Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1936)

We Cover the Studios [ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 35 camera, he must stop at a certain chalk line — or go out of focus. Jimmy has such a stint in this scene. He rehearses his walk once, watching for the mark where he is to halt; then rehearses it once without looking at the floor. He hits the mark squarely. lor ZaSu, this is a silent scene. She does nothing but study the suspects, wide-eyed, while clutching a handbag that is a baby briefcase. "I'm holding on to it for dear life all through the picture," she tells us, "to keep my hands still." ON the set of " General Delivery" (title also subject to change), Gloria Stuart has her hands full of knitting — between scenes. We hate to shock you like this, but there is one beautiful Hollywood blonde who knows a knitting needle from a crosscut saw. In this picture, for a change, Gloria is in modern dress — ultra modern dress, with cartridge pleated shoulders, swing skirt and other 1936 appurtenances, as befits a 1936 melodrama. The story revolves around a secret operative of the Post Office Department — one kind of Federal agent previously overlooked by the glorifiers. The s. o. is Lee Tracy, the screen's fastest talker, who can toss wisecracks the way Notre Dame tosses forward passes. He's back in films for an indefinite stay. That falls under the classification of promising news. And Margot Grahame is back in Hollywood, after a bit of movie making in Old Blighty. She left England on the day she finished "Crime Over London" with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and one week later was in Hollywood, starting work in the title role of RKO's "Night Waitress." An exciting melodrama about an exciting girl, in a San Francisco waterfront setting. In person, this honey-haired Grahame girl is dynamite in skirts. She's voluptuous, volatile, vital. Up to now, Hollywood hasn't done her justice. When and if it does, Jean Harlow will have some competition. On a "third-floor-hall-bedroom" set, she goes through a tussle with villain Vinton Haworth in which she gives until it literally hurts. (Haworth, a new recruit from radio, is Ginger Rogers' uncle by marriage.) They have a melee in which no holds are barred, in which they strike furniture and nearly knock over the wall of the set. Meanwhile, she is supposed to scream — and does. The sound man is still holding his ears. The scene ends with Haworth leaping out of the window. He can't take it. Margot is covered with bruises, both visible and intimate. She tells Haworth that she thinks her hip is broken. "That's nothing," he groans in rebuttal, "1 think every bone in my body is broken." And then the director calls them back for close-ups. Movie making is more darned fun. It is to Jack Benny, at least. We give him the acid test. We watch him start work • in ,i Monday morning. Hli picture is "College Holiday," Paramount's latest venture into mirth-and-melody. \inotig the surrounding talent are Mary Boland, Eleanore W hitney, Johnn} Downs and Martha Rave (who is beginning to run, not walk, from one picture to another). But Benny i th 1) principal working this morning. The set is the modernistic club car of the " Youth-and-Beauty Special," on which Prof. Benny is overseer of a group of touring collegians. These are twelve good-looking boys, and twelve pretty girls, all about eighteen and all extras. The scene is to open with the girls sitting on the boys' laps, in romantic clinches. Not a hard way to start work, on a Monday morning! Prof. Benny is to break up the kissing bee. He lights a cigar — the first of his daily dozen — and strolls onto the set. On the way, he passes the script girl, who is supposed to prevent any movie boners. He asks her, "How was I dressed on Saturday? Did I have my pants on frontward, or the other way around?" THE GIRL BOB TAYLOR CAN'T FORGET There's a hidden scar in Robert Taylor's heart — an ancient hurt that all of his success and adulation has failed to heal. For the first time you will learn the whole truth of Bob's most poignant love experience in January Photoplay. Be sure to watch for this exclusive revelation about the screen's Number One romantic hero in next month's number. On All Newsstands December 10th To the assembled company, he explains, confidentially, "I never can remember the important things about movie making." A moment later, a little farther on, he is assuring Director Frank Tuttle, "I've got everything right except my lines." There's nothing like keeping a director in suspense! We take another look, this month, at "Maid of Salem," starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray. This big picture, which will reveal a new and dramatic Colbert, still is before the cameras, with release scheduled for Christmas Day. Today's scene is important, although neither Claudette nor Fred is present. Two Puritan children (played by Bonita Granville and Virginia Weidler) are delirious with pain from some mysterious ailment, which their elders believe has been caused by witches. Tomorrow, Claudette will appear on the scene, nurse the children to health, and stand accused of witchcraft. In the foreground of the colorful set (the interior of a Puritan house of 1650) lies Bonita. Hovering over her, trying to make her name the witch who is afflicting her. are Edward Ellis, Harvey Stephens and Pedro de Cordoba. \ irginia lies on a large table, moaning. Before the scene begins. Director Frank Lloyd says, "Let me have some 'perspiration.' " An assistant hands him an atomizer, filled with a thin colorless oil. Lloyd sprays it on the foreheads of the foreground players. lionila is to scream, gasps a few lines; then Virginia is to capture everyone's attention with a sharp cry of pain Director Lloyd make sure that both youngsters know what they are to do, then calls "Action!" The scene begins. Bonita puts super-realism into her delirium — then Virginia releases a blood-chilling shriek of torture. Director Lloyd smiles his satisfaction. " From now on," he tells us, " I think I'm going to make kid pictures." P\IRECTOR Norman Taurog came to the same decision years ago, after making "Skippy." And he gets such results from the youngest generation that 20th Century-Fox put him in charge of "Reunion," the second picture "starring" the Quints. The "Reunion" company has just returned from five weeks in Callander, Ontario, filming twice as much footage of the Quints as in "The Country Doctor." In the scene we watch — on the set of the doctor's office — Nurse Peterson is to attempt to persuade Doctor Hersholt that he should retire. The cameraman and sound man both signal that they are ready. Hersholt lights the pipe he is supposed to be smoking. "Hold everything," calls Director Taurog, as Hersholt puffs hard to keep it alight. " Wait till the fog clears off the set!" Finally, the briar is stoking smoothly. The scene begins, building to a promise by the doctor to take a rest, if not to retire. At its conclusion, as Hersholt walks off the set. he steps into a pack of interviewers, all curious about the Quints. He talks to them. He does not, however, reveal which of the five he likes best. On another sound stage at 20th CenturyFox, Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck are starting work on "Banjo on My Knee" — a robust tale of life and love in the Mississippi delta. Joel is shanty-boat captain, married to Barbara, who discovers that he can't get along with her and can't get along without her. The set we see is of the interior of a waterfront cafe in New Orleans, where Joel is trying to drink away his disillusion, unaware that Barbara is washing dishes in the kitchen of this dive. Joel stands at the bar, taking jigger after jigger of cold tea — the movies' substitute for liquor. It is a difficult scene for him, the second "drunk" scene of his life. (And did you ever drink cold tea. without sugar or lemon?) He works hard to register unsteadiness, glazed eyes, foggy-headedness — without overdoing it. That is the mental hazard of an actor, cold sober, who is facing an inebriation scene. Besides, Joel never drinks anything stronger than beer in real life, which makes it doubly difficult. Before it's finish, Joel's forehead is beaded with perspiration. The real, not the sprayed-on kind. On the set of "Career Woman'' we watch a love scene between Isabel Jewell and Eric Linden, in a woo, Hand setting. It is a sensitive scene, and a long one. Few players have as many lines to say in a single "take" as Isabel and Eric have in this. The title role is played by Claire Trevor. whose career is law and whose love interest is Michael W'halen. The climax of the story comes when she returns to her home town to defend a girl on trial for murder. The girl has i her father, who had beaten her unmercifully after she had been out all night with a boy 90