Film Fun (1928 - 1942 (assorted issues))

WELL, WELL, m’hearties, it sure did look for a while as though we were gonna lose one of our pet filmsters, Dick BarRichard thelmess hisself. Barthelmess Yes, sir, when that big offer from the Clarifier of the American Boy, Flo Ziegfeld, was broadcasted and it seemed as though Dick’s contract with First National might be bought by the revue king, there was plenty of weeping and “well! ”-ing in these parts. It seems that Ziggy heard Dick warble his songs in his latest singie, “Weary River,” and decided that he’d found just the man to star in the musical version of “East is West.” But Dick knew how we fans feel about him, and the big offer was turned down with thanks and appreciation. W’hich ought to lead everyone to add at least a nickle to the Sigh of Relief Fund. DERHAPS the cutest romance of 1 ’em all is the one which is being brewed ’twixt Sue Carol and Nick Stuart who are to be seen Sue together in shows as screen Carol buddies. It appears that nobody waited more anxious¬ ly than Sue for the old Nick’s return from Yurp where he visited his native Roumania after making his film, “Chasing Through Europe.” Sue was one of the few to meet his train. It appears, too, that there’s been a divorce from her hubbie, Allen H. Keefer, a livestock commission man whom she married in Chicago in 1925 when she was still Evelyn Lederer, unknown to film fans. When Sue finally clicked on the screen her marriage got a terrific bop on the domesticity. pROBABLY the nicest star we’ve met is that charming lassie, Phyllis Haver. She breezed into u . N. Y. recently and we had Phyllis the pleasure of a swell Haver little lunch in her apart¬ ment at the Savoy Plaza. Phyllis expressed her views on the talkies, stating that she thought they would kill once and for all the myth that movie stars can be made over night — and she didn’t mean it the way you think, either. She said that the give and technique of talking films required real talent and years of actual experience with things the¬ atrical. She complained that some people were trying to make talking films and sequences as though it was an easy job, mentioning that she’d been called in once at six and ex¬ pected to go through a final speakie scene at eight. She thinks that such scenes should be rehearsed and prac¬ ticed just as they are on the legit stage. One tiling we were all het up about was to get the low down on the rumor that Phyllis and Bert Lytell were planning to live as cheap¬ ly as one. Bert has been playing on the N. Y. stage in “Brothers.” It appears that the two scarcely know each other and that some guy just went ahead and made it up for a splicy item. Phyllis, by the way, is to be seen in “The Office Scandal” and “The Shady Lady” and has been recently signed up onna long con¬ tract with M.-G.-M. Phyllis has the loveliest complexion imaginable and is in the pink of condition which is reason enough to think that she’s got a rosey future ahead of her. A S funny an item as we have had in these parts for a long while is the one that’s culled from two other fellows in Adolphe Rhinebeck, New York; Men j OU these boys are farmers and they say that at one time none other than Adolphe Menjou was employed by them as a farm hand. They say further that Adolphe got the air from both farms but that they’re certain when he pitched heyhey he was never seen wearing a high silk hat! ■p\ON’T tell me, let me gossip . . . ■l-', Joan Crawford and Doug Fairbank’s welding, they say, didn’t meet with any great parental Chatter enthusiasm. . . . Para¬ mount won’t renew Wal¬ lace Beery’s contract. . . . Mary Duncan was in the hospital with ap¬ pendicitis; getting along nicely. . . . Hugh Allen, Pathe serial star, en¬ gaged to Kay Hoffman, former stage lassie, now feature writer. . . . Dotty Parker, back in New Yoik because she no likee “Dynamite, I Love You” as theme song for “Dynamite.” . . . Will Charlie Chaplin take Georgia Hale, his leading lady in “The Gold Rush,” for his third wife? . . . Re¬ cent divorces: Lillian Peachim and Reed Howes, Helen Gibson and Hoot Gibson, Renee Adoree. and William Gilh . . . Raymond Griffith can’t talk above a whisper but the ampli¬ fiers make his first thpeakie for Chris¬ tie possible. . . . Small town theatres have a system called Dramaphone, running silent films with hired actors to speak lines through a mike that is set in a sound-proof booth. Hallam — / saw a kiss like this at the movie last night. Audrey — Who were the actors? Hallam — I don’t know. They were sitting in the back row. Hoops, My Dear! First Mid-Victorian — Let’s make whoopee ! Second Mid-Victorian — All right, wait until I put on my whoop skirt, ooo “Is Jones a good' comedy actor?” “One of the best. He has a won¬ derful bedside manner.” Page 17