Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1934)

MOTION PICTURE DAILY MOTION PICTURE DAILY* HOLLYWOOD PREVIEW "Joe Palooka" (United Artists) Hollywood, Jan. 22. — Based on Ham Fish's popular cartoon strip, Joe Palooka in films brings to life the pen and ink characters which have enjoyed wide distribution in newspapers. Essentially a comedy, it serves also a mixture of romance and homespun ringside action with some inside on the prizefight racket. Accidentally becoming a prizefighter, Joe Palooka (Stuart Erwin), knocks out the champ, who enters the ring half cocked. The vamp, Lupe Velez, the former champ's sweetie, takes the new champ into camp. Thereafter the champ and the ex spat over Lupe. Palooka's mother, Marjorie Rambeau, doesn't want her son to fight. Palooka's manager, Jimmy Durante, knows he shouldn't fight, but a cafe brawl between the ex champ and Erwin over Lupe results in articles being signed. Palooka's father, Bob Armstrong, a former champ, returns to train his son. Palooka is knocked cold, but after the fight, in a verbal fracas, he knocks the champ cold. Durante is the laughing highlight of the film with his well known antics and singing. The cast also includes Thelma Todd and Mary Carlisle, who do well in small parts. Wherever Palooka in newspapers is liked, Palooka on the screen should do well. Produced by Reliance. "Looking for Trouble" (20th Century-U. A.) Hollywood, Jan. 22. — Behind the lines of telephone wires, as picturized in "Looking for Trouble," lie romance, humor and excitement. These elements, flung against rain, sleet and earthquake, give point and counter point to the human drama parading before the colorful background. Two trouble shooters, Spencer Tracy and Jack Oakie, jobbing together, are romantically inclined with two information girls, Constance Cummings and Arline Judge. Involved with wire tappers and a moll of the mob, Judith Wood, the boys maintain a hot pace of gags, running fire action and down to earth laughter that makes this picture solid entertainment. In Tracy and Oakie a new screen team is born. They act as splendid foils for each other. Tracy adds another laurel to his wreath of fine performances. Oakie balances his befuddled demeanor with Tracy's cocksure confidence. Miss Cummings combines her beauty with an attractive performance. Miss Wood turns in a swell job. William Wellman's direction maintains a fast pace, with virile strokes. This melodrama, with its robust action, tangy lines and lusty laughs should draw the masses who like thrilling entertainment. 22 On Ray Johnston HE dislikes moving. Always manages to be called out of town when there's any moving going on. He was in New England when he moved his home from New York to Larchmont and in Hollywood when his offices were transferred from 723 7th Ave." to Radio City. • He pays $150 a game for his golf. At least, that's what it figures to when you compute what he pays to be a member of Rockwood Hall as against the six games he plays annually. • He pays $55 a lunch to the New York Athletic Club. He's a member but attends only three times a year. • Even Johnston admits that these costs are nothing compared with keeping up Club Monogram which he operates in the cellar of his home in Larchmont. • He has managed to reduce the cost of golf games a little, though. Since he moved to Larchmont, he's three minutes' walk from the nearest golf course and now plays seven games instead of six. Games now only cost $30 each. • He asks his stars to take no risks he won't take himself. This summer on his way to the coast he travelled along a highway in New Mexico where part of the road had been washed away by floods. He and his partner, Trem Carr, came to the bridge where the supports were hanging on by the barest of threads. Carr suggested driving the car back some 50 feet and riding across sixty miles an hour a la Bob Steele. P. S. Both men lived. The bridge held. • He has a parrot that attends all his parties. He camps on Johnston's right shoulder and stays there until two or three in the morning. Even later. • Even the family pets are named after his pictures. His parrot's name is Oliver Twist and he has a cat named Casey Jones. He just bought a white collie whom he has nicknamed Black Beauty, because he didn't have a horse to answer the purpose. • He wears a watch with his name on the dial — one letter for each number. He's one of those fortunate people who have exactly 12 letters to their name. • He's never without a radio. Owns and operates eight of them. • He collects all sorts of oddities and knicknacks and likes to show them to his friends when they come out to the house or visit him in the office. • He's one of the biggest men in the motion picture industry — six feet, six inches in stocking feet and hat on. • He goes 50-50 on everything with Carr — even to the extent of sharing losses on a recent holdup. • He's always proud to admit he was the screen's worst actor when referring to his starring days with the old Thanhouser Company. M-G-M Completes 29 Tieups on "Eskimo" M-G-M has completed 29 tieups for 'Eskimo" and is now working on the pressbook, which, the company states, will be the largest it has ever put out. The press sheets will measure 24x 32 1/2 inches. The tieups include Atwater Kent radio, Borden's Milk and Chateau cheese, Eskanoe Canoe, Quaker Cream of Wheat, and Puffed Wheat, Diamond Match, Eskimo shirts and Hunter's coats, Eagle Knitting Mills, products, Eskimo Quinine, Eveready Battery, Eskimo Pie, Eskimo Doll, Electrical Mixer, Domino sugar, Hills Bros.' coffee, Hohler Motor, Kellogg's All-Bran, Loose-Wiles Sunshine biscuits, Lipton Tea, Lucky Strike, Post Toasties, Royal Baking Powder, Remington typewriter, Norge refrigerator, United Electrical Co., Waterman Fountain Pen, Vapex and Remington Arms. To Play Vaude Week-End Beginning Jan. 27 the RKO Madison, Brooklyn, will play vaudeville Saturdays and Sundays. Funeral of Greason Will Be Held Today Funeral services will be held this morning at 11 o'clock at the Riverside Memorial Chapel for Alfred Rusbton Greason, "Rush" of Variety. Greason died Sunday at the Park West Hospital where he had been a patient with a kidney ailment since New Year's Day. A widow survives. Greason had been on the Variety staff 28 years and reviewed almost every form of entertainment steadily during that period. Anne Maxwell Dead Anne Maxwell, veteran scenario writer, at various times with Vitagraph, Fox, World Film and First National, died at her home in Brooklyn, yesterday morning. Miss Maxwell had many successes to her credit and wrote the silent adaptation of "Little Women," produced by World Film. Her more recent works were produced by Vitaphone. Burial will take place at 2 P. M. tomorrow following funeral services at the New York and Brooklyn Funeral Parlors, 187 S. Oxford St., Brooklyn. Tuesday, January 23. 1924 Short Subjects "The Mystery Squadron'*] (Mascot) It grips. Latest in the series o I Mascot serials moves and moves fas J through its footage and, on the basin of the opening three episodes, look* I like the McCoy for the serial faithfull| The story concerns construction o I a dam in New Mexico and efforts Y, the mystery man. known as the Blacl Ace, to stop the project because it completion will flood the richest gok mine in the land. Only the dam build I ers aren't aware of this. Brought in I to the scene as part of the move t< I keep construction going, Bob Steel I and his flying companion, "Big Boy' I Williams, find themselves in the thicl I of the fray as soon as they get int( I it. In the first three chapters, sus I picion flows back and forth betweei I J. Carrol Naish, Purnell Pratt am I Bob Frazer, but, by the beginning o I the fourth, the real identity of th I Black Ace continues to be unknown I There are air crashes, gun fights I rough and tumbles in the air and oi I the ground and considerable, melo I dramatic excitement. Much of thi I air stuff is thrillingly photographed. Production values are O.K. Tha I goes for the cast, including, aside fron Steele and others mentioned earlier Lucille Brown as the heart throb. Jack Mulhall, Edward Peil, Lafe Mc Kee, Bob Kortman and Edwarr Hearn. Dave Howard and Bef Clark directed. From Iowa to Code Authority, {Continued from page 6) ture and holding a stock interest ii the parent company and sharing in it; profits. The following year when the com pany's franchise holders convened ii New Orleans, the schedule for thi, new season was increased to 32 fea tures. In that year, 1932, its distribu tion became world wide with Pathf distributing in England and Empir Films Ltd. in Canada, and variou: agents in other principal countrie' throughout the world. In the Unitei States were 37 affiliated Monogran exchanges, covering every key city Its 1933 convention at Atlantic Cirj was attended by 100 delegates wh< voted to increase the budget cost o the current season's schedule by a least one-third in order to better servi its list of customers. During the year the companv's headquarters wen moved from 723 7th Ave. to resplen dent new quarters in the RKO Build ing, Radio City and Johnston wa named to Code Authority. From hi i sanctum there Johnston now marks hi 20th anniversary year in the industr with the announcement that the com pany's schedule will be further in creased to 36 features next season. Off to Do "Murder" Earl Carroll, his manager, Ton Rooney, Teet Carle of the Paramoun' coast publicity department, and H Carroll girls, leave for the coast to day preparatory to starting "Murdei at the Vanities." The troupe will make brief stop overs enroute to Hollywood, where i will arrive on Sunday. I