanor ViHl or MUMHY Frank A40GAN 'TCSV jPpJ HUNTER f'ornc. fcVCf lynn.

CAVf I 11 CONFEDERATE HONEY 1 4 Vt Vl lilt COLOR CARTOOV lli MEN WANTED ffZlTk III I COLOR PARADE COLE I Ifi gijyOTgg )) JfcfGitf -mmm-m wmmmm tw-mm-vm vjfvaw Oene Aolrv "Rovin Hon Amwh. Al JrUoti "SWANEE RIVER" "TNa HaawkMptr's Daahtar" kow tnat its done, one can hardly imagine anybody but Mr. Hitchcock bringing to the screen JR. JoeE. Brown -BEWARE DOUUI-AR FAIRBANKS, JOAN FENVETT "GREEN HELL RICHARD ARLEVM STANLEY Since Ginger Rogers packed tip her taps in her little kit bag and smiled a goodbye to Fred Astaire.

a public that remembers her piquant charm and toe-tingling steps probably has been given to dubious speculation over the acceptability of his new teammate Eleanor Powell. But the public, however reluctant to have its credos undermined, is hereby in "LEGION OF LOST the tale of the shy, simple, modest second Mrs. De Winter who comes to Manderley and there finds herself a beaten, miserable victim of VI 1 lJ Stewajt. Mntarf 1 "THE SHOP AROUND -til ViiK'ilca THE CORNER" Jl ri I A ilIk r-j I Unf nl fon ATifhe A1 "SWAN EE RIVER" J.o '-Marshall Hwi City' every one's memories of her pre THE BLUE BIRD In TECHNICOLOR SHIRLEY TEMPLi decessor, the late, lamented and IRENE DARE-EDO Kt--- Ja. Slpwart rff.

Kullafan "Tha Sha Aratna tha Carnar" worshipped Rebecca. It isn't and "EVERYTHING'S 0 itt fiUn "CALL A MESSENGER'' was never a great drama; it was and remains under Mr. Hitchcock Br't Ksrlnff. A(arz. I.inrfcav "BRITISH INTELLIGENCE" .1 4 I 1 also "SoitH tf tha Baraar" LLAN MR1 a superlative spine-tingler, full of IONES MRM BY REQUEST A KCTIHM KXiAtiEMKMT OF PITTSBl'KUH'S IKTtK.V'ATlO.NALLY kMIH.N TENOR IMMSH "GONE WITH THE GREAT VIlTOK It a short scene.

Leroy voices his approval. The crew begins to strike the set and arrange the lights and props for another shot. dark corners, malevolent char acters and suppressed evils. imm THE WIND' Mr. Hitchcock unfolds the maca This means a 30 to 50-minute wait spTTUTV IETIiR HIGCINS MONDAY, APRIL, 1 PLUS JAK(iE Ml YORK REVCB OLD SHAY GARDENS BURGESS MEREDITH GEORGE SANDEFS "Mir, n.i RFTTY FTF.LT 10 Kr take our departure.

As we are leaving. Mervyn Leroy is seen "SAINT IN lONDON KST nHE-EDG bre yarn fascinatingly, building the fears and suspicions slowly and cunningly; moving forward cautiously in his tunning portrait of VT MICE AND MFV" lighting another cigar. fCVCBVTH Nfl ''-i CAROIE TjDMBAPD BRIAN AHERNE "VIGIL TV THE NIGHT I LP I a.

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