International photographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

"tIie tanLs are cominq" By Fred Morgan, Warner Bros. Still Photographer And if you don't believe it, hie yourself to Fort Knox and see for yourself. It will be an education you won't soon forget. Warner Bros, decided that Mr. and Mrs. Citizen should know all about what our army is doing and, in order to "put it over," figured a moving picture made in color on the spot would tell the story as it should be told. Consequently, the various studio departments were set into motion and, shortly, Warners' camera chief, Mike McGreal, had two Technicolor crews rounded up and on the way to Fort Knox. Breezy Eason, assigned to direct, and Bert Glennon, chief cinematographer, had to fly down so they could line up the shooting schedule in such a way that it would not slow up the training of mechanized troops. The rest of the gang went by train from here to Louisville, Kentucky, and then thirty miles out to where Fort Knox is located. It amounted to three days of a hot, boresome ride through ten states, then off the train at eleven P. M. in a pouring rain and no familiar faces to guide us to a place to sleep. It wasn't long, though, until out of the darkness strode a little fellow in a Colonel's uniform and behind him was a Sergeant, the biggest man I've ever seen. He took one look at the huddled bunch of lonesome, wet movie-makers and bellowed, CINEX Light Testers — Polishers used by all Major Studios. We are the sole Manufacturers and Distributors. Manufacturer of 16mm and 35mm Recording Heads, Developing Machines, Bipack Color and Black and White Printers, Rewinds. Special Machinery built to order. CINEMA ARTS-CRAFTS 914 No. Fairfax HE 1984 Hollywood, Calif. Cable Address: "CINEBARSAM" "Fall in, you guys." Andy Anderson, camera operator, being an ex-war vet, finally figured he meant us, so we fell in and down and everything else that could be anything but military. "Forward march!" bellowed our friend. So we started with suitcases, portable radios, hat boxes and what-not, a sorry-looking sight, all out of step and loaded down. We went the length of a box car where there was a light, and the order came to halt. Well, the guys up front halted, but some of the forty-odd others didn't, and arms, legs and suitcases were a pile to behold. Out from behind the box car came Breezy Eason, Bert Glennon and Col. "Jimmy" Jaynes, and then we knew we had been framed. Needless to say, thev were in hysterics. However, we were soon housed in very comfortable barracks and sound asleep. Next morning we were out with the sun and on the playground of the tanks. Acres of rolling hills covered with brush and trees — and dust. Oh, boy, that dust! The camera crews took the beating. Dust was so thick on the lenses it meant stopping shooting until the equipment was cleaned time and again. Have you ever seen a tank coming at you? Well, you won't forget it in a long time when you do. Twenty-eight tons of massive steel bristling with guns and bearing down on you at 30 or 40 m.p.h. Glennon assigned Eli Fredericks, operative cameraman, a low set-up in the path of a group of tanks, some to turn out just a few feet in front of the camera. I figured that would be the spot for a real action still picture, so I squatted with Eli and his crew. I stuck it out and got my picture, but that tank was about the biggest monster I have ever seen in dreams or out. There were tanks everywhere, going in all directions and stopping at nothing. Old barns, trees, canyons, mud holes, fences, hedges, rocks — nothing seemed to FAXON DEAN INC CAMERAS, BLIMPS-DOLLYS FOR RENT No. 22184 4516 Sunset Boulevard Night, SUnset 2-1271 worry them. If they couldn't knock down and trample the obstacles, they would just go over the top and down the other side and on. Always they go on. During the course of the story, it was very necessary to show, head on, what a tank does when meeting these objects. As far as I know, a tank was made into a Hollywood "camera car" for the first time. To Bill Classen, head grip, go the honors for "tying down" a Technicolor camera on a tank, which has nothing but flat, smooth armor plate all over it. He did it and with the camera pointed over the snout of a tank we took off down through the woods and swamps. I can tell you — but you'd better see the picture — with her nose pointed down into a hole deep enough to bury a house she goes, to the bottom and up out the other side, across a knoll at 30 m.p.h. and headon into a rock maple tree, twelve inches thick, which explodes into a million bits, flying all over the landscape. After that one, I noticed all the boys feeling the knots in the ropes that tied them on. There is no such thing as roads and as it rained every day there were plenty of mudholes to play in for the youngsters who are learning to handle tanks — and can they handle those monsters of steel! As to Fort Knox, last November there were a few buildings, housing some fifteen hundred men and officers. Today, there are barracks housing forty thousand men and thousands of pieces of rolling stock — cars, trucks, scout cars, motorized guns and tanks. Schools, schools for everything. And the men must be fed. Just as an eye-opener, I'll pass on the figures the officer in charge of feeding gave me. The men decided they wanted hot dogs for dinner one night, so he scouted all the big cities around — Louisville, even Chicago — and finally found enough. 30,800 pounds of bow-wows for one meal, along with 40,000 loaves of bread and 17,000 quarts of milk! Yes, sir, mister, the tanks are coming — and am I glad I saw it all and now realize what our Uncle can do when he sets his mind to it! Orson Welles' New Picture Orson Welles is producing, writing, directing and starring in his second picture for RKO Radio. Plans are still shrouded in the secrecy which characterizes Orson Welles' technique. Promises to be even more arresting than "Citizen Kane," which will be one of the early season attractions.