Straws

''It isn't because I haven't got the stories. Not at all. . . . It is simply because I am convinced this business has become more than ever a matter of timeliness and I deem it wise to hold open enough places on the program to inject any new thing which may come up. . . ."

With this statement of his reasons for not releasing the names of all the 36 pictures Universal will make in the coming year, shrewd old Carl Laemmle Sr. last week revealed a few of his immediate plans: a cinema biography of the late Flo Ziegfeld, written by his widow Billie Burke; a dramatization of Only Yesterday to make all but youngsters recall the Nineteen Twenties;--'Charles G. Norris' lusty Zest; a story by Harold Bell Wright called Ma Cinderella, and Vicki Baum's I Give My Love.

Most noticeable current trend in the cinema is toward musicomedies. This type, instead of subsiding as most producers expected after the release of Forty-Second Street, has grown until 16 are now scheduled for next season. RKO will make six starting with Flying Down to Rio, in which Dolores del Rio will play opposite Fred Astaire.

After weeks of tubthumping, oratory, advertisements in Variety, arguments with directors and actors to get them to sign new contracts in time to appear on company rosters, the major producers (except Warner's and United Artists, whose conferences have not yet been held) announced a total of 301 pictures, divided as follows:

Paramount 65 Fox 54 RKO 52 Columbia 48 MGM 46 Universal 36

Proudest boast of MGM was that Greta Garbo had returned to Hollywood after all, signed a new contract, and was ready to start her next picture (Queen Christina). Also signed up for one prizefight picture was Heavyweight Challenger Max Baer. Still addicted to all-star casts, MGM was ready to release Dinner at Eight which contains almost every performer on the lot except John Barrymore's macaw. RKO promised Sinclair Lewis' Ann Viewers. It would also tackle Of Human Bondage, Somerset Maugham's long-neglected but deeply moving story of a cripple. Fox announced it had bought the rights to Music in the Air, planned a series of shorts made from old nickelodeon cinemas. Paramount ballyhooed Mae West louder than Marlene Dietrich, planned to stop sending its feature pictures to outlying districts before they have been screened in Paramount's pretentious string of urban theatres.

*Not to be confused with This Is America, a compilation of 1917-33 newsreels, now awaiting release.

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