Word: yordan
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Anna Lucasta (Security Pictures; Columbia) suffers from a piece of inspired miscasting. Originally written by Philip Yordan as the story of a Pennsylvania Polish family, the play became a resounding Broadway hit five years ago after it had been adapted for an all-Negro cast by Producer Harry Wagstaff Gribble. The part of Anna, a generous, warmhearted girl gone wrong, was played by Hilda Simms, a talented actress with a superbly natural stage presence. The movie, not illogically, was based on the first script, with Yordan as producer. But Anna's earthy role was turned over to Paulette Goddard...
Except for a wobbly beam or two-notably some unlikely melodramatics at the end-House is a well-constructed movie. Into its making went an intelligent screen play by Playwright Philip (Anna Lucasta) Yordan; some distinguished lighting effects and camera work by Milton Krasner; and Director Joseph (A Letter to Three Wives) Mankiewicz's talent for handling atmosphere and sets as effective projections of character. Meatiest character, of course, is arrogant old Monetti, a role which Robinson plays (Italian accent, organ-grinder mustache and all) with bravura and obvious relish...
...acts out his scripts for the brothers, whose respect for his literacy is reverent; and he doesn't even have to do that for Monogram, which merely distributes for him. It is a very pretty pitch indeed, as Yordan will explain: "In the small-picture field there is a fixed gross, that is, you can almost tell how much you're going to make to a penny. I plan to use it as an experimental theater...
...Yordan's experiments, so far, are at once vigorous and surefire: he believes in hard, straight storytelling, draws richly on and writes skillfully for deep-city folk of the kind that swarm North Side Chicago's Wilson Avenue, where he grew...
...side, Yordan is co-producing Ma-ritta Wolff's Whistle Stop (he wrote the script) with Seymour (Mayerling) Neben-zal. He has the script ready for his next movie, Crime and Punishment, with the setting changed from St. Petersburg to Boston...