Shorts

> Now making The Life of Alexander Graham Bell, Stanley and Livingstone, Steinmetz, Producer Darryl Zanuck announced the subject of his next excursion into screen biography: Brigham Young. Meanwhile, the University of California, having canvassed 10,000 schoolteachers, discovered that their first choice for a film dramatization of a U. S. historical event is the story of Nathan Hale.

> En route to Hollywood to make his first U. S. picture for Producer David Selznick, pudgy British Director Alfred Hitchcock (The Lady Vanishes) stopped off to lecture Yale drama students in cinemanufacture. Excerpt: "Suspense can be introduced in a simple love story as well as the mystery or 'whodunit' picture. Make the audience suffer as much as possible."

> Prompted by a letter to Tsar Will Hays from U. S. Assistant Secretary of State George S. Messersmith, Producer Sam Goldwyn announced that he had canceled plans to make Thirteen Go Flying, based on last January's crash of the British transport plane, Cavalier.

> Superintendent of the Senate Press Gallery in Washington from 1898 to 1931, Senate Librarian from 1931 to 1935, now assistant administrator of the archives of the U. S., 63-year-old James D. Preston is a familiar figure to Washingtonians. An accomplished woodworker, he has designed the sets for most recent Gridiron Club shows. A ringer for Neville Chamberlain, he impersonated the British Prime Minister in the last Gridiron show with no make-up except an umbrella. Last week Jim Preston's long and honorable career reached an appropriate climax. He accepted an invitation to go to Hollywood as technical adviser on Director Frank Capra's forthcoming Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

> Casting-of-the-week: big-mouthed Edward G. Robinson as big-nosed Cyrano de Bergerac.

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