Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

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BOY'S CINEMA Every Tuesday An intensely human comedy-drama in which an old night-watchman is led into posing as a man of wealth and position, and a conceited young football player learns a lesson from him. In the Universal picture Charley Grapewin plays the part of the night-watchman and Dick Foran that of the footballer QALE PICKS McKINLEY FOR once in his life, Arnold J. Abbott, the crlib and enterprising puhlicitv manager of the all-conquenng Gale Cniversity football team, founa it difficult to express his feelings in words. He was at his desk in his office at the Memorial Stadium, which (as everyone should know) is in the borough of New York known as the Bronx, und he was holding a telephone to his left ear. He looked quite an athlete himself, and he had been one in his youth, but in recent years his tongue had got far more o-xorcise than any other part of his body. "Wait a minute!" he howled. "Wait a miruite! Now—now will you say that again?" The statement that had given him a shock was repeated, and he re-echoed it in a voice charged with anguish: "Gale picks McKinley College, of Texas!" Three young and fairly live assistants were in the ofTice with him—Howard Gibbons, Mark Fitzgerald, and Jewe White—and their faces expressed some of the consternation he felt. "WhatV" he raged. "Oh, yeah, sure I know they've got a great little team. But who ever heard of 'em—and who cares? That's not a college—it's a piece of switch-track out on the prairies! What about Stanford, or Notre Dame, or Miimesota? Do they think those cowpunchers can fill a stadium that seats eighty thousand? I couldn't give that many passes away!" His brows were drawn down over a pair of highly indignant blue eyes; his left hand stabbed an inofren.=ive blotting-pad with an inofTensive pencil "Oh. so the vote is final, huh? Well, listen, honov-hunrh d'you know what you can tell the Gale Athletic Board they can do?" Evidently a sharp reproof vnas administered —one something in the nature of a threat; for in otiife a different tone he said: " Do 1 Know what the Gale Board says I can do7 Yeah. 1—I—I Yos. thanks!" He put dow-) the telejihone and rose and went to a cabinet, where he poured himself B drink he badly needed and swallowed it at a gulp. ■'Well, bovg, thatB it," he said disgustedly l<'<ibniary lath. two. to his three assistants. " The thundering herd is coming in off the ranch." "They ought to feel right at home on game day," scoffed Gibbons. "Wait till you see those wide open spaces in this stadium!" "What about playing Bingo during the half?" suggested Jesse White. Bingo IS an utterly unimportant town in Wisconsin, with or without a football team, and the remark was intended for sarcasm. But Arnold J. Abbott was not in the mood for sarcasm. "Lay off!" he snapped. "I'm paying you guys for ideas—not wisecracks." "I've got it, boss!" exclaimed Fitzgerald brightly. "Two teams make a total of twenty- two players. Right?" "So what?" "We'll probably have twenty-two paid admissiona. Why don't you match 'em— players agains' spectators?" Abbott glared at the offender. "Now get this, you guys," he commanded brusquely. "Our job is to sell a football game. If ttiis Mac-something;-or-otlier isn't on the map we're going to put it there! Colleges are no different from tooth-pastes. You've got to sell 'em !' He paced to and fro, trying to think up a headline suitable for the sports sections of New- York's newspapers, and the others concen- trated with him. "Fiphting lexans from the broad plains of the West swoop down on New York for the scalps of the Gale Panthers," was the first contribution, and it came from Gibbons. Fitzgerald—usually known a,s "Fitz"—had read somewhere about the McKinley team, and ho went one better: " Quarter-back ' Brainy ' Thornton, of McKinley—the greatest , football player since Tom Thorpe." "That's it!" approved Abbott. "That's it! But, boys, I want you to remombor one thing. Tradition ! A college has got to smell old, or it'" no good. I want to round up every son of "McKinley in this town! We'll throw big testimonial dinners—reunion ban- quets—speeches that'll put you to sleep. We want rteh did grads. D'you get It?" "Yeah," nodded Jesse White, "that's the idea." "1 want to see that old ivy crawling over the McKinley walls." Abbott stopped abruptly and made a grimace. "Why, I'm beginning to feel like a college man myself," he said. "And how I hate colleges! Now get on the job—beat it! Bring 'em back alive!" The three made for a rack on the wall to get their overco its and their hats, and'as they moved towards the door they raised their voices in approved college style, shouting: "'Rah! 'Rah! 'Rah! McKinley!" In a far more elaborate office, situated on the sixth floor of a very tall building in world- famous Wall Street, one evening in the follow- ing week, Edgar Arthur Dow rang through to his secretary. Sylvia Higgius, just as that beautiful and efficient young lady was getting ready to go home. Edgar Arthur Dow was portly, wealthy, and sixty-thiee. His hair was snow-white, but his brows were dark, giving him a distinguished appearance, and his fiill, clean-shaven face radiated goodwill. He was a stockbroker, a bachelor, and ari enthusiastic follower of all the manly sjxirts in which he never had taken an active pait himself. A radio set was a not-too-conspicuous feature of his room, and he had been listening to a sports bulletin from it before preparing for his own departure. Sylvia Higgins took off her hat and laid it on her desk took a notebook and pencil from a drawer in which she had believed thoy were to stay the night, and sallied from the general office into the private one. "Yes, Mr. Dow?" she inquired. "Oh!" Mr Dow slewed round in his chair. "Gale has picked McKinley, of Texas. I want two ticket in the cheering section." Sylvia's dark blue eyes rounded in surprise. " D-did you say McKinley?" she stammered. "I did " Mr. Dow's blue eyes became fixed on her exceedingly attractive but stailled features. "That's quite all right with you, isn't it?" "Oh, yes—yes, of course," she murmured hastily. " It's just that " "Tliat what?"