The Film Daily (1948)

Monday, August 30, 1948 1^ DAILY HOLLVUIOOD-yiHE VflRD By RALPH WILK D' HOLLYWOOD |IRECTOR LLOYD BACON figures he'll be lucky if he doesn't wind up "Mother Was A Freshman" by enrolling in a post-graduate college course. It's all that collegiate. . . . Various location jaunts lined up for the =^^^alter Morosco Production which Bacon will direct for 20th-Fox will take ^*^he director to no less than eight Western universities and colleges. . . . He'll use the Glee Clubs of five of these schools, singing their own school songs, in parts of the picture. ... In addition. Bacon will shoot pictures on each campus in the list, clear up to the University of Washington. . . . It will make a lot of old grads homesick. . . . Meanwhile, Bacon is at Reno, Nev., lining up the start of location shooting on the yarn about a mother and daughter who go to college at the same time and both fall in love with the same man. . . . Rudy Vallee, who plays the role of the family attorney and moral advisor in the picture, is with the director and will be featured in the first scenes. . . Bacon will shoot part of his picture at Pyramid Lake, near Reno, and he is already out there early every morning with his camera crew shooting, of all things, pelicans. The birds and the Bird Refuge appear prominently in the opening part of the story. . . . Incidentally, Bacon is stressing the same machine-like organization which he brought to the filming of "An Innocent Affair," James Nasser Production for UA starring Fred MacMurray and Madeleine Carroll. . . . That is the comedy he recently turned out in 31 days shooting time at a cost a little in excess of $1,000,000. * * * PRODUCER HARRY SHERMAN rushed a camera crew, armed with plenty of film and a helicopter, into the Kern County area to shoot pictures of a section of Western location country which will soon be inundated under 80 feet of water. . . . Building of the Isabella Dam, already under way, will back up and impound a lake four square miles in extent which will completely cover the old Gold Rush towns of Isabella and Kernville, where Sherman has shot location stuff for scores of Western pictures. . . . Some of the footage now being shot in the doomed sector will be used in Bret Harte's "Tennessee's Partner," which Sherman makes next for Enterprise release. ... He has instructed his camera crew to shoot numerous angles on all the old buildings and historic sights that will soon be lying at the bottom of the man-made lake. . . . Many of the roads, hills, and even the trees in the section are known to thousands of movie extras, players and technicians from years of location jaunts to Kern County. . . . Sherman himself named many of them, including the Lynching Tree, under which dozens and dozens of movie characters were "lynched" for the cameras, and "Stagecoach Hold-up Valley," a famous dip in the road where movie stick-up men have been holding up the west-bound coach for the past 25 years. . . . Incidentally, Sherman will shortly be making the first two unWesterns in his career. . . . They'll be "Ring Horse" and "Brandy For Heroes." The first is about an old circus clown, the second about the Gay 'Nineties period. . . . But meanwhile, Sherman is piling up plenty of background and atmospheric Western footage up in Kern County. • * * IF THERE IS ANY FIRST-CLASS TALENT or top-drawer plays being offered in the strawhat circuit. Producer Robert S. Golden is going to find them. . . . Word from the producer has him invading the Silo Circuit in the Medford, Mass., sector, where he caught shows presented by the Tufts Summer Arena Productions of the Phyllis Stone-Jack Gold musical, "Rise Above It." . . From there he jumped to Stockbridge, Mass., to look at "Coming Thro' The Rye," Warren P. Munsell, Jr.'s drama-with-music at the Berkshire Playhouse. . . . Golden is determined to find some fresh faces for "Barnstorming," his forthcoming Golden Production based on the life of the late actor, Frank Bacon. It will be directed by Lloyd Bacon on loan-out from 20th Century-Fox. Ramsey Closes Dallas Studio Dallas — Ramsey Picture Corp., which opened as an industrial film producer in December, 1946, has closed up "due to lack of interest in motion pictures on the part of Texas industries," it is announced. Richmond Hts. Passes Tax Bill Richmond Heights, Mo. — City Council has approved an ordinance levying a five per cent admissions tax on film theaters, and Mayor Lee M. Duggan said he will sign the measure, which is effective Sept. 1. ARTHUR E. ARLING Director of Photography Thanks to the Motion Picture Critics for voting me one of the Ten Best Cameramen for the Technicolor Photography of — "CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE' 20th Century-Fox '--Si i^With CHARLES G. CLARK TED McCORD Director of Photography "THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE" Warner Bros. My Appreciation to the Newspaper and Radio Critics.