Motion Picture Herald (Apr-Jun 1933)

24 MOTION PICTURE HERALD June 3, 1933 ASIDES & INTERLUDES By JAMES CUNNINGHAM Paramount is now experimenting in directorial "teams." Max Marcin and Louis Gasnier were assigned to do "Gambling Ships." George Somnes and Alexander Hall are at work on "Midnight Club." Stuart Walker and Mitchell Leisen co-directed "The Eagle and the Hawk," a current release. Obviously this system is predicated on simple multiplication. The company hopes to make each picture doubly good. But, if by some chance, one production does not turn out as expected, two directors can divide the blame. V The suggestion of Mr. Hays and other industry leaders that Hollywood indulge more frequently in star borrowing has already taken hold. Columbia has even extended the practice outside of Hollywood, borrowing "Minnie" from the Southern Pacific Railroad. Miss Minnie — who is not related to "Moocher"— makes her screen debut at 31. There is nothing sylph-like about the lady. In fact Paramount' s Kate Smith is a poor runner-up. She tips the scales at a neat 126,000 pounds and is quite ivell known around the Southern Pacific yards — as No. 1711, an old Mogul-type locomotive. V An Iowa blizzard and the resultant frostbitten nose gave to the motion picture industry a personage who was recently described by the highly conservative Bankers Monthly of America as the "New Napoleon in Motion Pictures"— none other than Mr. Trem Carr, production chief for Monogram Pictures. Mr. Carr, who, as previouslv noted in these columns, has some profitable oil wells in Texas, traveled poste haste from the blasts of the blizzard to the warm sun of Honolulu and California. Before entering production he worked for the U. S. Government as "cost expert" on the Pearl Harbor job, which cost $11,000,000. V Seattle film salesman: "I hear you made $50,000 in the insurance business." Ditto exhibitor: "Right . . . except that it was in the theatre business, not insurance . . . and it was $75,000, not $50,000 . . . and I did not make it. ... I lost it." V Echoes of the Albee era were heard last week when the New York Herald-Tribune reprinted the following item, which appeared in the Herald on May 22, 1913 : MAYOR GAYNOR (N. Y.) told Alderman Frank Dowlinq, leader of the Tammany wing of the City Fathers, that he was disgusted with the Aldermen for passing the Folks motion picture ordinance with the Tammany amendment to it. The amendment plays into the hands of the vaudeville houses by forbidding galleries in motion picture theatres. V "Times ARE getting better," insists Louis Niser, who, a^ head of the Nezv York Film Board of Trade, handles all complaints from theatre owners. "Exhibitors," he said, "have stopped demanding reductions on gratis films." V Twenty years ago, the Misses Wilson, daughters of Woodrow, barred from the White House all the latest popular dances, including the "Turkey Trot," the "Tango" and the "Bunny Hug." The young daughters of the then new president made it known that only the accepted dances which were in no way suggestive were allowed on the program. V Joan Blondell is in New York from Hollywood, where she appears regularly in Warner Brothers' pictures. "If you have been out there as long as I have you do not knock Hollyzvood — you knock wood," says Joan. A SYLPH RETURNS FROM THE ROAD Even cold type turns romantic in these inoonliylit nights of warm breezes and i.2, as witjiess the following bit of gripping tenderness which crept into the advertising columns of Elias Sugarman' s show-sheet , Billboard: L. J. TREATED ME LIKE A DOG. House, savings, rings and mortgage on mother's house taken. I knew you would do same for me, dear. Paying way to New York. New company is awful. New Yorker (hotel), April 22-28. I ask for just one day. Past forgotten. If you can't, I'll meet you anywhere. 1 understand and love you. You won't know me; weight I 10. Love. M.S. Clarke Gable, Louis B. Mayer, Marion Davies, Harry Rapf, Joan Crawford, Dave Selznick and everyone else at Metro's Culver City studio must hereafter leave their dogs — if any — at home. Because Nils Asther's dog took himself a piece of a man's "pan," or vice versa, right on Mr. Schenck's moviemaking property. Police Chief Hendry, of the studio police department, ordered all dogs off the lot, "to prevent a recurrence of this unfortunate accident." It's all very sad. V From Chanute, Kansas, comes the good word that an exhibitor is so encouraged by the upturn szuing that he almost has nerve enough to stick his head out of the front lobby and say "Boo" to the wolf. V Mrs. Michael Farmer, nee Gloria Swanson, upon arriving in New York last week, from Hollywood, explained that newspaper correspondents in the studio city are now making it a practice of calling every married couple in the colony at least once a week in the remote hope of discovering one among them who might be on the verge of separation. Shades of Waller Winchell. V We, too, will feel more optimistic when we hear that the mint has put on a few hundred new hands. Or even a few dozens. V Short shavings : Frank Wilstach's middle name is Jennes. . . . Ben Turpin will shortly open a night club in 'Frisco, where all staff members will be cross-eyed, or, at least, squinteyed. . . . Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., was the first actor to use dark glasses as a camouflage. . . . And Miss Dietrich the first actress to use pants ditto. . . . Bing Crosby's new contract with Paramount will pay him $275,000. . . . The hair-locks of Will Hays, Jr., are so thick strands have to be nipped out so they will lay smoothly. . . . Young Will's father has one of the longest club lists in the country, being a member of the University, Columbia, Indianapolis Athletic, Sullivan (Ind.) Rotary, Indianapolis Country, Terre Haute (Ind.), Country, Sullivan (Ind.) Country, Illinois Athletic, Chicago Club, Hamilton Club, Post and Paddock, Indiana Society, Metropolitan, National Press, University (Washington, D. C.), Chevy Chase Club, Union League, National Republican, Bankers' Club, Army and Navy, Friars, Motion Picture Club, Advertising, Embassy Club, Hudson River Country, The Cloud Club, Sleepy Hollow Country Club, Hollywood Athletic, California Club, Kiwanis, Vermejo (Colo.) Club, Mayfair Club, etc., etc.— The membership committee of theAMPA, obviously, has been quite negligent. RKO decided last week to give all employees one week's vacation. Then came through an official order which decreed that the holiday must be taken in days intermittently throughout the summer. "The next decision," said a home office cynic, "will probably have us taking our vacations in lunch hours." V Mr. Charles Clyde Pettijohn believes that in unity there is strength. Kentucky General over all Kentucky Colonels, Charlie is going to regimentalize his army. His commission from Governor Ruby Laffoon, who already has named 400 colonels, ivas the cue for organizing Kentucky colonels throu-gout the zmrld. Accordingly, General Pettijohn will shortly set about to band together some 2,500 persons into an army in which every "soldier" vtnll be a "kernel." They will mobilize once yearly, probably at the Kentucky Derby, electing a commanding general annually. Colonel Eddie Cantor will positively not be permitted to vote for himself. Evidently General Charles Pettijohn is out to dispute the charge that generals die in bed. Before tackling the job, however, Charlie will vacation in Europe, having sailed Tuesday on the Euro pa. V Lines on the millionth purification of burlesque, by Franklin Pierce Adams ("F. P. A.") : You may clean, you may polish Burlesque as you will. But the scent of the garbage Will cling to it still. V It is whispered along Broadway, principally by Oscar Odd Mclntryre, of the Park Avenue Mclntyres, that La Garbo's recent "secret" voyage to Hollywood, from Sweden, was known in every news association fivo weeks before she sailed from Giistafland. V Boyd's, in New York — which sells lists of all kinds and description — names 2,439,044 persons in this country who own more than $5,000, RTouped as follows : $ 5,000 to $ 50,000 1,632,589 50,000 " 100,000 548,434 100,000 " 250,000 149,084 250,000 " 500,000 60,479 500,000 " 1,000,000 30,336 Over $1,000,000 18,122 Theatre owners are more concerned with the other 117,560,956. V The Fox Film Corporation has sent to the press of the country the following important announcement : "The undress vogue having run its course, the gentle ladies of the screen are running to cover, which in this instance means more clothes. "A few years ago the policy was to exploit the figure divine, with only such slight adornment as a string of beads, or, when modesty intervened, a tissue-thin garment of silk which just barely hid the dimples of the lady's knees. "Today, all this is changed and the opposite is the case. ..." Fox Film started the other day on a new production, captioned, "Life in the Raw." V The front cover of Columbia's pressbook for "Ann Carver's Profession" bears a likeness of Fay Wray, with arms outstretched, pleading, "Pity me! I had the most precious thing in life — and I threw it away!" TTo Hum! V Owen D. Young gave the Rockefellers the idea for Radio City, according to O. O. McJntyre, who snaps his fingers at libel suits.