Motion Picture Herald (May-Jun 1936)

June 6 , 1936 MOTION PICTURE HERALD 55 ASIDES & INTERLUDES By JAMES CUNNINGHAM THE MOST INTERESTING developI ment to date growing out of the huge expenditures by the Works Progress Administration on stage play producing, writing projects and other boon-dogglings, is the "discovery" by WPA research investigators of the how and why of Uncle Sam. WPA researchers from the Capital are hot on the trail today of a picture of the one and only Uncle Sam, forgetting, perhaps, that millions of his likeness surround them. Regardless, they'll probably find the original photo in a dusty corner of a Hollywood studio property storeroom. The WPA people in Washington have given official sanction to an old story that the pictorial figure, long, lean and bewhiskered, in striped pants, high hat and longtailed coat, sprang from one Samuel Wilson, a meat inspector during the War of 1812, who held forth in the collar-factory city of Troy, New York, less than a stone's throw from the Sixth Avenue mansion — in which we were born — of our ancestral Pat Sullivan, of the "Big Tim" Sullivans. Mr. Wilson, it appears, was a supervisor of workers at the Troy meat establishment, and among his intimates he was known as "Uncle Sam." Some of the meat was purchased for the government for use in the war, and on the barrels to be shipped were stenciled the initials "U. S.," for United States. Asked what they meant, a facetious worker said "Uncle Sam." Workmen from the meat packing place were soon enlisted in the war and when they found "U. S." stamped on their guns and clothing and equipment they continued to refer to the letters as "Uncle Sam." Others began using the phrase — and made it what it is today. The WPA searchers believe a picture of "Uncle Sam" Wilson is in the possession of a descendant living in Kansas City — and they're going to get it, by gad, if it takes another half-a-billion-dollar Works Progress Administration appropriation from Congress to find it. V From Reader's Digest for June, under the caption : "Little Goddess of the Screen," anent Shirley Temple : "Mr. Temple's life has been revolutionized. From his modest job in a bank cage, he has been elevated to manager of a more pretentious branch. Short, plump and dimpled, like his daughter, Mr. Temple is considered responsible for her genius, receives occasional offers from ladies who feel that with his assistance they could produce a replica. Mr. Temple declines such invitations." Shirley's success has had a startling effect on her family. The Temples are now building a new house which has a hill on one side and a wide lawn on the other to prevent Shirley's admirers from pressing their noses against the windows at odd hours. Mrs. Temple gets $500 a week from Fox for spending the days with her daughter. On the Fox lot Shirley keeps rabbits and a flock of bantam chickens, and takes home an egg each night for breakfast. V Reverend Edmund J. Walsh, S.J., believes the President of the United States should be paid at least as much as film stars of "questionable intelligence." "If the President of the United States were so smart," answers Ted Cook, in the New York American, "he wouldn't be President; he'd be a film star." The five Dionne babies in Canada reached their second anniversary the other day with a gross income to date of $250,000, of which Twentieth Century-Fox contributed $50,000 for a nine-minute sequence for their "Country Doctor," and Pathe News contributed another $45,000 under its contract for exclusive motion picture rights. In the instance of "The Country Doctor," Pathe waived its rights to allow the guardians to get the $50,000 from Fox, and for that gesture they extended Pathe's exclusive filming contract. It still has another three years to run, Pathe paying a flat sum annually, plus a percentage of the gross on any short subjects it releases. The sum involved in this connection is reputed to run in the neighborhood of $60,000 to $70,000 a year, but part of it is paid by Newspaper Enterprise Association, Pathe getting the motion picture and NEA the still photo rights. Not all of the $250,000 intake, however, is clear profit for the Dionne babies, who, born without a dime on May 28, 1934, cost $1,000 monthly to keep, some $30,000 having been spent so far on Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie and Marie in their 24 months of life. Even so, $220,000 net profit so far is not a bad return on the investment. Then there's the new $250,000 three-picture contract for next year that was signed the other day with Fox. When the guardianship of Doctor Allan Dafoe and Judge Valin expire, on the quintuplets' 18th birthday, D. Q., Inc., may easily be worth $1,500,000. Already the newspaper, magazine and newsreel publicity has whetted the appetite of the curious to the point where visitors to the Dionne countryside have poured $1,000,000 into the coffers of merchants and hotels thereabouts. The kids pay Papa and Mamma $100 monthly. V Bob Sanders, in Los Angeles, writes to friends on Broadway about the letter received by Mary Pickford from a Czechoslovakian fan who promised her that if she would give him the money to get married, he would have quadruplets and let Mary exploit the four babies in the movies. Just like that. V // titles are any criterion, royalty is on the loose in Cincinnati, where RKO's newspaper advertising for its Albee and Palace announces : THE KING STEPS OUT THE PRINCESS COMES ACROSS V Clark Gable is quoted in Film Daily as concluding : "The star of a picture does his part, but he is not the whole cheese." But, we insist, Mr. Gable, sometimes the star IS the whole cheese — and a big one. V Len Daly, at United Artists, suggests that we telephone Doctors' Hospital in New York, where Samuel Goldwyn is recuperating from an operation, and inquire whether the producer has yet come out of the "annastenic." V Radio Station WMCA in New York has a new commercial program sponsored by Associated Cemeteries Corporation. They call the program "Voice of Opportunity." V John Lawrence, running the Grand theatre, at Linton, Indiana, startled County Clerk Tillman J. Bough when he submitted, as a Republican nominee for the state legislature, the follovoing itemization of his campaign expenses: One (I) soft lead pencil '. . 5$ Nomination petition notarized 25<* TOTAL CAMPAIGN EXPENSES 30* Will Jim Farley please take note. VOUNG KENNETH O'BRIEN, ambi' tious press agent on Monroe Greenthal's staff at United Artists, submitted for publication in our pictorial section a photograph of Selznick International's "Garden of Allah" unit on location. The scene shows a few tents and a handful of technicians on a desert. There's not another sign of life, except desolate stretches of white sand as far as the eye can see, and an occasional telephone pole. The small "Allah" unit is enclosed within a thin cord fence on which hang numerous signs, warning: "POSITIVELY NO ADMITTANCE" — and there's not a soul within miles. Riding the desert plains, along with others carrying the principals in "The Garden of Allah," is a big, white Arabian stallion, named Jadaan. Seventeen years ago, Jadaan carried Rudolph Vanentino to fame, and Dick Rowland's Metro Pictures to a $4,000,000 fortune in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." It was a triumph of a new Don Juan of the screens, a victory for Latin love and suppressed desire among the millions of movie morons. Valentino, unknown before he rode Jadaan, began to ride the crest of thousands of violet-scented fan letters received daily at the studio. Jadaan carried Valentino through Metro, then Famous Players and on to United Artists, where the star died and the horse was dispatched to retirement. Today Jadaan returns to the place where his master worked last — at United Artists. V A sense of fitness in strange places. A home town boy now in Alaska tells Odd Mclntyre about the Hollywood motion picture men who took pictures of the Will Rogers-Wiley Post death-dealing plane wreckage at Barrow, who offered Eskimos $250 each to crawl into the wreckage — still reposing there — and be lifted out to create the illusion of removing the bodies. It meant a lifetime of luxury for several, who were near starving, but they refused. V Eugene Conrad, just back from Hollywood, was explaining to Broadway's Leonard Lyons about the Weissmuller-type revival in the movie city. "Everybody wants to be he-mannish," he reported. "One guy out there is now making a fortune — selling chest toupees !" V The austere Hudson County Bar Association in New Jersey has passed a resolution condemning motion pictures because they ridicule lawyers. The barristers want accurate portrayals, they say. So, henceforth, the films will be expected to show scenes of fabulously wealthy lawyers frolicking at swanky night clubs, others accepting huge retainers for defending the nation's worst public enemies and vice lords, but never a lawyer admitting to his client that he should not have lost his case, refusing to accept any fee, because the case was not properly prepared. The Hudson County lawyers might even be shown lending their aid to motion picture producers in a movie depicting hordes of lawyers converging like albatrosses on bankruptcies and corporate reorganizations. V The squelch elegant is Lowell (Kansas City) Lawrence's report of the Hollywood ham actor who, following the death of a wellknown star, rushed into the office of the studio's chief executive and said he would like to take the place of the player who had just died. "It's okay with me," snapped the producer, "if the undertaker is willing !"