Modern Screen (Jan - Nov 1940)

candle*. \ pr,se P Yonor. ^arl°rp\onnPed * h>S RusseW Pl * .os on \irst U1 . •; service, cost _ and hey Rox one ,\ossa\ sWces. MAUREEN'S NO CLOTHES-HORSE Maureen O'Hara is the despair of her studio when it comes to clothes. No one looks lovelier in the latest gowns than she does, but no one cares less about them! She has three outfits — a slack suit, a tweed street suit and a brocaded white evening dress. They were all made by her mother, and Maureen's so fond of them that she sees no need for other clothes. "They're nice outfits," she says, "but of course, they won't be at their best until they're about five years old. That's the English idea, you know, so unless I go Hollywood in the next four years, I'll still be wearing them — and liking them!" TRACY'LL FIX HIM Maybe you've doubted that Spencer Tracy really packs the punch which you've seen him deliver on the screen. But it happens to be a fact that extras shy away from' the job of having a screen fight with him. They just can't take it. So in "Boom Town," you'll see Frank Hagney at the receiving end of the Tracy wallops. Hagney's the man who made his reputation years ago as the only man in pictures who stood up for ten rounds with Jack Dempsey! THAT'S RISING TO AN OCCASION Lots of cracks have been made about Elsa Maxwell since she landed in Hollywood, but out on the "Public Deb No. 1" set, the lady would win any popularity poll. In the words of cast and crew, Elsa's a "good egg" — and that's top movie-lot praise. Just f'rinstance — the other day a wardrobe girl called up Maxwell's home and left word that she should appear for work in a dinner dress. Elsa, you know, wears all her own clothes in pictures. She turned up in a beautiful Paquin gown of swirling black crepe, only to learn that the wardrobe girl had made a mistake and that it should have been an afternoon dress. For a moment, it looked as if production costs would zoom to the skies while a messenger went to the Maxwell home for another dress. It also looked as if the wardrobe girl would be invited to leave the studio's employ. But only for a moment, for Elsa boomed, "What's all the fuss about? We'll just chop this off to an afternoon dress length. Gimme a pair of sheafs, and let's get going." With the help of the same wardrobe girl, the actress snipped off and basted up her dress and was on the set in fifteen minutes. MAXWELLIAN RHUMBA Tyrone Power dropped by on the set another day when La Maxwell was going into a rhumba scene. "Are you going to gag it?" he asked politely. "Honey," said Elsa, "with my figure, there's no choice!" COMMAND PERFORMANCE For a scene in "Dance, Girls, Dance," Lucille Ball has to do a striptease act. She did it several times, and each time the sequence was rejected by the Hays' office. When the director called Lucille and told her to report for another retake of the same number, Lucille said plaintively, "Hey, what is this? I'm beginning to think the boys at the Hays' office are having, me do all these versions of the striptease just for their entertainment." SCARE-PROOF The other evening Lucille and her current steady, Director Al Hall, took a busman's holiday and went to a theatre where "Rebecca" was showing. Lucille was so in the mood of the play that she was still shivering when Al bid her good-night at the door of her apartment house. Once inside the door, she noticed how dark the hallway was and got a violent case of the jitters. Naturally, when a figure loomed up out of the shadows, she let out a blood-curdling scream. "Oh, gosh," she apologized, when she recognized her harmless next-door neighbor, "I'm terribly sorry to have scared you, but you see I've just been to a movie arid . . ." "Perfectly all right," said the lady from next door. "Just tell me the name of the picture. I wouldn't miss it for the world!" JIMMY'S BIRTHDAY PARTY On the "No Time For Comedy" set, Jimmy Stewart was given a surprise party by the cast and crew — and Olivia de Havilland, who came over from Set 7 on the same lot to help celebrate Jim's "32nd." 56 MODERN SCREEN