Monday, Nov. 03, 1947

The Girls

Amber, the girl with the bedroom eyes and the roller-coaster mink, moved Francis Cardinal Spellman to a cry of disapproval. The Roman Catholic Legion of Decency had already condemned the Hollywood version of the Kathleen Winsor novel; now the Cardinal himself added a forceful Amen: no Catholic could see it "with a safe conscience." It was only the second time he had condemned a movie (the first was in 1941 when he blasted Two-Faced Woman, with Greta Garbo).

Rebecca, the haunting first wife in Novelist Daphne du Maurier's chilling best-seller (and movie), was haunting Novelist du Maurier. Six years after she was charged with lifting the plot from a Brazilian novelist (who later dropped the suit), Writer du Maurier had to defend herself against the same charge by a U.S. writer. In a Manhattan court, the son of the late Edwina Levin MacDonald (who died after she brought suit) charged that Rebecca was a steal from 1) his mother's novel, Blind Windows, 2) her short story, I Planned to Murder My Husband.

Scarlett O'Hara's creator, Atlantan Margaret Mitchell, made a gracious Old Confederate response to a compliment. British Cinemagnate J. Arthur Rank's wife, Nell, had said something nice about Gone With the Wind on a visit to Atlanta last summer; but Author Mitchell was away at the time. So now, at length, she made the reciprocal gesture. To Mrs. Rank she sent a note of thanks, and enclosed a souvenir $5 Confederate bill.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.