An Innocent Affair (United Artists) (1948)

Biogs and Features on MacMurray • Rogers • Nasser FRED MacMURRAY in "AN INNOCENT AFFAIR" Still No. JN-S-99 Mat (20 BUDDY ROGERS, FRED MacMURRAY and MADELEINE CARROLL Still No. JN-S-m Mat (2 E) FRED MacMURRAY and MADELEINE CARROLL Still No. JN-S-M Mat (2A) A Sax MacMurray’s Key to Hollywood His virtuoso violinist father to the contrary, Fred MacMurray is glad he took up the saxophone as a youngster. If he hadn’t, Fred prob¬ ably never would have heard of Hollywood and you, certainly, would never be seeing him starring opposite Madeleine Carroll in James Nasser’s sophisticated com¬ edy, “An Innocent Affair” at the Theatre through United . Artists release. Born in Kankakee, Ill., where his father was fulfilling a concert engagement, Fred soon was trun¬ dled off to Beaver Dam, Wis., where the MacMurrays settled for a few years. There he attended grammar and high schools. Later, at Madison, Wis., he managed to win nearly a dozen school letters in everything from track to baseball. Then came Carroll College in Waukesha, Wis., and then, too, came his first sessions with the saxophone in the face of vehement paternal objections. Around that time Fred’s mother got sick and he drove her to Los Angeles for its climatic advantages. There was a living to make and Fred, taking stock of his bread-winning poten¬ tialities, turned to his saxophone for help. After many false starts he got a job tootling in the pit of a local movie house. Then, in 1929, the California Collegians, a coopera¬ tive traveling orchestra, passed through town and signed Fred as a featured vocal soloist and saxo¬ phone player. The Collegians went on to New York where they were booked into “Three’s a Crowd,” a popular musi¬ cal comedy in which Fred was fea¬ tured in a singing sketch with Libby Holman. For five years MacMurray was featured with the Collegians and ap¬ peared regularly in New York’s most popular night clubs. The band was hooked for featured billing in Max Gordon’s hit, “Roberta” where, in addition to his singing, MacMurray was understudy to the leading man. It was during this engagement that Fred was spotted by Hollywood scouts and signed up. In the 14 years iince, he has made some 40 pictures, including “Alice Adams,” “Above Suspicion,” “Double In¬ demnity,” “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” “Pardon My Past,” and “Cafe Society,” “Honeymoon in Bali,” “Virginia” and “One Night in Lisbon,” all with Madeleine Carroll. Buddy Rogers Is Old Hand at Show Business Since his college days, Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers has been a living example of the philosophy, “there’s no business like show business”— every phase of it. Buddy’s motion picture career and the sidelines resulting from it, are the result of a casual conver¬ sation between his father and friend, a member of Paramount Pictures’ Kansas City staff. The el¬ der Rogers was visiting his friend in the company’s Kansas City of¬ fice one day when the latter men¬ tioned a nationwide search for young candidates to attend Para¬ mount’s motion picture school at its Long Island studios. Buddy’s father jokingly mentioned his son and Paramount took him up. By 1932 Buddy had a secure niche in filmdom but he gave it up to try his hand on the stage, acepting the leading role in Zieg- feld’s “Hotcha” on Broadway. At the same time he organized a band and played at the Pennsylvania Hotel. Then he took his hand on a tour of every city in the country, wind¬ ing up at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1932. He played at the Fair weekends and spent the week in New York making the picture, “Take a Chance.” At the termination of the Fair, Rogers and his band went off on another tour—a one-nighter, and the following summer were invited back to Chicago for the second Fair. During the war Buddy was a Lt. Commander with the Naval Air Service and on his separation from the Navy he and his wife, Mary Pickford, became producers with their Triangle Films. Today he is back in the acting end of the business again, as a featured player in James Nasser’s initial independent production, “An Innocent Affair,” starring Madeleine Carroll and Fred Mac¬ Murray. The picture, a United Art¬ ists release, is at the . Theatre. Nasser Aims To Please Fans And Theatre Managers Alike There’s not a manager, distribu¬ tor or exhibitor alive, according to James Nasser, who hasn’t at one time or another looked over his current screen offering, gritted his teeth and said grimly, “I wish I were a producer—just once.” Nasser, who with his brothers, heads an organization operating more than 125 theatres in northern California, is now out to show the producing fraternity how it should be done—to the satisfaction of an exhibitor—via James Nasser Pro¬ ductions. With “An Innocent Affair,” a United Artists release, he satisfied the theatre man’s appetite for mar¬ quee names by bringing Madeleine Carroll back to the screen to co- star with her old sparring partner, Fred MacMurray. In planning his first production, he kept the laments of theatre managers in mind. “My idea of a good judge of movies is a manager of a small town theatre who knows he’s not only going to lose money but will personally have to do a lot of explaining when he runs in a poor picture on his patrons. He’ll hear about it in the barber shop the next morning. Some small community theatremen have even gone to the lengths of putting out signs in front, admitting the fea¬ ture’s shortcomings.” Arguing that Hollywood’s tech¬ nical excellence insures a picture against flaws once production is un¬ der way, Nasser insists his company will lay heavy stress on pre-pro¬ duction phases of film making. He has little sympathy with ex¬ cessive production costs. The Nas¬ ser brothers are setting up an ex¬ perimental unit for the develop¬ ment of time saving and cost cut¬ ting plans. Their findings will he made available, Nasser says, to all units using General Service facili¬ ties. His first production, “An Inno¬ cent Affair,” putting all these theo¬ ries into practice, opens . at the . Theatre. Important * Luncheon Buddy Rogers went to lunch with his wife, Mary Pickford, at the Brown Derby—and the course of his career was changed. Also at the Derby were James Nasser and Lloyd Bacon, producer and director respectively of Nas¬ ser’s first production, “An Innocent Affair.” They were discussing the pressing problem of who could play the role of Claude Kimball, young cigarette tycoon, in their film. The part called for comedy finesse, good looks, the proper “manner” and a southern accent. Bacon spotted Buddy. “That’s our boy!” he cried. Nasser agreed. “But can we get him?” he specu¬ lated. It was Miss Pickford who really decided the issue. Buddy admitted he was tempted—but he had his obligations to Triangle Pictures, the company in which he and Mary have a heavy financial interest. “This is a wonderful script,” she told him immediately after read¬ ing the copy handed her by Nasser. “You must do it.” And so a career was reborn. Buddy’s work before the camera earned him the plaudits of Bacon and his fellow-players, and his southern accent was flawless. “I’ve always been mighty partial to Virginia baked ham,” Buddy re¬ marked after his first acting job in eight years had been success¬ fully completed. “I reckon the ham is just cornin’ out in me again.” The picture, with Madeleine Car- roll and Fred MacMurray in the leading roles, is at the . Theatre through United Artists re¬ lease. f Fred’s Luck Proverbial The stalwart young man who first bombarded Hollywood as a saxo¬ phone player and remained to be¬ come one of the screen’s most suc¬ cessful stars has never lost his rab¬ bit’s foot. Today Fred MacMurray is not only in sharp demand for top film roles—he can pick his own— but he is considered one of the wealthiest actors in the business as well. A couple of years ago MacMur¬ ray bought a shooting script and laid it by for a rainy day, just as another man might invest . loose capital in gilt-edged stocks or bonds. The script was the work of two of Hollywood’s bright young men, Lou Breslow and Joe Hoff¬ man. They called it “An Innocent Affair.” When Fred’s agents heard that James Nasser was looking for a script to launch his new producing organization, they hauled out Fred’s rainy-day investment for his in¬ spection. The deal was signed in record time and MacMurray was signed for the leading role oppo¬ site Madeleine Carroll, who is mak¬ ing a film come-back in a big way after seven years abroad with the American Red Cross. Nasser figured shrewdly that the public which had cheered five ear¬ lier MacMurray-Carroll pictures would want to see this one too. And just to show further how the proverbial MacMurray luck holds —when all the rest of California was suffering from a midwinter draught, his ranch near Petaluma, where he raises cattle and prunes, got all the rainfall it needed! “An Innocent Affair,” with Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Rita John¬ son, Louise Allbritton and Alan Mowbray supporting Miss Carroll and MacMurray, opens . at the Theatre through United Artists release. I y Page Twenty-two