Word: wanger
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Algiers (Walter Wanger) sets its scene in the bizarre crookedness of Algiers' shuttered, cluttered, labyrinthine native quarter, the Casbah. It is the story of the defeat of a magnificent criminal ego. Whimsical, moody, brutal Pepe le Moko, a jewel thief from Paris, is safe as a fugitive just so long as he stays in the Casbah. Knowing this, patient Policeman Slimane baits him with the thesis that the Casbah itself is his prison, then calmly watches and waits while this disturbing seed takes root. The lure to break prison comes in the shape of an incredibly beautiful woman. When...
...English, training her speaking voice, observing Hollywood ways. She swam, batted tennis balls, expertly-played her piano, stole the show at a few beauty-ridden Hollywood parties, to which she was squired at times by Rudy Vallee, Howard Hughes and lately by Actor Reginald Gardiner. When last April Producer Wanger borrowed her from M.G.M. for Algiers, it was discovered that she would require padding to fill out her bust -a deficiency no cinemogler had noted in Extase. In her first seven months in Hollywood, 23-year-old, five-foot-seven Hedy had lost...
Blockade (Walter Wanger). "Not only do we meekly take intimidation from abroad but we jump obediently when almost anybody in this country says 'Frog!' It's ridiculous, and I, for one, don't intend to continue. I'm going to release this Spanish picture as is and if it's banned in Europe, I'll have to take my loss...
This indignant blast by Producer Walter Wanger last month; announcement that during the filming of Blockade mysterious strangers had been snooping about the set; and a report that when it was completed, a print was sent to General Franco's agents were all characteristic of the ballyhoo preceding the release of this picture. Consequently, when Blockade finally appeared last week, the cinema industry justifiably anticipated a polemic sensation that would jolt other producers' self-imposed silence on controversial subjects from totalitarian government to the relative merits of Scotch and bourbon whiskey...
...justice to Producer Wanger, who at least had the nerve to approach an explosive theme. Blockade is no sensational polemic. U. S. cinemaddicts who are familiar with the history of Spain's Civil War may trace a similarity between certain incidents in the picture and the invasion of the Basque provinces, the arrival of the food ship Seven Seas Spray in Bilbao, and the air raids on Madrid and Barcelona. On the vast majority of U. S. cinemaddicts these verisimilitudes may well be lost, and Blockade will stand on its meagre merits as one more incident in the career...