Movie Page - Khyber

Ty and Terry Selected by Board of Experts

(reprint from “King of the Khyber Rifles” campaign booklet)

Hollywood has come up with a new twist in casting romantic leads for movies. This scientific method, introduced by Producer Frank Rosenberg, resulted in Tyrone Power and Terry Moore being paired as lovers in "King of the Khyber Rifles", the Twentieth Century-Fox CinemaScope production in Technicolor.

Rosenberg figured that if marriage counselors could help men and women make the right kind of marriage, then they would do the same thing for motion picture lovers. So he gave a list of seven men and five women available for the leads in "King of the Khyber Rifles" to a marriage counselor, an artist, and a public opinion poll-taker, asking them to pick a most likely pair.

The marriage counselor, Gottfried Koutz, former professor of psychology at the University of Vienna, found Power and Miss Moore "opposites" and, therefore, possessing attractions for one another. Power is tall, Miss Moore short. He is dark, she light. His nature is serious, and she is happy and ebullient.

Then artist Jud Canwell took scissors and color photographs of the group and came up with Power and Moore as the couple that "looked best" together. "Power's dark, brooding eyes and Miss Moore's blue sparklers decided the issue," he said.

A public opinion pollster recorded that three out of five persons asked paired the two stars. Having arrived at a scientific mating, Producer Rosenberg set about to use them in as many romantic scenes as possible in the story, which has its locale in India in 1857. "We proved that the public will respond to these two handsome people," he explained, "and we gave them as many clinches as possible."

Michael Rennie is the third star in the picture, which has a cast including John Justin, Guy Rolfe, Richard Stapley, Murray Matheson, Frank DeKova, Argentina Brunetti and Sujata, native dancing star. Henry King directed "King of the Khyber Rifles", the fourth picture Twentieth Century-Fox has produced in its new and revolutionary CinemaScope process.