Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1938)

December 10, 1938 MOTION PICTURE HERALD 43 ASIDES and INTERLUDES By JAMES P. CUNNINGHAM A uniformed motorcycle courier, bearing the insignia of Warner Brothers Pictures, dashed into the Hollywood bureau of Motion Picture Herald the other day, saluted and presented the daily studio spot-news letter. Having obtained a receipt for it, he departed. The principal story of the day was this, being quoted directly: "Lead weighted snow is Hollywood's latest movie ingenuity. It was introduced to balk heavy San Fernando Valley winds which threatened to disrupt filming of Warner Brothers' Bette Davis starring picture, 'Dark Victory,' despite high temperature and sunny skies. "Three different 'falls' of snow, each comprised of nine tons of untoasted cornflakes and gypsum dust, were placed on the grounds of a New England farm set at the Warner Brothers ranch near Calabasas. High winds swept them all away before the company was ready to use the set. "Studio special effects men solved the problem by dipping corn flakes in white lead. That gave them enough weight so they stayed on the ground, and despite the high wind which again raged the company worked." V Radio's propensity for providing entertainment for America's masses has been vastly underestimated. Daniel S. Tuthill, assistant managing direct of National Broadcasting, told Federal Communications Commissioners probing radio that NBC books everything from trained seals and acrobats to concert stars, and even supplied two goats for a Bock Beer Festival. V Persons in the neighborhood of Delaware Avenue and the Ford Hotel, in Buffalo, will notice the general improvement in the neighborhood in ■ the nature of blazing, gay lights adorning a mighty architectural interpretation of cocktail bar, lounge and eating place. The lights in vivid Neon spell : "Gerry's." Pronounced with a soft "G" as in Gin — that's Gerry's. And Gerry is none other than Gerald K. Rudulph, who after years with W infield Sheehan, some more years of publicity managing for Fox Film, and still more as advertising director for the first RCA Photophone theatre sound reproducers, quit the picture business back in 1933 to go to Buffalo to work for the Schreiber Brewery. He now has his own name in lights, over "Gerry's." V Warners are booking it as: "The Sisters — Errol Flynn and Bette Davis." V Will H. Hays has, besides motion pictures, a very definite interest in glycerine, paints, soaps, linoleum, rubber substitutes and printing inks. He raises soy beans out on his Indiana farm, and soy beans, in an unprecedented rise to fame, are used in the manufacture of all those products, and more. V A little lady telephoning the suburban Plaza theatre in Cincinnati, to inquire the nature of the feature plajnng, received the reply, "Marie Antoinette." "In what picture?" was her additional inquiry. Stanley C. White, of Kodak Park, where Eastman makes millions of miles of raw stock for Hollywood, has thrown 189,000 pounds of iron 40 feet. He's a horseshoe pitcher. He's been in it for six years now and during that time has taken part in 24 tournaments. There are 45 to SO games in a tournament — a total of from 1,080 to 1,200 games — and in the averaqe game each pitcher throws 70 horseshoes ivcighing 2J/2 pounds each — from 75,600 to 84,000 horseshoes. That gives Mr. White a total iron heave of at least 99^ tons, if our multiplication is correct, which it is. He's pretty good, too. He has thrown as many as 36 consecutive "ringers" which would constitute a world's record if he was playing in an official tournament ; and last summer he had 510 points out of a possible 600 — another unofficial world's record. Mr. White did defeat the present world's champion in an exhibition game in Rochester. , Tightest White tussle was during the Nezv York State championship meet in 1936, when he led off with 36 consecutive "ringers," only to be defeated 49-50. y Typographical inspiration comes from the following interview in the Kansas City Times : "Gypsy Rose Lee, a fall girl with inchlong crimson finger nails, arrived in Kansas City at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, a handsome bundle of brittle nerves. "Scratching at her piece of mind were most of the troubles of a troubled world. ..." Gypsy Rose Lee, by the way, got a call from a sub-committee of the Dies Congressmen who are investigation un-American activities. "StripTeaser Ready to Reveal All — About Hollywood," reported the Associated Press headline. And Sally Rand's appearance in a local courtroom was described in the Los Angeles Evening News thusly : ■ "She left all her fathers at home except a pink one that peeked out from under the folds of her hat. ..." V Mr. and Mrs. Armand Denis are back home at Putnam, Connecticut, from an 11,000-mile airplane trip through the country in the interests of "Dark Rapture," the picture they filmed for Universal in the wilds of Belgian Congo. Traveling with the Denises through all of the 11,000 U. S. ballyhooing flight miles were their four children: David and Armand, 11-year-old twins; Renee, ten, and Heidi-Ann, six. Traveling with the children were all of their pets, assorted white mice, flying squirrels, pink snakes and such. And they brought every one back alive. V Hospitably, the manager of the Haven theatre, Clean, N. Y., sent a special, engraved invitation to the Reverend G. I. Norman, of a local church, to witness "Four Daughters." Came back the invitation by return post, together with the Reverend Norman's admonishment: "If you were given to deal with the spiritual side of life, you imuld soon discover that the Theatre plays a great part in the destruction of youth." The Rockefellers installed the Museum of Science and Industry in their RCA Building at Rockefeller Centre with the intention that always it shall serve as a Museum of Peaceful Arts. If they will but take a peek inside the Museum these days they'll find that Marc Lachmann and Bill Chambliss, Fox home office super exploiteers, have installed enough torpedo, mine and other lethal equipment to start a good sized war. Having in mind a bit of first class publicity for their company's "Submarine Patrol," and Mr. Chambliss himself being a first class navy man, on reserve, the two scouted torpedo, mine and other lethal equipment headquarters from New York to Boston and Brooklyn, and on down to the Navy Department at Washington. They carted back equipment and models of submarines and subchasers, a nice cutaway torpedo, a nice little harbor mine, one of Simon Lake's full-sized, 28-foot-long submarine periscopes, a 14-foot-high direction finder, underwater listening devices, submarine conning tower — and set it all up in Mr. Rockefeller's "Museum of Peaceful Arts." V Not to be outdone by this industry's "Motion Pictures Are Your Best Entertainment" slogan, other lines are coming out with some brand nevu slogans: "Energy Eggs from Happy Hens" {New Jersey Poultry Association) ; "Gentle As A Lamb" {Train and Mclntyre Scotch Whiskey) ; "Keg In Sight Means Beer Just Right" {Kooler-Keg Co.), and, topping all: "Wherever You Go, Whatver You Do, Take T.C.U. With You" {Teachers Casualty Underwriters). V The beginnings of Truman Talley's Fox Movietonews word contortionist, Mr. Lew Lehr, Doctor of Philosophooey, as a columnist for Waltan Features Syndicate, caused the editors and publishers of Editor and Publisher to dispatch their Mr. Marlen Pew to Mr. Lehr's offices at Fox newsreel to determine just how well Mr. Lehr might be equipped to write six syndicated columns a week. "Do you feel that your work in Movietonews has prepared you to be a columnist?" asked Reporter Pew. "Des newsreel is bote pictorial und written reportin' uf all slices of life," answered Lew, and "I been slicin' it fer zis years, zometimes pretty thin!" V Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes of the United States Supreme Court was in a Boston movie theatre audience, where a woman patron saw a crowd gathered around him and inquired of his identity. "Chief Justice Hughes," she was told. "What's he doing?" she continued. "Well, the crowd has recognized him and he is signing autographs," the other patiently explained. "My goodness, you'd think he was Tarzan Weismuller." said the first woman disgustedly. V A small electric buzzer is strapped to the ankle of television nerformers and television speakers and gives them their cues when the program director presses a button — motion directions, of course, not being permitted in the tele-picture taking.