Mary Stevens MD (Warner Bros.) (1933)

ADVANCE FEATURES BABY SPECIALIST KAY FRANCIS as “Mary Stevens, M.D.” in the Warner Bros. picture coming to the Strand Theatre on Friday. The film, the screen’s first story of a woman doctor, is said to offer Kay Francis the finest oppor tunity of her career in the title role. Lyle Talbot has the male lead. Cut No.5 Cut 30c Mat i10c Aristocratic Kay Francis Has Most Democratic Taste Star of “Mary Stevens, M.D.” the Contrariest Yet the Most Interesting Star in Pictures IPLING could learn about women from Kay Francis, too. She is the contrariest lady in pictures. And the most in teresting. The Kay Francis this interviewer had in mind when he ventured onto the set for the Warner Bros. picture, ‘‘Mary Stevens, M.D.,’’ which comes to the .................. Theatre on.........:.. : doesn’t exist at all. She isn’t like anything anybody might think she would be like. In the first place one would suspect that Miss Francis had been born in Paris, or St. Moritz, or Richmond, Virginia. But she wasn’t. She was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma—“by mistake” she says. And fate should have given her a surname like Duse or Barrymore or Chatterton. But instead she was christened, properly and legally, of course, Katherine Gibbs. So she had to take her second husband’s name of Francis and abbreviate Katherine to Kay to manufacture a satisfactory stage and screen name. | Drives a Ford: | Miss Francis ought to ride around Hollywood swathed in mystery and half buried in the soft cushions of an aristocratic Town Car. Instead she owns a Ford—and drives it herself. She this thought, enjoy langorous hours in a ecanopied, satin covered }ed, but it seems she would rather camp out and sleep on a cot under mosquito netting. She is the kind of a lady who should—and probably does—squander large sums of money for intriguing bottles of exotic perfumes. But the one odor she finds absolutely irresistible, we have her word for this, is the smell of freshly buttered popcorn! should, interviewer One can picture her ordering Crepe Suzettes from an obsequious head waiter hovering near. Instead, she is more apt to munch an ice cream Page Four cone and her favorite dinner dish is “lamb chops.” Prefers Fishing to Clothes Of such contradictions is this lady made. Almost everything she seems to be she isn’t. She isn’t langorous. She once ran the hundred yard dash in twelve seconds. She plays tennis. She ought to be thinking about her “art,” but the chances are she’s looking for a new chair for her living room. She ought to enjoy shopping and planning new clothes—she is the best dressed woman on the screen you know—but she enjoys deep sea fishing much more. She should be always elegantly indolent. Instead she is occasionally gloriously lazy. So, if you’re disappointed, don’t go on. The interviewer wasn’t disappointed, he was amazed—and delighted. Any screen siren who likes bacon and eggs and declares that she can cook them “beautifully,” wins his attention any time. It didn’t seem possible that Miss Francis could rest on anything less luxurious than a chaise lounge. But, believe it or not, she likes a hammock better. In keeping with the mysterious screen personality she has built up —and which we are now busy tearing down—one would imagine she would read decadant French novelists, or perhaps Ibsen or Tolstoy. But she is addicted to detective fiction and to Hemmingway and other modernists. Hates Jewelry She might, one would suspect from her pictures, have as many jewels as Peggy Hopkins Joyce is supposed to have. But she hates diamonds and wears only old fashioned brooches and a pair of inexpensive earrings, for good luck. She ought to be above such mundane things as superstition—but she won’t wear blue. In fact this screen “lady of mystery” is really just a woman of charm. Miss Francis has been in boudoirs and period rooms so often, dressed in such intriguing gowns, playing at being alluring, that it is a distinct shock to find her at work on a picture dressed in the crisp uniform of a hospital interne as the interviewer found her during the filming of “Mary Stevens, M.D.” She seems to be the very soul of dignity but she likes a good ‘fight and she finds a six day bicycle race Cut No. 30 Cut 60c Kay Francis Got “Internal Make-up”? by Hospital Visit I an emergency operation. AY FRANCIS sat in the amphitheatre of a hospital operating room in Los Angeles and watched a surgeon perform She was there in the interest of her latest Warner Bros. picture, ‘‘Mary Stevens, M. D.,’’ And in which she plays the title Theatre on which opens at the role of a woman physician. The man who had insisted that she ought make the visit to the hospital, sat through the operation with her. Kay Francis. The actress was not there at the suggestion of either the technical advisor on the picture or of Lloyd Bacon, the Director. She was there because Pere Westmore, head of the studio’s make-up department, had told her she should go. He went along fo study Miss Francis while she studied the technique of the hospital. Westmore ealls it “internal makeup.” He believes it is the only way he can do a good job on the people he prepares for appearances on the sereen. “T can put a line on a face,” he says, “but if the person behind it doesn’t know what it’s all about, it is always just a line. You can’t paint understanding on a face. But if the actor or actress understands what is behind that line then it becomes a part of them.” At the hospital, Miss Francis talked with the head of the maternity ward. She asked for and received details of hospital routine, and she watched carefully the professional manner of the internes. “Many of the things she saw may not actually appear in the picture,” Westmore explained, “but she got the feel and that will show on the Only instead of watching the surgeon, he watched sereen in her work. She’ll be ‘made up’ internally and that’s more important than the things we can do with grease paint and lines.” Although Westmore’s idea is not new with him, he is becoming more and more insistent that the players he works with get first hand knowledge of the subjects they deal with in their pictures before he makes them up for the first “tests.” Tests are makeup and kghting experiments before the camera which guide the makeup department during the filming of a picture. The more the player knows about the subject of the picture, the less work Westmore and his assistants have to do. Directors and technical experts have always urged players to get a first hand working knowledge of the people they represent and the surroundings they occupy in screen productions. Pere Westmore is apparently the first to insist on such experience as an aid to makeup. “Mary Stevens, M.D.” is an intensely dramatic picture based on the novel by Virginia Kellogg and adapted to the screen by Rian James. <A strong supporting cast inéludes Lyle Talbot, Glenda Farrell, Thelma Todd and Harold Huber. re ——EEEEeEEE irresistable. She might be one who would gamble magnificently for enormous sums. Instead she plays bridge—for small stakes. A novelist, writing about such a woman, would give her lion cubs for pets. But she is content with two Daschunds, two cats, a parrot, a rabbit, a canary, several gold fish and three frogs. And if you are one of those who think of Miss Francis as efficient only in the art of being beautiful, be advised now that she is also proficient as a typist and in taking shorthand notes. “Tt’s like a tonic,” she declared, showing that the title role she was Mat 20c See page opposite for 4-column drawing playing had effected her vocabulary too. “I’m in a new environment. I have new interest. I think the results will speak for*thémselves. And for a change, I like it.” Surely Kipling could learn about women from Kay Francis. She’s that interesting. In “Mary Stevens, M.D.” Miss Francis has the title role, a woman surgeon, in a glowing romance and dynamic drama based on the novel by Virginia Kellogg and adapted to the screen by Rian James. The cast ineludes Lyle Talbot, Glenda Farrell, Thelma Todd and Harold Huber. Lloyd Bacon directed. Kay Francis Reaches New Dramatic Heights in Strand Hit In the myriad thrilling scenes in “Mary Stevens, M.D.” of which these are just a few, Kay Francis sets a new mark for emotional portrayals. Her supporting cast in her latest Warner Bros. triumph includes Lyle Talbot, Glenda Farrell, and Thelma Todd.