The Film Daily (1931)

^^ggg^ OAILV Monday, Dec. 7, 1^:51 HOLLYWOOD FLASHES = By RALPH WILK ^—i (^EORGE ARLISS' new picture, ^-•^ "The Man Who Played God," went into active production Friday at Warner Bros, studios under the direction of John G. Adolfi. The film is based upon a story by Gouverneur Morris which was later made into a stage play by Jules Eckert Goodman for Otis Skinner. In Arliss' supporting cast are Violet Heming, Ivan Simpson, Bette Davis, Louise Closser Hale, Andre Luguet, Donald Cook, Wade Boteler, Paul Porcasi, William Janney, Alexander Ikonikoff and Michael Visaroff. Helen Jerome Eddy and John Halliday have been added to "The Impatient Maiden," completing the cast of the Universal picture being directed by James Whale. Columbia has assigned Gertrude Pedlar, and Wilfred Noy to "Forbidden" . . . The next Tim McCoy western, "The Texas Sheriff," goes in work this week under the direction of Lambert Hillyer . . . Jean Harlow's new picture has been re-titled "Three Wise Girls," instead of "Blonde Baby." A batch of assignments haVe just been handed out at Universal City. Tom Reed was commissioned to re-adapt the New York stage play, "Oh Promise Me" by Howard Lindsay and Bertrand Robinson. Edwin A. Knopf, who directed "Nice Women," got the assignment to movieize Pirandello's play, "The Marriage Interlude," and Robert Florey, who has just directed "Murders in the Rue Morgue," was assigned to adapt H. G. We'Is' novel, "The Invisible Man," to screen technique. Tim McCoy in "The Fighting Marshal," which Ross Lederman directed, will be released this month by Columbia. The cast, in addition to McCoy, includes Dorothy Gulliver, Mary Carr, Matthew Betz, Pat O'Malley and E. Le Saint. Columbia Broadcasting Company yesterday gave the millions of friends of Tom Mix an opportunity to hear his voice far ahead of the opportunity that Universal is giving him in talking pictures. One minute of the California Melodies national hook-up hour was devoted to a cheerful little speech of gratitude from the sick bed in Hollywood Hospital, where Mix is recovering from his operation and the desperate peritonitis attack which set in immediately. Warner Bros, has signed Maurine Watkins to do the screen play and dialogue of "Eight to Five." Investment in 2,000 Australasian motion picture houses is in excess of $1,250,000,000. • • • THINGS WE Never Thought Worth Mentioning Till Now that our plug for a Special Show to raise 25 grand to help Our Own Needy brings a word of thanks from a little woman in Brooklyn A Widowed Mother, she signs herself who writes a letter that would wring your heart IF you have a heart all about her boy who was six years with one of the big producers making steady progress the sole support of his mother and wasn't she proud of "her boy"! and he was let out in the slump 10 months ago and hasn't been able to land a job since so things are pretty tough in the little home over in Brooklyn and the little mother is grasping at every Shred of Hope so our ballyhoo for a Film Relief Fund helped to buoy her up hoping and praying that they'll go through with it well, will they? after helping general unemployment relief in the national drive in all the theaters can't we muster up just One Show for Our Own? or are we just a bunch of Assorted Heels? caring nothing for the lads who have worked alongside us for years and now are in dire need of a Helping Hand • • • THAT the campaign for the Motion Picture Club Ball at the Waldorf Astoria on February 20th is in full swing and looks like the biggest gala affair ever held in the film biz with a great array of picture stars and many other beaucoup features and Captain Arthur B. Chase is the Director of the affair's De Luxe Program with headquarters in the Bond building and his sec, Leonore Bardack, has that certain sex-sales appeal that is helping to put the Program over big • • • THAT the Mayfair still continues to set the new styles in theater fronts last week the "Suicide Fleet" smash this week "Frankenstein" with a front that has perfectly caught the outre, bizarre and shivery qualities of this thriller among other things, two enormous and terrifying black monsters each side of the theater with green eyes blinking at the passerby and hypnotizing him right up tO the b. o. and when he comes to, he's IN the theater a Seat-Seller Front par excellence, b'gosh • • • THAT Nedra Gillette, daughter of George Gillette, got one of those Fairy Story breaks a million girls are praying for when George Cochrane, making tests for Universal, saw her in her dad's ossif, and sez "Let me make a test of her" and it turned out to be the best test "U" has made in an age and the Coast officials went overboard on seeing it so now Nedra is signed up for five years and they are grooming her for Something Big she's That Good • • • THAT those Blind Harmony Boys you see along Broadway are part of a Syndicate highly organized a Swell Act banjo and sax trained like any big vaude team to pull the Sympathy Stuff they are blind war vets and there are a half dozen such teams working in as many big cities and they switch 'em from 'city to city • • • THAT the local movie is being revived.... and going over strong with "Miss Happy Times" showing at local theaters plugging the merchants in Optimism interviews Rosalie Streuli, former Earl Carroll girl, is Miss Happy Times now spreading Good Cheer in the town of Albany « « « » » » Short Shots from New York Studios ^a^^By HARRY N. BLAIRi^^ QLENN LAMBERT is author and director of "The Wise Quacker,'" a comedy acted entirely with ducks, which has just been completed at the Vitaphone studio for Christmas release. • John Litel, who has a proyninent role in "Wayward," the Nancy Carroll Richard Arlen vehicle now in production here, was decorated ivith a Croix de Guerre for distinguished service in the World War. • James C. Morton d^erts his usual comedy role for a straight dignified part in "The Imperfect Lover." a Vitaphone comedy. • George Folsey, chief cameraman at the Paramount New York studios, is being congratulated on his election to the board of directors of Cameramens' Local 644. David Mendoza, who has been appointed musical director of the Brooklyn Vitaphone studio to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Harold Levey, came to the Vitaphone studio from Warner's Burbank studio, where he was attached to the musical staff. While in Burbank, Mendoza wrote the scores and conducted the orchestras for "The Mad Genius," and "Svengali," in both of which John Barrymore was starred. Prior to his entry into the films, Mendoza worked as musical director at the Capitol in New York for nine years. Last spring, he acted as guest conductor of a 216piece orchestra at the Paramount. William Clark in Milwaukee Milwaukee — William Clark, formerly with Fox Midwesco in Green Bay, where the circuit closed two of its theaters recently, has been named assistant manager of the Garfield, local Fox neighborhood house, succeeding John Matis. & .... ^ f Best wishes are extended by THE FILM DAILY to the following members of the industry, who are celebrating their birthdays: December 7 1 Lee Marcus Elsie Allen M. |. O'Toole Marcella Albani lack Enslen