20th Century-Fox Dynamo (February 3, 1940)

NEW DYNAMO 9 Hollywood And Broadway Notables loin Elite Of Society, Business And Press At Gala Premiere Continued from Page 8 Thursday issue. Film Daily and Motion Picture Herald also car- ried telegraphed stories — or should have, for when this dis- patch was being filed, those papers’ local correspondents were filing stories of an affair that turned out to be the most brilliant event in Miami so far in this frost-bitten season. E dgar b. hatrick of cos- mospolitan was an interested spectator. Edgar handled the old, OLD “Little Old New York” of sielnt film days, in which Marion Davies was starred. But the difference between that story and Zanuck’s dramatic romance is the same as day is night. The silent version concerned itself with the barmaid, while Zanuck’s production is a spectacle drama- tizing the trials and tribula- tions, romantic and otherwise, of the inventor of the steamboat, Robert Fulton, and young people with whom he came in contact. Hatrick wired Zanuck and Direc- tor King his congratulations “for one of the most delightful en- tertainments to come out of Hol- lywood.” • T HE advance sale was unprec- edented. The first ticket was sold 11 days in advance of open- ing, a record for the Lincoln, ac- cording to Fay Wilber, assistant manager who had charge of the tickets. • V YVYAN DONNER, News’ women’s editor and director of the Fashion Forecast series, vacationed down here, but had to hurry back to New York be- fore the opening. • E XTRA! Milton Berle ap- plauded somebody other than himself. He was at the Lincoln the other night to “catch” “Of Mice and Men,” which is fol- lowed by Ed Sullivan’s trailer on “Little Old New York.” Milton applauded, but an old lady “shushed” which prompted him to say: “What do you know about that. Once in my life I applauded somebody, and she hisses me.” • L OUIS B. MAYER of M-G-M was among those who at- tended the premiere. He came down with Vic Orsatti. Every major studio was represented at the opening. Hollywood and Broadway certainly moved to Miami. • A RLENE JUDGE, who is win- tering down here, never looked more dazzling—and was she “thrilled” by the picture! • D OROTHY DEY of The Miami Herald, well-known gossip columnist, broke a record with the advance space she gave the premiere—and then on Thurs- day, she gave almost two more columns to chatter at the open- ing. T HE only important member of the Miami corps of news- papermen who was not on hand was Charles Ward of the Miami Herald. Charles is down with a bad case of pneumonia. • S TATION WKAT broadcast the premiere. The broadcast was from 8:30 to 9:00 o’clock. Five of the luminaries could not talk because they were under contract to a rival network, but the radio announcer relayed their message. • F OR three weeks Miamians shivered, but the day before the premiere Mr. Weatherman j But Alice Faye Soon Changes That j changed things. The sun came out, hot as a furnace. And when Old Sol does his act, people flock to the beaches by the thousands, which does make for a good matinee business, but the re- views in the News and Herald on Thursday were so laudatory, the Lincoln did an SRO after- noon business. Picture went into regular house scale of prices Thursday, with a long line on hand when the box office opened at 11 o’clock that morning. • J ACK KUHNE, Movietone News ace cameraman, is covering the doings down here— and doing a splendid job. Talk about war propaganda, down here the big job is to separate the real thing from publicity, for the place is a press agents’ Paradise, with the two local newspapers co-operating su- perbly. Seems not only every enterprise here, every person down here has hired himself or herself a praise agent. • T HINGS can’t be so bad for Clevelanders, for down here the largest delegation of exhibi- tors hails from that city. And the lads have set up luxurious tepees and are staying for the winter. We noticed at the open- ing these exhibitors from Cleve- land: Meyer Fine, Sam Stecker and Abe Kremer of Associated Theatres, Inc.; Abe Schwartz, Sam Berman (Toledo) and J. Schuman. We also met Harry Heilman of Albany. • J AN KIEPURA, famous tenor of the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York, elbowed with Mayor Paul H. Boiden of Grandby, Canada. S AM PINANSKY, one-half of the New England circuit op- erating firm of M. & P., was among those who applauded the picture. Others were Harry Brandt of New York, M. B. Shanberg of Kansas City, George Weeks, Ben Sherman of Holly- wood; the one and only Leo Spitz and Harry Bittner, pub- lisher for Hearst in Pittsburgh. • D ON’T take too seriously the crocodile tears of some folks. Some of the careless folks—and it seems there are many, many of them in these supposedly crippled U.S.A. — are spending money as if were actually the cheapest thing in life. One couple actually spent $1.00 in dimes and quarters edging their way from the sidewalk to the front of the Lincoln, through the crowd, that paralyzed traffic on Lincoln Road for more than 30 minutes, to get a spot where they could get a closer view of the numerous notables who were on deck. • H ARRY BALLANCE and Paul S. Wilson had no end of important business to keep them occupied down here. In fact, there was only one place in town, where one could do film business on Wednesday and that was at the Lincoln theatre. H OW Sonny Shepard gets any- thing done—and we observe that he personally manages to jam more accomplishments into a single day than all the other managerial heads in town achieve in a week—amazes us. His of- fice seems to be a rendezvous for visitors—and the boys, on vacation, aren’t apparently aware of the fact that Sonny himself has a job to do. • C HRISTY WILBERT tells about a woman, who identi- fied herself as “a little old lady” from “little old New York,” phoning at the theatre and offer- ing for publication in the “Little Old New York” issue of New Dynamo a “poem written some years ago about the great city that was.” In one of the local dailies she had read a paragraph about the special issue. Yep, the town is certainly “Little Old New York” minded. • TTENRY DUNN, half of the -■A famous team of Cross and Dunn, asked to be remembered to his good friend, Division Man- ager Bill Gehring. Dunn is ap- pearing at the Drum, one of Miami Beach’s swankiest night spots, and is wowing the cus- tomers with his crack, “We came for the winter—and here it is!” • C HRISTY WILBERT of Charles McCarthy’s staff of exploit- ers was busier than an one- armed paper-hanger with the he- begeebes. He and Carl Erbe saw to it that the local movie editors did not want for daily copy. • M AYOR Levi of Miami Beach panicked everybody before the showing when he referred to the city as “New York’s sixth and fastest growing borough.” The mayor, incidentally, cooper- ated throughout the campaign to make the premiere one of the brightest spots of the season. • W HEN Mayor Levi invited Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuar- dia to come to Miami for the premiere, he jocularly added a P.S. to: “Please bring some snow, as I haven’t seen any in years.” The next morning the Seaboard Airlines Special rolled into Miami with the tops of the cars covered with a three-inch fall from Georgia. • N OT the least of the spectacu- lar events attending the opening was the fireworks dis- play from the roof of the the- atre. Skyrockets, roman can- dles, gas balloons — all added their brief but fiery glory to the night of nights. • T HE sound engineer of the Wometco Theatres deserves a. special mention for the ampli- fying system which kept the thousands thronged about the theatre informed of the arrival of celebrities. • F AY WILBER, Sonny Shep- herd’s tall assistant, also rates encomiums for the capable, efficient manner in which he and his staff handled the crowds. Everything went off like clock- work, with a minimum of confu- I N addition to announcements between station breaks at the local radio stations, Floridians were told of the premiere through nation-wide plugs on the “Good News” program the Thursday before opening, and on the Kay Kyser “Kollege of Musical Knowledge” hour open- ing night. • R UTH TERRY, Miami song- stress who was taken to Movietone City several years Dixie Dunbar ago, and who appeared in sev- eral Zanuck productions, was on deck. H e married his wife,” “The Blue Bird” and “The Grapes of Wrath” all came in for a plug down the goings-on attached to the premiere. In fact, the Lin- coln raa n a g e - ment reports having received many inquiries as to when “The Grapes of Wrath” would be shown here. Z a n u c k’s pic- turization of the John Steinbeck best - seller, be- cause of the magnificent New York news- paper revie w s , was the chief topic of conversation among- the film men. “The Grapes of Wrath” is a cinch to set a new record when shown down here, judging from the advance in- terest we have observed in the past several days. P RESS-BOOK ads were used. A total of 3500 lines of dis- play ads were used in the two dailies. Against this, the Lin- coln got about 33,680 lines of free space, including stories and pictorial layouts, in these news- papers. • T HE repertoire featured by the Miami Boys’ Drum Corps that entertained outside the the- atre included old-time tunes so dear to New Yorkers. “T ITTLE OLD NEW YORK” constitutes the fourth world premiere of a 20th Cen- tury-Fox production held at the Lincoln theatre since it opened on Jan. 15, 1935. “GRAPES” CONTROVERSIAL SCREEN EPIC Continued from Page 4 were of the reading time of the 600-odd page novel. “All that is to the vast credit of Steinbeck and his Hollywood collaborators; to that of Nun- nally Johnson who reshuffled the story sequence, shifted the lines about, deleted the profanity and changed the ending, yet sacri- ficed nothing that was important to the odyssey; to that of John Ford who directed it so skillfully and Gregg Toland who photo- graphed it so beautifully, and to that of Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, of Russell Simpson and Jane Darwell as Pa and Ma, of Charles Grapewin as Grandpa, of John Carradine as the preach- er and John Qualen as Muley and all the others of a long and honorable cast who played it as though they were the Okies Mr. Steinbeck had described so well. “For, like all great motion pictures, ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ is no one-man job, but a com- posite masterwork by which a tragic phase of the American scene has been brought poetic- ally to life on the American screen. In its presence we are grateful and humble and encour- aged. For it reassures us in our belief that the motion pic- ture can be a magnificent instru- ment when the composer, the composition and the musicians are in harmony.”