1941 - Theater, Film

Theater, Film

Theater: Angel Street by Patrick Hamilton 12/5 at New York's John Golden Theater (to Bijou Theater 10/2/1944), with Leo G. Carroll, South Dakota-born actress Judith Evelyn, 27, Vincent Price, 1,295 perfs.; Arsenic and Old Lace by New York-born playwright Joseph Kesselring, 39, 1/10 at New York's Fulton Theater with Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, Effie Shannon, Boris Karloff, Ashley Cooper, 1,437 perfs.; Mr. and Mrs. North by Owen Davis (who has adapted some of the stories by Richard Lockridge published in 1936) 1/12 at New York's Belasco Theater, with Albert Hackett, Peggy Conklin, 163 perfs.; Native Son by Richard Wright and Paul Green 3/24 at New York's St. James Theater, with New York-born actor Canada Lee (originally Leonard Cornelius Canegata), 38 (who appeared in the 1936 Federal Theater Project production of Macbeth), 114 perfs. (see 1940) novel; Watch on the Rhine by Lillian Hellman 4/1 at New York's Music Box Theater, with Paul Lukas, Mady Christians, Mount Kisco, N.Y.-born ingénue Ann Blyth, 12, George Coulouris, 378 perfs.; Mother Courage, A Chronicle of the Thirty Years' War (Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder) by Bertolt Brecht 4/19 at Zürich's Schauspielhaus (Brecht has based his story on the 1669 novel Simplicicissimus by Hans Jakob von Grimmelshausen); Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward 7/2 at London's Piccadilly Theatre, with Margaret Rutherford as the spiritualist Mme. Arcati, Coward, Moya Nugent, 1,998 perfs.; The Wookie by California-born playwright-screenwriter Frederick Hazlitt Brennan, 40, 9/10 at New York's Plymouth Theater, with Welsh-born actor Edmund Gwenn (originally Edmund Kellaway), 55, sets by Jo Mielziner, 134 perfs.; Candle in the Wind by Maxwell Anderson 10/22 at New York's Shubert Theater, with Helen Hayes, Lotte Lenya, 95 perfs.; Junior Miss by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields (who have based it on the Sally Benson stories) 11/18 at New York's Lyceum Theater, with Patricia Peardon, 16, as Judy Graves, Ohio-born actress Lenore Lonergan, 13, as Fuffy Adams, 710 perfs.; Clash by Night by Clifford Odets 12/27 at New York's Belasco Theater, with Tallulah Bankhead, New York-born actor Lee J. Cobb (originally Leo Jacob), 31, Chicago-born actor Robert Ryan, 32, Viennese-born actor Joseph Schildkraut, 46, 49 perfs.

The United Service Organizations, Inc. (USO) chartered February 1 provides social, welfare, and recreational services to U.S. troops and will keep up their morale as conscription swells the ranks of the armed forces. The private agency has been created at the suggestion of Gen. George C. Marshall, who proposed the idea last year and has seen it implemented by representatives of the Salvation Army, YMCA, YWCA, National Jewish Welfare Board, and National Catholic Community Service, who are joined in March by the Travelers Aid Association. USO clubs and recreational centers start opening in the summer, and William Morris Agency head Abe Lastfogel enlists the support of the Screen Actors Guild, the musicians' union, and other groups to incorporate Camp Shows, Inc., in November (it quickly becomes the world's largest booking agency); the volunteer organization will grow to include Broadway actors, comedians, film stars, vaudevillians, jugglers, musicians, and public-spirited citizens who set up cafeterias, hotels, churches, and other facilities that will soon include the Stage Door Canteen at New York and the Hollywood Canteen at Los Angeles (see 1942).

Female impersonator Julian Eltinge dies at New York March 7 at age 57; actor Thomas B. Findley at Aylmer, Quebec, May 29 at age 67; playwright Arthur F. Goodrich of a heart attack in his apartment at New York's National Arts Club June 28 at age 63; Broadway showman Sam H. Harris in his Ritz Tower apartment at New York July 8 at age 69; actor-director Leonid Mironovich Leonidov at Moscow August 6 at age 68, having taught the principles of Stanislavsky at the State Institute of Theatre Arts since 1935; playwright-screenwriter Eugene Walter dies of cancer at his Hollywood apartment September 26 at age 67.

Radio: Inner Sanctum Mysteries 1/7 on NBC with Kenosha, Wis.-born actor Raymond E. (Edward) Johnson, 31, as host, a creaking-door sound effect, guests who will include Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Paul Lukas, Claude Rains, and Raymond Massey (to 10/5/1952); Duffy's Tavern 3/1 on CBS with Ed Gardner (originally Edward Poggenberg), 35, as the Brooklyn, N.Y., bartender Archie (to 1951); A Date with Judy 6/24 on NBC with Ann Gillis, 14, as Judy Foster; The Arkansas Traveler 9/16 on CBS with Arkansas-born comedian Bob Burns, 51; Bulldog Drummond 9/28 on New York's WOR with George Coulouris as British inspector Capt. Hugh Drummond, Everett Sloane as his assistant, Denny, and Clinton, Mass.-born actress Agnes Moorehead, 34.

Scottish film animator Norman McLaren, 27, joins the staff of Canada's 2-year-old National Film Board at the invitation of its commisioner John Grierson. While still a student at the Glasgow School of Art, McLaren developed an inexpensive way to animate directly on film; Grierson gives him free creative rein, and although Grierson will resign in 1945 to become director of mass communications at Paris, McLaren will remain in Canada and create further innovations that will give the Film Board an international reputation for superior documentaries and animated short subjects.

Films: Orson Welles's Citizen Kane with Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead, Port Arthur, Texas-born actress Evelyn Keyes, 26, George Coulouris opens May 1 at New York's Palace Theater, which has been converted to use as a picture house for the occasion since no other theater will book the film. Publisher William Randolph Hearst has tried to block showing of Welles's allegory on the theme of idealism corrupted by power, threatening to bar any theater that shows it from advertising in his papers (the film is not reviewed or advertised in any Hearst newspaper, and RKO will shelve it for more than a decade).

Other films: Alexander Hall's Here Comes Mr. Jordan with Beacon, N.Y.-born actor Robert (originally Henry) Montgomery, 37, Evelyn Keyes; John Ford's How Green Was My Valley with London-born actor Roddy McDowall, 12, Donald Crisp, 61, Sara Allgood, Canadian actor Walter Pidgeon, 42; Gabriel Pascal's Major Barbara with Wendy Hiller, English actor Rex Harrison (originally Reginald Carey), 33; John Huston's The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, Elisha Cook Jr.; Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca with Joan Fontaine, Laurence Oliver, St. Petersburg, Russian-born actor George Sanders, 35; Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels with Joel McCrea, Brooklyn, N.Y.-born atress Veronica Lake (originally Constance Ockleman), 21, William Demarest; Preston Sturges's Unfaithfully Yours with Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Rudy Vallée. Also: William Dieterle's The Devil and Daniel Webster with Edward Arnold, Walter Huston; Sam Wood's The Devil and Miss Jones with Jean Arthur, Joplin, Mo.-born actor Robert Cummings, 31; Jacques de Baroncelli's Duchesse de Langeais with Edwige Feuillère; Michael Powell's Forty-Ninth Parallel with Anton Walbrook, Eric Portman, 38, Leslie Howard; Kenji Mizoguchi's The 47 Ronin with Chojuro Kawarazaki, Yoshizaburo Arashi; Charles Chaplin's The Great Dictator with Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie; King Vidor's H. M. Pulham, Esq. with Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, Hedy Lamarr, now 27 (born Hedwig Kiesler, Lamarr got her name from Louis B. Mayer of M-G-M, whom she met at London a few years ago after escaping from her Viennese first husband and his Nazi friends); Mitchell Leisen's Hold Back the Dawn with Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland; Sam Wood's Kings Row with Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reaga; Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve with Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda; William Wyler's The Little Foxes with Bette Davis; William Keighley's The Man Who Came to Dinner with Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Monty Woolley; Edward Cline's Never Give a Sucker an Even Break with W. C. Fields, Gloria Jean; Irving Rapper's One Foot in Heaven with Fredric March, Martha Scott; George Stevens's Penny Serenade with Cary Grant, Irene Dunne; Michael Curtiz's The Sea Wolf with Edward G. Robinson, John Garfield, Ida Lupino; Howard Hawks's Sergeant York with Gary Cooper; Mark Sandrich's Skylark with Claudette Colbert, Welsh-born actor Ray (originally Raymond Alton) Milland, 33; John Cromwell's So Ends Our Night with Fredric March, Margaret Sullavan; Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion with Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine; Garson Kanin's Tom, Dick, and Harry with Ginger Rogers, George Murphy, Burgess Meredith; George Cukor's Two-Faced Woman with Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas (now 36, Garbo goes into "temporary" retirement, saying that she wants "to be let alone," and will never make another film; having earned $3 million in her 16-year career, she helps Britain by identifying high-level Nazi sympathizers in Stockholm, providing introductions, and carrying messages for British agents); Marcel Pagnol's The Well-Digger's Daughter with Raimu, Fernandel, Josette Day, Charpin; George Waggner's The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney Jr., Chilean-born actress Evelyn Ankers, 23.

Pioneer cinematographer-director-inventor Edwin S. Porter dies of cancer at New York April 30 at age 72; actress Blanche Bates at San Francisco December 25 at age 68.