Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1935)

Laughton, as you will see from these silhouettes, did Ruggles just as if he were playing in pantomime )rphan asylum in Budapest, he quickly takes her out into a .vorld of amusing people. Ignorant of the facts of life, she las in a very brief time varied, exciting and complicated experiences with several types of men, including cheap, romantic adventurer Cesar Romero, officious, protective waiter Reginald 3wen, kindly and wealthy but amorous Frank Morgan, and :he right man, poor but ambitious attorney Herbert Marshall. Scenes are played for high comedy throughout. "The Good Fairy" cost $500,000, so it will be called "a nillion-dollar picture." Naturally, also since it has a Hungarian setting, it was natural that Universal's famous " German Street," built for "All Quiet On The Western Front" and subsequently used in "Frankenstein," "The Doomed Battalion," 'Little Man, What Now?" should figure prominently. Throughtout the entire early weeks of production on "The jood Fairy," during which Margaret Sullavan wore pigtails ind Herbert Marshall sported a short spade beard, the unruly Vliss Sullavan more than lived up to her reputation for temperament. She fought with Director William Wyler continually. One evening at six o'clock he told her she would work that light. "I have a date for the wrestling matches," she informed him, ind after a furious argument stamped off the set. He followed o her dressing room. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have told you earlier. We >von't work." "Now you've made it worse," she flared, "I've just called nd broken the date!" A week later William Wyler took Margaret Sullavan home rom work, but they didn't go home. Instead they drove down o Venice, Hollywood's Coney Island, to throw rings at prizes nd crunch cracker-jack. Wyler bought all the tickets on a oiler-coaster ride and used two. In the purchased privacy of he giddy, careening car he kissed her. During the next two weeks, Margaret Sullavan abandoned er pigtails and also her belligerent attitude. Her strangely docile mien left the rest of the company amazed but unsuspecting. Then she flew to Yuma, Arizona, and married her director. Leaving "The Good Fairy" still without benefit of script but not without benefit of clergy. RUGGLEi of Kill G/*P PARAMOUNT SILENT pictures "made" pantomime in the U. S. — and pantomime "made" silent pictures. With the coming of talking pictures, pantomime almost became a lost art. And that is one thing that was the matter with many talking pictures. Gradually, picture makers have realized pantomime's importance and ceased to depend on dialogue alone; the best of the recent pictures are a happy combination of pantomime and dialogue. In Ruggles of Red Gap, the Harry Leon Wilson story, Charles Laughton plays Ruggles, the valet, who comes to Red Gap and has many adventures. It is Laughton's first straight comedy role. He has amusing dialogue, but he depends more on pantomime, as you will see from the silhouettes. Isn't he the perfect valet? For the first time, ZaSu Pitts wears beautiful clothes in this picture. With Laughton, she is the romantic interest. Mary Boland and Charlie Ruggles are typical Westerners visiting Paris in 1908. Charlie (Egbert Froud) engages in a poker game with Roland Young, a Britisher, who loses his valet, Ruggles, to the American. Egbert thinks it a good joke on his society-conscious wife to introduce the valet to the local editor as a celebrated British Colonel. Ma Pettingill, Mary Boland's mother, played by Maude Eburne, and the others accept Ruggles in his new status, but Belknap Jackson (Lucien Littlefield) who has been the social arbiter, is antagonized by the newcomer and tries to get rid of him. But Ruggles has new ideas about the equality of man — he has read Lincoln's Address, and he has fallen in love with ZaSu Pitts. So he remains and [ please turn to page 86 ] 49