Evening star., 1939-11-09
His Miracles
Don't Excite
Mr.. Basevi
Some Notes on New
Stage and Screen
Attractions
BY HARRY MACARTHUR.


Poor James Basevi. His best efforts,
the labors which give him real
satisfaction, are always being over
looked because of his occasional
lapses into the flamboyant.
You know this Mr.. Basevi for
those spectacular moments-the
hurricane in The Hurricane" the
earthquake in San Francisco" the
locust plague in The Good Earth"
But If some one had popped up five
minutes ago and asked who is
Samuel Goldwyn's art director?' it's
6-to-5 you couldn't have answered.
And that is what makes Mr.. Basevi
sad. He is very handy art director
and he is very happy to be an art
director, These destructive mo-
ments when he r'ars back and passes
miracles which virtually outdo
nature are just so much pish-tush to
Mr.. Basevi and they do not excite
him at all.
In fact he doesn't even like to
talk about them. And it is not be-
cause he has any secrets. for he
thinks there aren't many of those in
the movie business any more. It's
universally known, he says, that
motion picture fog is smoke or oil or
compressed air, that a hero smeared
with blood is really smeared with
chocolate slrup. that a heavy chair
cracked over the villains skull is
truly feather weight balsa wood.
Mr.. Basevi is so unimpressed by
his own special effects that he turned
not hair few weeks back when
he picked up the telephone in his
office, heard Mr.. Goldwyns voice
saying Il want to start a war. the
darndest war possible. with lots of
dynamite. men sailing 40 feet
through the air-and want it in a
hurry"
Mr.. Basevi just produced, in
hurry, war with lots of dynamiting
and men sailing 40 feet through the
air, that Gary Cooper and Andrea
Leeds might. in spectacular fashion,
save the independence of the Philip
pines in The Real Glory" Mr..
Basevi produced for this film, open
ing today at Loew's Palace, a war
which would scare A. Hitler or Joe
Stain
Then he went back to being proud
OF the more important business in
THE Real Glory than this war
the business of building Philippine
village on the Goldwyn backlot.
duplicate of it on location. and
matching the two with scenes on
still another location. This was Mr..
Basevis job, if you ask him. and he
wishes people would stop thinking
of him as just fellow who can whip
up hurricane.
The Dagenham Girl Pipers, who
are featured in the new vaudeville
show at the Earle starting tonor-
row, probably hope more than any
one ever has that Earle audiences
like them very much. For these 10
British lassles, who have played for
Adolph Hitler, will be going back
within the range of his music if they
do not make good tomorrow All
summer long the girls and their bag
pipes have been part of the enter
talnment at the New York Worlds
Fair, and this is their first try at
vaudeville; if vaudeville audiences
like bagpipes, 1t will be very fine
and they will not have to go back
to that land where life has been
disrupted by their German admirer
They feel that they will be able
to readily adapt themselves to the
ways of American vaudeville. how
ever. do these girls. Already they
have developed liking for United
States swing. says Edith Turnbull,
the pipe major, which seems to be
to a bagpipe corps what a drum
major is to drum corps. But it
doesn't do us a great deal of good
says Miss Turnbull, for you can't
play swing on bagpipe''
And there's point in their favor
already, one could add
Other new pictures:
THE Private Lives of Elizabeth
and Essex with Bette Davis and
Enrol Flynn, opens tomorrow at the
Earle.
"Remember?" with Greer Carson
and Robert Taylor, opens today at
Loew's Capitol.
Holdovers include Deanna Dur
bins First Love" at Keith: Beau
Geste," which moves into the Co.
lumbia today, and This Man Is
News" at the Little.