Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1939)

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Meanwhile, a tall and handsome unknown twenty-one year old Los Angeles boy, Robert Stack, gets the role every young man in the country would give his ears for — he's the lad Koster has cast to receive Deanna's very first screen kiss. Bob is just hanging around watching like ourselves the day we trot across the Universal lot to watch Deanna graduate from finishing school. "First Love-' makes her a little older, of course — pitting Deanna against her usual rival, Helen Parrish, for the affections of the lucky Bob Stack. The scene we see is a grandstand loaded with sweet young things in spring organdies. It's fun for us to help sing the school song and join in the ad lib squeals and laughter for the long shot Koster wants. Believe it or not, he's having trouble getting the extras to run into the camera. So he makes a speech. "Now, girls," says Koster, in his easygoing, whimsical manner, "just pretend I'm Tyrone Power — and you're going to come up and kiss me. Okay — action!" Bedlam breaks loose then. Deanna, Helen, Marcia Mae Jones, and all the sweet young things swoop down on Koster wickedly, taking him at his word. He gets his scene all right, and he gets practically torn to pieces, too. But it's not a bad way to die. WE'VE had enough of adolescence by the time we get around to Paramount, where Jackie Cooper and Betty Field are struggling through Booth Tarkington's hardy screen perennial, "Seventeen." "The Light That Failed" is something else. It's a remake, too, of course — Percy Marmont did it back in the silent days — but Ronald Colman, Walter Huston and Ida Lupino are enough to lure us around — any day. We find them in a set huddle with Director William Wellman. Ronald has a saber cut across his forehead now (just make-up) . Walter has a bushy mustache and long underwear, and Ida has the part "I've wanted to play for four long years," as she tells us. It's Bessie, the aggravatin' little London demimondaine, who drives the dimming artist wild in Rudyard Kipling's tragic tale. The set is dreary Victorian England of the 1890's — full of gimcracks and heavy plush. It's Ronald's studio, and stacked to one side are a good dozen paintings (dashed off by the Paramount art department). Walter Huston has to kick his foot through them, to express his disgust at Ronald's commercial art — and, as there will probably be several takes, the set is prepared with plenty of paintings — all just alike. Ronald's masterpiece, "Melancholia," sits to one side, waiting to be slashed up by Ida. Art takes a beating here. Throughout the scene, a sad little Scottie dog, Binky, tags faithfully at Ronald's heels with adoring eyes. Every now and then, we notice, Ronald bends to pet him. In a way, Binky will remain the greatest triumph Colman can claim from "The Light That Failed" — he tells us he's prouder of winning Binky's friendship than anything he has done. You see, Binky was hired to play Ronald's faithful pet. But for some reason he didn't like Ronald — not one bit. And that put it up to Mr. Colman to woo Binky. Well, he issued an edict — no one on the set could talk to Binky, no one could feed him, pet him or even look his way — except Ronald Colman. Pretty soon Ronald was the only man in the world for Binky. Now Ronald would almost trade his profits from the picture I for the dour little adoring pup. But his owner won't sell! The next great Hollywood palship we uncover is even more surprising; to wit, Jimmy Cagney and Warner Brothers. Jimmy's new contract has something to do with it — and a few coveted parts, such as "John Paul Jones," coming up, and "The Roaring Twenties," just starting, have undoubtedly helped the olive branch along. Humphrey Bogart, Priscilla Lane and Jeffrey Lynn are helping Jimmy out in "The Roaring Twenties," a post-war cavalcade of America up to Repeal. Jimmy's old screen pals — gangsters, hijackers, bootleggers and mouthpieces — make it all sufficiently sinister for his taste. Right next door, too, a remake of Warden Lawes' "Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing" hands Cagney 's closest tough-guy rival, John Garfield, and Ann Sheridan a lot of misery on the stark drama side of the movie menu — if you like that sort of thing. Warners' evidently believe you do. As for us, we can get much more enthusiastic about more artistic things — like Zorina's legs. Every time we've walked past the turnstile at Warners' this month, it seems, some kind of magnet has drawn us right to the set of "On Your Toes." Not since "The Goldwyn Follies" has Hollywood had a look at the extremely curvaceous, china-eyed Zorina. She went to New York, hit big in "I Married an Angel," and only returned to put this Rodgers and Hart musical on film. Eddie Albert, the homespun, bashful boy who stole "Brother Rat" right away from Wayne Morris and company, gets our idea of a real break. He makes love to Zorina. "On Your Toes" is a backstage musical with a ballet motif. The big dance number is a tender little thing called "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," and Zorina's husband, George Balanchine, the choreographer, has the job telling his wife how to handle her toes. George looks very unhappy one afternoon when we call. He hasn't been married too long and he still takes a personal interest in his wife's kisses. Well — this day, Zorina is kissing Eddie Albert. Alan Hale, a top-hatted impresario, strides in, catches them necking, and makes a fuss. That's the scene. We pace back and forth with Balanchine watching it, and we must say the sight of Zorina kissing another is no fun — and we aren't even her husband! Zorina's very convincing on Eddie's lap, but Eddie seems to have the jitters. Several takes are no good, Eddie looking like a farm hand kissing a fence post. Director Ray Enright breaks in. "My God, Eddie," he cries, "where are your arms? When you kiss a woman, don't you put your arms around her?" Eddie swallows hard and looks distressed. "I — I — can't help it, Ray," he finally croaks. "I'm so weak, I can't lift 'em!" Yes, Zorina has something. tANUCK has something too — or so he believes — out at Twentieth CenturyFox where Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda are headlining the screen version of Walter Edmonds' "Drums Along the Mohawk." It's Zanuck's bid to rival "Northwest Passage." "Drums Along the Mohawk" invades the pre-Revolutionary War period which the movies have barely tapped so far. It's the saga of early Dutch settlers in the Mohawk Valley, and their troubles with Indian raids stirred up by the British. Claudette, as Lana, is cute in a blue dress with white lace ruffles and lace sleeves. Her modern platform-soled shoes look a little funny with the outfit, but Claudette believes in comfort when her toes don't show in the scene. Henry Fonda's long hank of hair, tied in a short pigtail behind, is real. He grew it during "Lincoln." With his knickerbockers, stockings and buckled shoes, he's a picture of what the well-dressed young Dutch settler should wear. They sit down in an inn set, cheering looking, with its pewter and copper mugs and plates, and paneled walls. Spencer Charters, the innkeeper, smokes a pipe as long as his arm and serves the food. The fire glows. It certainly looks cozy, although you know both Claudette and Henry are sick of food, and as hot as it is outside, the fire is torture. John Ford compliments them on the scene, just the same. "You look and act just like a Dutchman, Hank," he says. "I ought to," Hank replies. "I had a few ancestors who were the real thing." We pump him further and find out that there's a Fonda, New York, named after Hank's progenitors. What's more, his great, great, great, great grandfather, Douw Fonda, was one of the first setlers of the Mohawk Valley. Imagine playing your own ancestors! The combination of Jane Withers and the Ritz Brothers in "We're in the Army Now" has a fatal attraction which lands us, next, in a back-lot gully of Fox Hills, the same one, we note, where they dug the "Suez" Canal. There the psychopathic Brothers R., Lynn Bari and Jane are involved in a slapstick farce involving spies, French girls, hinkey-dinkey-parley-voo and all the old doughboy legends of the American Expeditionary Forces. Jane is picturesque in her French peasant basque and full skirt with four petticoats. A baby mule, one Margie, is led up to Jane. The scene calls for her to kiss Margie. But Margie doesn't want to be kissed by Jane Withers or anyone else. She whirls and plants her hind hooves right in Jane's middle! It looks like tragedy for a minute. But the petticoats save Jane. And when Mrs. Withers rushes into the scene and picks her daughter up, Jane just smiles happily. "Isn't she cute?" Jane cries. "Mother, I want to take Margie home after the picture." But Mrs. Withers shakes her head firmly. She must be thinking of the herds of rabbits, guinea pigs, squirrels, stray cats, puppy dogs, chickens and goats that swarm over her lawn. Jane has taken them all home at one time or another from a picture. UUR visits to Sunset and Vine reveal that Hollywood on the air is even more up in the air than the studios this month trying to plot out a winter menu and still save a dollar here and there. The first note we hear at Columbia and NBC's big Hollywood branches is economy. As one gagster puts it — "The B's are moving over to radio!" The ideal Hollywood star program this year, everyone agrees, is a good "script" show — like the Robinson-Trevor "Big Town." Already Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake have scored a solid hit in "Blondie." "Sherlock Holmes" seems certain to get a steady airing. Johnny Mack Brown's music-and-drama "Under Western Stars," a summertime fillin, is clicking. Edward Everett Horton has a comedy series ready to go. Stars with modest money ideas — not over the $750 a week class — are getting the steady air contracts, with more promised if they ring the buzzer. The only new high-priced show with a chance, in fact, is the new Al JolsonLucky Strike musical, auditioned this month with Carl Hoff and Betty Jane Rhodes. Planned now for forty-five minutes, to feature music and Hollywood stars, it may cost around $10,000. Our select social note of the month: Two-ton John Scott Trotter is now bunking with Skinnay Ennis in Beverly Hills, which Bing Crosby says is playing both ends against the middle! 92 PHOTOPLAY