Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1939)

Goldwyn does things the big way! A $100,000 set for "The Real Glory"; orchids — as well as Broderick Crawford, Gary Cooper and David Niven — for Andrea Leeds The story is love versus a scientific career. John's a prize pupil of a great surgeon, Akim. Dorothy is a delicious distraction with a Chinese accent. The battle skips between China and the United States, but right now it's concentrated in a laboratory set packed with retorts, test tubes, vials and beakers. Akim Tamiroff, John Howard and Gaylord Pendleton are about to engage in a free-for-all fight. Pendleton attacks Akim because he flunked him out of his class and John comes to the rescue. They're all set to go, when an efficiency man runs onto the set. "Boys," he pleads, "take it easy with these retorts — they cost $2.50 apiece!" Nobody pays any attention. "Okay!" says Borzage. "Action!" It sounds like the collapse of a china store bargain counter and it looks worse than that as John, Akim and Gaylord tangle. Most of the glass is "breakaway" — prop glass that isn't dangerous. But a lot of it isn't, too. The efficiency man groans as he sees the profits vanishing. That reminds us of Groaner Crosby. We leave the carnage for "The Star Maker." Gus Edwards and his famous troupe of kid stars plainly inspired Bing's new musical, althougb, in the movie, Bing will answer to "Larry." The newsboy gang that produced Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, Lila Lee and Walter Winchell inthe -old days lives again in fifty talented Hollywood youngsters, the result of the biggest studio stampede for children Hollywood has seen for years. Paramount had announced free tests to all comers. Fifteen hundred and seventy-five youngsters responded — with their mamas. They almost tore the studio down, but Bing got his kids. Another Cinderella girl shows up in "The Star Maker," too. Her name is Linda Ware and Paramount says she's another Deanna Durbin — only better. H-m-m-m. Linda was just a little Detroit orphan whose friends told her she ought to go to Hollywood. So she did. One song was enough to convince Paramount. Even Bing thinks she's got a great voice and Bing ought to know. Louise Campbell, as Bing's wife, and Ned Sparks fill out the cast. The camera crew is lining up while Ned dismally fires darts at a derby hat and Bing sits in a canvas chair figuring up his racing losses. He doesn't seem to let them get him down. He hums "School Days." Louise Campbell reads a book. It's one of those off-set hours when everybody relaxes. The kids are nowhere in sight, which is strange to us, because they're on the call sheet. In a minute, the door flies open and a mob of them troop in. The leader is toting a huge cake with candles. They're all singing "Happy Birthday to you, Dear Bing." Everybody jumps up. "Now, I'll be diddlede-dad-burned!" exclaims Bing. "How did you rascals know?" After much huffing and puffing at the candles, Bing slices the cake. That's the last he sees of it. The fifty kids dive for it and, in a minute, the plate is as clean as the Hays' office. Bing gets a crumb, maybe. "Hey!" he protests, "whose birthday is this, anyway?" "Yours," says a tyke, "but it's our cake!" "Well," laughs Bing, "it's better for my figger that way, after all, I guess." At our next stop, Walter Wanger's, we're referred to an ice house, of all things. When we arrive at the address, in downtown Los Angeles, we, find the whole "Winter Carnival" tretrplTshivering in a vast, refrigerated building where it's six degrees below freezing! There, in the great cooler, Ann Sheridan, Richard Carlson, Robert Armstrong and Helen Parrish are hopping about to keep warm, while a horse-drawn sleigh ploughs through real snow, artificially made and selling by the ton. It's odd enough to find a complete Hollywood set in an ice house with everybody bundled up in overcoats and mufflers — but the reason is even funnier. All the trouble is just to make the actors' breaths show. Much of "Winter Carnival" was filmed last winter at Dartmouth College, where the thermometer does a nose dive. To match the Dartmouth frozen breaths, the cast in Hollywood has to act in an icebox! It's a relief to warm up once more on the "Real Glory" set at Sam Goldwyn's, although a high fog chases Gary Cooper, David Niven and Broderick Crawford right out of the tropical island set on the back lot a few minutes after we arrive. An interior is ready for just such an emergency. We have a look at the $100,000 Philippine Island set before we follow them inside. We admire Sam Goldwyn because he does things right. This set is a classic. You might be right in the Islands. Thousands of dollars worth of bamboo has been gathered, and an absolutely authentic native village and military station have risen, with a stone church, barracks, boat landing and even real Philippine trees — banyans, palms, banana trees — transplanted on Goldwyn's back lot. Half the movie homes have been robbed of their household help, while six hundred Filipinos, male and female, get movie breaks. "The Real Glory" glorifies the American army during the Moro uprisings of 1906. Gary Cooper's a doctor, David Niven, Brod Crawford and Reggie Owen are officers, Andrea Leeds is the lone white gal. It's a little like "Arrowsmith" — a cholera epidemic, a native attack, heroism, rescue and love through it all. It looks like a day's work getting the Filipinos rounded up. We ask Gary if the scene is worth waiting for. "Well," drawls the Coop, "all I do is look heroic — is that worth it?" We're just starting our trip through the tropics, we find, when we light next at Twentieth Century-Fox. "The Rains Came," probably the most exciting picture of the month, is tropical India stuff — as you surely know, if you've read Louis Bromfield's very popular novel. Myrna Loy is out of her element in this — both away from M-G-M, and from the perfectwife parts she's gloried in ever since she gave up Oriental sirening as a steady chore. Minnie goes shady lady in this — as Lady Esketh, a female very much without moral standards or a tender, loving disposition. George Brent, in his very first job at TC-F, also is strictly a heel as Tom Ransome. But Darryl Zanuck did a little better with the home folks. Even though Ty Power has to wear chocolate make-up, a stringy mustache and a turban as the Hindu surgeon, Major Safti, he's a pretty right gentleman beneath it all. In the eagerly-sought part of Fern, the missionary's daughter, squabbled over by fifty young Hollywood ladies such as Frances Dee, Wendy Barrie, Phyllis Brooks et al, we find another Cinderella — Brenda Joyce, fresh from the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles. She's lagged as real talent. "The Rains Came" is a story of regeneration in India and we'll let it go at that — except to warn you that it's due to outrain "Rain," outblow "The Hurricane," outquake "San Francisco," outflood "Suez" and outplague "Yellow Jack." Everything comes at once, too! We catch Minnie Loy, George and Ty getting a sample — just a wee taste — of the rain end of it. Minnie is in jodhpurs — and a dish she is, too — Ty's in his turban, and George is more or less in his cups. Above them, stretched out along a block of rigging, are miles and miles of sprinkle pipes. Through this dripping gauntlet Director Clarence Brown orders them to run. Minnie looks at the pipes and shivers. The "prop" turns on the giant shower and everybody takes a bath with clothes on. We've noticed strange people standing around. We thought they were visitors. But they're masseurs and masseuses. As soon as Brown yells, "Cut!" they dash in and grab Myrna, Ty and George. They hustle them into their dressing rooms, strip off their clothes, dry them with rough towels and give them a rubdown. In a minute, all three emerge again, fresh as daisies, in dry costumes, ready to get all wet again! This happens three times while we watch. There's one thing they can't dry though — that's the earth under the rain pipes. It soon becomes a sea of mud. On the last take, Myrna catches a slippery spot, and her feet fly in the air, she does a neat "high and gruesome" as they used to say in Christie comedy days. Minnie lights (Continued on page 80) 58