Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1940)

^6 MOTION PICTURE HERALD April 2 7, 1940 ASIDES and INTERLUDES By JAMES P. CUNNINGHAM WILLIE BIOFF, who is doing a sixmonth stretch in the House of Correction in Chicago, has settled down to a clerkship in the receiving department, far from the more rigorous life as Big Boss of Hollywood's studio unions. Serving a six month sentence on an 18year-old charge, Bioff, as No. 2766, takes the clothes from incoming prisoners, and after noting the nature of the garments in a big, thick book, shinnies up a ladder to tuck them in cubbyholes. He arises at 7, breakfasts at 7:30 (Oatmeal, coffee and bread, without butter), goes off to work at eight, has luncheon at 11:15 (Typical: ox-tails, boiled vegetables, gravy, coffee and bread, without butter), returns back to work at one, winding up his clothes cubbyholing at 4:10, when dinner is served (Typical: hamburger, potatoes, gravy, tea and bread, without butter). Bioff may buy a little candy, fruit or tobacco at the jail commissary three times a week. He may transact some of his extensive Hollywood studio union business by mail — no telephone calls — and also through his attorney, who is permitted to visit him daily during two three-hour periods. His other visitors are limited to one a month. V John P. Nick, former boss of the St. Louis Motion Picture Operators Union, Local No. 143, and Clyde Weston, former union business agent, were allowed an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court from Circuit Judge Ernest F. Oakley's recent decree ousting them from permanent control of the union and permanently enjoining them from interfering with its affairs. They presented an affidavit stating they were aggrieved by the court's order. V Any theatrical music-maniac looking for something different might contact one Henry Reider, paleontologist of Nebraska University, who plays a "bonaphone," resembling a xylophone, which was made of bones millions of years old. Mr. Reider had his "bonaphone" on Bob Ripley's CBS radio show the other night. V HollywoodLove Is -a-W onderful -Thing Department, from the San Francisco Chronicle : LAS VEGAS, NEV. (AP). — Lya Lys, 26, actress, and John Gunnerson, 39, thrice-wed Chicago manufacturer, were married here today. Following the afternoon ceremony the honeymooners went to look at Boulder Dam. V Those two Swiss inventors who would turn talkies into "smellies," with an odorated sound track to heighten a photoplay's illusion, claim they can produce at least 5,000 separate smells to put on a movie screen. They recommend about ten smells to a feature-length picture as about the right odorization. Good, workable, breezy air conditioners are going to come in mighty handy. V And in St. Louis the other day St. Louisans not only read but sniffed their newspapers. Printed in green ink, a candy advertisement in The Globe-Democrat carried a fragrant aroma of peppermint. A department store advertisement in The Post-Dispatch, printed in pink, was scented with the spicy odor of a new cologne. The nose appeal was obtained by mixing peppermint and perfume with the inks. Outside criticisms of Hollywood's ways will never end. Now it's the National Council of State Liquor Dealers that is protesting, against the "invariable use of 'Scotch-and-soda' " in movie dialogue. Producers will be requested to employ only references to American spirits — good ol' rye and bourbon. y Note to Florida Film Vacationists of this past winter: Alexander Orr, a plumber, has been elected Mayor of Miami, causing H. I. Phillips to conclude that they're evidently determined to get better heating arrangements down there next season. V A consensus of persons who attended the first showing in New York of "A New Tomorrow," Republican campaign motion picture, was reported by the New York Sun as being "extremely convincing." Which goes to show what the Democrats might expect from the New York Sun in the coming Presidential campaign. V A movie director's demand for realism has presented Los Angeles police with a real life murder mystery and launched the biggest manhunt of the year in Southern California. The body of a little Negro girl, believed to be Dorothy Lee Gordon, nine, who was kidnapped from 16th and Hooper streets by a white man on March 5th, was found in the grass near Culver boulevard, half a mile east of the beach, apparently a victim of violence. The man who found her was Frank Roman, Paramount Studio nurseryman, who was gathering grass for a movie set because Cecil B. DeMille had that morning rejected an imitation product for use in his "North West Mounted Police." V The following is the unexpurgated version of an item sent to the press by the MGM Studio in California, in the name of publicity, or something : " 'BLESSED EVENT' FOR LE ROY" "Mervyn LeRoy is already getting a kick out of anticipating the day when he'll be passing out cigars at MGM. It won't be to celebrate an addition to his family, but to his stable. "Now directing "Waterloo Bridge' at MGM, LeRoy is excited because his Chilean mare and stake horse, Shangay Lily, is to become a mamm.a one of these days, and the great Seabiscuit is the papa. "Shangay Lily will be fifth in line of Seabiscuit's current affections. All LeRoy hopes for is a colt that will follow in his father's footsteps." V Returning from a visit in the southland, Dick Conners, our Albany, N. Y ., correspondent, brings word that W . V . Brockman, South Carolina exhibitor who operates in Barnwell and Allendale, both in Barnwell County, has a n-ew way of making friends — he gives patrons their money back when it rains. Mr. Brockman's Rils theatre in Barnwell has 183 seats — and a tin roof. Rain pattering on the roof interferes with films' sound, so when Jupiter Pluznus visits Barnwell during a performance, patrons get a rain check for a future performance. If they are out of towners, as were some 35 Albany Eastern League ball players the other night, they get their money back — cheerfully. CLEM JAUNICH, of Delano, Minnesota, 13 years after an operation left him completely paralyzed from the waist down, today is one of the town's leading citizens, runs the Delano movie house, drives an automobile, bowls — all from a wheelchair. To help him conduct his business, the telephone company arranged to have a portable telephone installed in his car. In 1927, at 18, Clem Jaunich had six vertebrae and a tumor removed from his back. The operation paralyzed him from the waist down. For four years after his operation he was confined to his home, watching the world pass by his bedroom window. With a new courage, he took up reading and studying. It paid dividends. Around 1930 he began toying with the idea of an invention enabling him to drive an automobile. Nimble fingers, a creative mind produced a remote control apparatus that, when installed in a car, made it possible for him to drive. Patented, the invention has brought him moderate wealth. After 1932, he began to expand his business, conducted from a cot on wheels. He purchased the Delano theatre, built a new building. Two years ago he installed bowling alleys in his Town club, learned to bowl from his wheel chair, bowling twice a week every night, hitting as much as 159. He does his film buying and booking on Film Row in Minneapolis from the portable telephone in his car. V Associated Press reports from Berlin how two German generals, an admiral, a naval captain and a motion picture photographer, completed their journey to Norway by swimming the last 200 yards through icy water covered by oil so hot that it burned their bodies. The five were on a German cruiser which was sunk by Norwegian shore batteries. Holding onto four pistols, some money and a water-tight can of exposed film, they reached the rocky shore, where several Norwegian soldiers demanded that they surrender. The Germans refused and the soldiers withdrew to get help, they said. Then the officers decided to destroy the films because they would interest the enemy. They reported that in a few minutes the Norivegian soldiers returned, but were in a more friendly mood. Supplied with dry clothing by the Norzvegians, the Germans went to Oslo by taxicab, spending their time en route kidding the photographer over destruction of his pictures. Some fun. V In a birth certificate recorded in the state bureau of vital statistics, in Columbus, Ohio, the name of the mother, a Columbus woman, was properly inserted. The name of the father — who had deserted his family — was listed by the mother as "Gone with the Wind." V Some readers of the Daily Citizen, Beaver Dam, Wis., particularly those who do not always see eye to eye with its movie critic, John E. Ferger, are inclined to regard as somewhat presumptuous the title of his daily column, "As I See It You'll See It." Wishful thinking? V Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey's Circus has a trapeze artist with a marquee name that's a humdinger: Atrtrys Iwanows.