Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

Every Tuesday Boston retorted. "Come on, get into that 'chute." He reached round, and he flung the parachute-pack on to the wretched man's knees, whence it fell to the floor ot the cockpit. The power-receiver was functioning per- fectly, the motor was making very little noise. The bomber attained an altitude of four thousand feet, an air speed of three hundred miles an hour. Fielding crouched in his seat like some wild creature at bay. General Moody and Colonel Whalen had remained on the field till the machine had disappeared from sight, and then had gone into the control-room with Major Evans and Lieutenant Carson. The operator was at the table with the wire- less telephone, another sergeant was seated at the end of the table with a note- book before him, and a pencil in his hand. Not a sound issued from the loud- speaker above the wireless set. and for the tenth time the general looked at his wrist-watch. "They've been up over twenty minutes now," he said to Whalen. "Do you sup- pose Roston could have been wrong?" *Tf he's wrong," muttered the colonel, "we're in a fine jam!" The bomber was speeding in a north- westerly direction, and Murray Lake was glistening in the distance. iPielding, at last, had put on the parachute-pack, and suddenly he scrambled on to his seat to open tile hood. But Roston gripped a leg and jerked him down again. "I wouldn't do that. Fielding!" he rasped. "It might be dangerous!" He reached over to the switch and re- duced the speed of the machine, then started to climb still higher. "Take me down, Roston! ' bellowed Fielding. "I can't stand it!" "You can't stand it?" Roston looked at him as though in surprise. "Why, this should be the thrill of your life!" The officers in the control-room of the flying field were becoming really dismayed at the continued silence. "Fornay unconscious in hospital, the others dead, and not a scrap of evidence," fumed Colonel Whalen. "except what BOY'S CINEMA Roston can get out of this flight!" At that moment the wireless telephone in the bomber was switched on, and they lieard Roston say: "Look, Fielding, we've passed over Murray Lake! This is almost the spot where Gray cracked up!" "Let me bail out, Roston!" implored Fielding wildly. "I'm scared: I admit it." "Bail out?" Roston echoed scornfully. "Why? It takes more nerve to bail out than to sit in a cockpit!" The general and the colonel were listen- ing intently to the voices from the loud- speaker. The officer with the notebook was taking down every word in f.iiorthand. "Let me bail out, Roston!" Fielding cried again, this time more franticaUy than before. "You don't understand! We've got to jump!" "Jump?" Roston held on to him with his left hand. "Whv?" "We'll both be killed! It's a matter of seconds now!" "What d'you mean, we'll both be killed?" Roston demanded inexorably, and then Fielding went all to pieces. "There's extrite in the power-receiver!" he shrieked. "Don't you understand? Extrite, the hottest fusing chemical known! It'll ignite and fuse every metal part in the receiver! Roston, we've got to jump, or we'll both be killed! ' "Who put the extrite there?" "I did!" shuddered Fielding. '"I—I'll tell you about it on the ground. Let's get out of this; we haven't a second!" "You'll tell me now!" roared Roston, tightening hLs grip, "or you'll never get out of here! Why did you do it?" "Because a man named Fornay offered me three times the Government price for my invention." confessed the quivering bundle of fear. "Fornay and I planned to wreck the plane so that the Govern- ment would reject it." In the control-room. General Moody snatched at the telephone the operator was holding. "Don't take any more chances, Roston!" he bellowed into it. "Bail out! We have all the evidence we'll need!" "Okay, sir!" Roston replied: and then he stood up on his seat and flung back \i the hood. "All right," he barked a' Fielding, "bail out!" On either side of the machine they heaved thcm.selve.s on to a wing and dived thence into space. And they had pulled their rlp-corcLs and their parachutes were opening—far away from the bomber— when a violent explosion occurred and the wrecked machine dropped through tin' air like .some huge mi.sshapcn stone. Outside the massive granite building of the War Department, in Wa.shington, one sunny morning in May, a bright-eved youth with a bundle of papers under "hu-; arm was shouting: "Government convicts spy ring! Read all about it! Extra! Government con- victs spy ring!" Major Roston approached the broad stone steps of the building in his imiform of the U.S. Air Corps., and the youth ceased from shouting and stood ."^martlv to attention. "Good-morning major!" he said, with a salute. "Good-morning, Tommy!" returned Roston, with a grin. "Got my paper?" A copy of the "Washington Signal " was presented with a flourish, and a coin was offered in payment. But Tommy shook his head. "Oh, not this morning, major!" he said. "This one's on me!" Roston thanked him gravely, and passed on into the building. "Extra!" Extra!" shouted the news- boy. "Read all about it! United States building a hundred electric planes! Extra!" By permission of Columbia Pictures Corporation, Ltd., adapted from the film "Trapped in the Sky," the principal players being: Jack HoU as M a j o r J o h ti Roston Ralph Morgan as Colonel Whalen C. Henry Gordon as William Fornay Katherine DeMille as Carol Rayder Paul Everton as General Moodv Sidney Blackmer as Jules Mann Ivan I/Cbedeff as Joseph Dure Regis Toomey as Lieutenant Grav Holmes Herbert as Walter Fielding WORKERS BEHIND TH3 SCENES li The "other half " helps to make motion pictures, too. It doesn't get its name in electric lights nor on the screen: it isn't in evidence in ermine or top hats when a picture is un- veiled and usually its life is distinctly lacking in glamour. But without it and the work it does movies would cost a lot more and probably please less. The " other half " is made up of the 200 or 300 people behhid the scenes who do some sort of work on every motion pictiu'e made in Hollywood. Visitors to the studios seldom see them —even the players forget them. No one expects Bette Davis and Mii'iam Hopkins, stepping from sleek motor cars attired in the lace and hoopskirt costumes they wear in "The Old Maid," to know that the "mud-packer" has been on the job for hours already. He's the man who sees that all footprints, tracks, wheel marks or hoofprints are obliterated between ** f qVpc " He can hold up production and cost the studio hundreds of dollars if he doesn't do an efficient job, or he can expwse what should be a compelling scene to audiences' laughter and the ever popular sport of finding "movie boners." The "pot washer" and the "flat man" are his equally unknown colleagues. The former works at night, cleaning up the great stacks of paint and paste cans used toy workmen In the construction of sets. It's a lonely and monotonous job. but the special paints used for movie sets makes necessary the use of clean receptacles daily. The "flat man's" job is just about as monotonous. He sees that the flats— plywood frames that are the foundation for most interior and some exterior sets— are removed from the sound stages, soaked and scraped free of paper and paint, shellaced and stored for future use. The film burner can get a little more fun out of life. Before he consigns a piece of film to the burning drums where the silver from waste negative is re- claimed, he can hold it up to the light and get an idea of what he missed by not being closer to Miss Davis, or Brent, or Miss Hopkins or Jane Bryan while they were working. And that's about as close to the glamour as the "mud-packer," the "pot-v/asher," the "flat man" or the "film burner" are going to get—unless they go aroimd to the theatre and buy a ticket lilie the rest of us. BLACK CATS ARE LUCKY SAYS FILM PRODUCER It is related that Dick Whittington attributed his sudden rise to fame and fortune to a black cat, which is commonly believed to bring luck should it cross one's path. The mystics of the past certainly included that feline creature as part of stock-in-trade, and the black cat was the sole companion of many a witch destined to be burnt alive at the stake. Show people generally are very super- stitious and many are the charms carried by some of the stars. For instance. Bruce Cabot. American star of "Traitor Spy ' (his first British picture), attaches much importance to the wearing of a miniature gold golf trophy, which he claims brings him luck even time he plays, and he spends most of his spare time on the course. John Argyle, producer of "Traitor Spy," avers that a black cat has been tied up with his activities as film producer, and it has brought him luck. Perhaps he is correct in his inference, for on the last six occasions when Argyle has commenced making a film a black cat has calmly strolled into the scene before the cameras on the first day of production. Each time it has been a diffei-ent cat, for each of the films have been produced in different studios. As each of the pictures have been acclaimed by Press and .public, it looks as though the lucky black cat notion is not entirely all hooey. The same thing has happened with Argyle's current picture "Traitor Spy." This time the creature set up a jangling meowing during an important scene where Bruce Cabot is making love to Marta la Barr who plays the role of Cabot's wife in the pictm'e. Of course, the scene had to be retaken, and had the cat not been regarded with a kind of superstitious awe by the players and the studio staff it would have been immediately and uneceremoniously des- patched, quicker than it came, with much cursing—for Director Walter Summers is not the type of man to allow such a dis- turbance to break up a scene and regard it with any measure of indifference. Such is the feline spell a black cat has cast on a whole studio. November 4th. 193','.