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Show II 0 LL YW 0 0 D 1 TF ANY Hollywood movie lays an egg this year it will surely be a golden one, 'cause our movie moguls have cooked up the most elaborate, ambitious, and expensive program in the history of this industry. The period 1943-'44 is known as the Year of the Big Take in movie circles. Box office returns hit a new high, exceeding even producers' wildest nightmares. If there ever was a time when movie men could get away with a slap-dash product, prod-uct, now is that time. But, true to the counter-clockwise method of working, forwhich they take so much ribbing, the boys are planning films f - S L LmJ Rosa Stradner with multimillion budgets and enough star names in the cast to choke a horse. Well, that's Hollywood Holly-wood for you. Gregory Peck . Darry' Zanucf never one to do anything by halves, wiped all B pictures pic-tures off the slate and came up with two super-films "Wilson" and "The Keys of the Kingdom" which top anything before attempted in size, outlay, and big-name casts. "The Keys of the Kingdom" is the logical Academy award rival to "Wilson," since it is in black and white and the latter in technicolor, which makes both films eligible for the Oscar. "The Keys" also has an all-star cast, although Gregory Peck and Rosa Stradner, who play the most important roles, have each had but one previous Hollywood film experience. ex-perience. But they've both had fine theatrical training. In Lighter Vein With these two films as a sample, and the B's thrown into the discard, Twentieth's staff of producers has had some reorganizing to do, but quick. The upshot is a program leaning lean-ing heavily on musicals extravagant extrava-gant musicals that will rival the biggest big-gest attractions on Broadway. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has much - the same idea. It's going to be struggle in this era of super-productions to see whether William Perl-berg's Perl-berg's musical can outdo Jack Cum-mings' Cum-mings' "Little Bit of Heaven." Or whether "The Ziegfeld Follies," into which Arthur Freed has thrown the two top dancing men of the world todayFred to-dayFred Astaire and Gene. Kelly plus Fanny Brice, Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland, John Hodiak, Lena Home, James Melton, Marion Bell, Victor Moore, Mickey Rooney, and Red Skclton, can make a bigger noise than Perlberg's "State Fair," for which Richard Rodgers and Oscar Os-car Hammerstein have written music mu-sic which Twentieth claims will out-Oklahoma out-Oklahoma "Oklahoma." Say It With Music Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weil are responsible for the tunes in "Where Do We Go from Here," Morrie Ryskind's story of a 4-F. Agnes De Millc, C. B.'s talented niece, will do the dance routines. Metro has an answer to this in "Music for Millions," in which Jose Ilurbi and Margaract O'Brien are drawing cards. With Larry Adler's harmonica, Jimmy Durante and Hugh Herbert for laughs, how can it lose? Warners have "Hollywood Canteen," also "Rhapsody in Blue," the story of George Gershwin's life. Georgie Jcssel is music-minded, too. His "Kitten on the Keys" calls for a hunk of stars. Includes Dick Haymes, Perry Como, and both Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey. That Lubitsch Touch Ernst Lubitsch's main concern centers about "Czarina," the satiric sa-tiric comedy which will be Tallulah Bankhcad's next. Charles Coburn has been signed to play the chancellor; chan-cellor; also Vincent Price has a big part. "Dragonwyck," the story of the Dutch patroons, is another Lubitsch Lu-bitsch epic for Gene Tierney and Gregory Peck. Bctte Davis ripens "The Corn Is Green." And the setup set-up for "Roughly Speaking" includes Roz Russell and Jack Carson. The Ingrid Bergman-Gary Cooper special, spe-cial, "Saratoga Trunk." will soon be seen, and "The Conspirators," with Hcdy Lamarr and Paul Hcn-reid, Hcn-reid, can't fail to please the eye. Yes, producers would seem to be fighting hard for those long, long lines of patrons that bulge the walls of every movie house in the land. Step in Right Direction Al Pearce believes talented amateurs ama-teurs who're entertaining our troops in the camp shows will be stars of tomorrow. So Pearce has made arrangements ar-rangements with his boss. Herb Vatcs of Republic, to give six of them an opportunity in "Strictly for Laughs." which gets under w;iy in September. . . . "This Is the . Army" is doing such a morale building build-ing job for men at the front that the government's thinking of sending it to South Pacific bases. |