'30s Star Carole Lombard Feted In Film Retrospective

Carole Lombard, subject of a seven-film retrospective beginning Tuesday at the Film Center of the Art Institute of Chicago, was the most effervescent of the '30s movie sex goddesses. She was a sleek, lissome blond with a wicked smile and flashing eyes, and though usually dressed and coifed to the nines, she was never above giving her male lover-combatants a scathing wisecrack, a rough shove or even a swift kick.

Without the Depression, the former Jane Alice Peters of Ft. Wayne, Ind., might not have made it to the top. But the '30s brought a newer, more adult movie queen to the fore, and Lombard, like Claudette Colbert and Greta Garbo, was a beneficiary.

Lombard's forte was screwball comedy (the title of the Film Center's series is "Siren of Screwball"). These romantic comedys were set among the very rich, where, the characters acted wild, screwy and rambunctious. Lombard-whose specialty was headstrong, reckless rich vamps or lower-class climbers-empitomized them all.

"No Man of Her Own," the 1932 comedy that starts the series (6 p.m. Tuesday), isn't really much of a movie. It's a silly romance in which a Manhattan cardsharp falls for a librarian and sees the light. The script is negligible, the characters are cutesy, the direction-by Wesley Ruggles-is only serviceable.

But it's an essential Lombard film, because it's her one screen pairing with her eventual husband Clark Gable (gambler to her librarian). To call their scenes electric is putting it mildly. For the first 10 minutes of their screen courtship here-when Gable spies her at a magazine stand, pursues her into the library and then waylays her at one bookshelf after another-the stars literally seem besotted with each other (and probably were). This is screen chemistry with a vengeance.

"Twentieth Century" (6 p.m. Jan. 6) is one of six 1934 Lombard films. But it's the key one, the movie that set her image and made her career.

Playing Lily Garland (nee Mildred Plotka), Broadway ingenue turned Hollywood glamor queen, Lombard seized the screwball crown, holding her own against the '30s most formidable ham, John Barrymore. Barrymore, in his wild prime, plays egomaniacal producer Oscar Jaffe, determined at all costs to wrest his erstwhile star back from Movieland while on a coast-to-coast race on the famous luxury train, the Twentieth Century Limited.

Wordmasters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur adapted their own play, and the roaring, pell-mell, brilliantly sustained pace comes from ace director Howard Hawks-who also deserves full credit for helping Lombard's new image. When one argument scene with Barrymore dragged in rehearsal, Hawks asked Lombard what she'd do in the same situation. "I'd kick him!" she snarled. "Well, go ahead and kick him," Hawks told her, and a screwball legend was born.

- Cinematographers don't always get their due, but they do in "Visions of Light" Saturday and Sunday at the Music Box, 3733 N.

This warmly knowledgeable and glitteringly illustrated history of the craft was directed by Arnold Glassman, Stuart Samuels and Todd McCarthy, and written by McCarthy, then Variety's lead film critic.

McCarthy interviewed dozens of luminaries for the film, ranging from Golden Age masters (film noir legend John Alton) to the generations after them ("Prince of Darkness" Gordon Willis, Conrad Hall, William Fraker). Present-day cinematographers include Allen Daviau ("E.T.") and Spike Lee's right-hand man, Ernest Dickerson, who opens the film with his boyhood recollections of watching the David Lean-Freddie Young "Oliver Twist."

The film glows with lustrous pictures. More important, it takes us inside and backstage, to explain how those images were crafted-and to celebrate the artists who lit them, and who, at their best, deserve the appellation "painters of light."

Movie stars at war

Bob Hope led the pack of popular performers who entertained the troops during World War II. John Wayne and other actors fought the war in feature films, and other Hollywood favorites tirelessly toured the country on war bond drives. In fact, beloved actress Carole Lombard died in early 1942 in a plane crash returning from a war bond drive.

But there were numerous established stars, directors, producers and workers in other branches of the film industry who put their careers on hold to serve the country during WWII.

In honor of Memorial Day, here's a look at some of the superstars who put themselves in harm's way during the war.

James Stewart

Prewar: With his lanky, boy-next-door charm, Stewart was one of MGM's top young leading men. Besides winning an Oscar for 1940's "The Philadelphia Story," he also starred in the 1938 best picture winner, "You Can't Take It With You," and earned an Oscar nomination for 1939's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

Joining up: Stewart, then 32, was one of the men whose number was called in early 1941 in the first peacetime draft. However, he was turned down for service because he was 5 pounds underweight. But Stewart wanted to serve his country, so he fattened up, enlisted in the Army Air Corps and passed the physical, becoming the first Hollywood star to join the military before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

War record: After being assigned as a flight instructor for nearly two years stateside, Stewart was stationed in England, where he piloted bombing missions including raids on Germany. His numerous honors included the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal and the World War II Victory Medal. A colonel by war's end, Stewart remained with the U.S. Air Force Reserves and was promoted to brigadier general in 1959. He retired from the Air Force in 1968.

Clark Gable

Prewar: One of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Gable had won the lead actor Oscar for 1934's "It Happened One Night," a nomination for 1935's "Mutiny on the Bounty" and another nomination for his most famous role as Rhett Butler in 1939's "Gone With the Wind."

Joining up: Married to Lombard at the time of her death, the 41-year-old Gable joined the Army Air Forces in August 1942, as a private.

War record: Trained as a photographer and aerial gunner, he was assigned to England to make a movie to recruit air gunners. He saw combat during bombing missions and nearly lost his life when enemy flak just missed hitting him the head. He received an Air Medal and a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Gable, who returned to the U.S. in late 1943, became a major in May 1944. By then, he was too old for combat duty, so he requested and received a discharge the following month. Capt. Ronald Reagan signed his discharge papers. (A side note: Adolf Hitler considered Gable his favorite actor and offered a substantial reward for his safe capture.)

Tyrone Power

Prewar: 20th Century Fox's top matinee idol starred in such films as 1936's "Lloyds of London" 1939's and "Jesse James."

Joining up: After completing the war film "Crash Dive," the 28-year-old Power enlisted in the Marine Corps as a private in August 1942 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant the following summer and a first lieutenant in 1944.

War record: As a transport pilot, he participated in the air supply into and evacuation of the wounded from Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He received the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two bronze stars and the World War II Victory Medal.