Kid Millions (United Artists) (1934)

The Samuel Goldwyn Production “KID MILLIONS’' Card, famous caricaturist, gives his impression of Eddie Cantor and other famous stars in “Kid Mil¬ lions,” the pop-eyed comedian’s new Samuel Gold¬ wyn screen musical, released through United Art¬ ists and currently at the _Theatre. Cantor, of course, cavorts in the center, while 1 —Three Col. Caricature {Mat .15; Cut .60) reading clockwise from upper left-hand corner we have George Murphy and Ann Sothern, a couple of the lovely Goldwyn Girls with one of the famous Mechanical Cows, in the Technicolor Ice Cream sequence, Ethel Merman and Eve Sully and Paul Harvey. Eddie Cantoris Love Story an East Side Idyl CANTOR'S “STAND-IN” SOREjANTARElT Terrific Beating All Part Of Job During Filming Of “Kid Millions” (CURRENT FEATURE) Hollywood is filled with specialists but few with a more interesting spe¬ cialty than Gale Mogul, Eddie Cantor’s “stand-in.” It is Mogul’s job to take the place of the star while camera¬ men and electricians arrange the lights and focus their cameras prior to the filming of a scene. Gale has been Cantor’s stand-in since the days of “Whoopee,” but he has fulfilled the same post in behalf of other stars, too. Cantor is five feet seven and one-half inches tall, so Gale wears tennis shoes to bring him¬ self down to Eddie’s height. When he substitutes for Ronald Colman, he has to wear special shoes that add two and one-half inches to his height, and wear a mustache. For Leslie Howard he has to make himself two and one- half inches taller, and for Robert Donat, he adds four inches and wears a blond wig. When Cantor does a black-face scene. Gale dons the burnt cork, too. Then on the set it is hard to tell the two apart. Technician, Not Actor Gale considers himself a technician, rather than an actor. He is a part of the camera crew, trained in a particu¬ lar job. He watches rehearsals. He makes notes of how far to the right, how far to the left, how far back, Eddie has to go in the scene. Then Eddie steps out and the set is lighted so that when the star returns and moves through the rehearsed action there will not be a single “light hole” —that is, not one place in the whole scene in which Cantor will not be properly lighted. Sometimes Gale has to stand in the burning, powerful lights — often as much as 140,000 volts—for fifteen minutes for every one of Eddie’s. He says that sometimes he actually is barbecued. Blackens Up, Jigs, “Takes It” Gale makes a considerable point of the fact that he is Eddie’s stand-in, not his double. For lighting and cam¬ era rehearsals. Gale can do the same jig that Eddie does, and he hops about exactly like the banjo-eyed comedian. When Eddie takes a beating as he did in “Kid Millions,” his fifth annual screen musical comedy for Samuel Goldwyn released through United Art¬ ists and currently at the. Theatre, Gale can take it, too. Gale took a terrific beating as a part of this scene during a light and camera rehearsal. The actor-thugs pummeled him almost senseless. It was very funny to Eddie, seeing his stand-in take such a beating. But the fight with the stand-in was only a rehearsal. With Eddie in the cabin, the boys let loose while Gale sat behind the camera, howling with laughter. Eddie was black and blue for days. Ann Sothern 8 —One Col. Player Head {Mat .05; Cut .20) (CURRENT FEATURE) Most of America knows that Eddie Cantor is happily married and the father of five girls. The famous banjo-eyed comedian, who may cur¬ rently be seen at the. Theatre in “Kid Millions,” his fifth annual screen musical comedy for Samuel Goldwyn, invariably refers to his family in his interviews, radio broadcasts and magazine articles. His home life is one of those fine ex¬ amples of marital happiness to which the show business points with pride. Eddie’s romance started one sum¬ mer afternoon on the east side of New York. Eddie, then fourteen, was sitting in the playground of Public School No. 177 when Ida Tobias, the belle of Henry Street, skipped by. Eddie decided he must get to know that girl. He would sing his way into her heart. His rendition of “My Mariuch she tooka da steamboat” was the hit of the next open air playground concert. Ida stepped forward and compliment¬ ed him, and the next night she al¬ lowed him to escort her home. But Eddie’s happiness was short¬ lived. A block from her home Ida stopped and said: “You mustn’t come any further, Eddie. My mother and father must never see me with you. You have a bad reputation around here.” Eddie was stunned, and to make matters worse, he learned that Louis and Leo, twin brothers, were courting Ida and her lister Minnie. The twin Romeos worked in the post office. Eddie was without a job. “Well, there’s not much future in selling stamps,” Eddie observed. “You haven’t any future at all,” was Ida’s obvious retort. Then and there, Eddie resolved to mend his ways and make good. The next morning he went downtown and landed a job in the mailing room of a Wall Street broker’s office. At the end of the week he was fired. He had been caught dancing a jig on the boss’s desk. After many ups and downs he se¬ cured an engagement with Frank B. Carr’s burlesque revue, “Indian Maidens,” at fifteen a week. The company was stranded in Shenandoah, Pa., and Grandma Esther came to the rescue. Back in New York, Eddie landed a job as a singing waiter at Coney Island. Ida thought he was manager of an exclusive restaurant. When Eddie insisted that he was going to be an actor. Papa Tobias said: “If you don’t give up that non¬ sense then you can’t marry Ida!” But the stage was in Eddie’s blood. In an amateur contest at Miner’s Bowery Theatre, he was one of two entrants who didn’t get the hook. At 21, he left the Cus Edwards’ vaude¬ ville act in which he was appearing and returned to New York. In four years he had saved $2,500. Ida and Eddie finally prevailed upon Tobias to consent to the wedding on the rather vague promise that per¬ haps, some day, Eddie might open a modest business. There was no big hall this time. Tobias was still not enthusiastic. The wedding was held quietly in a little flat in Brooklyn, but the marriage certificate that Eddie received that day meant more to him than a con¬ tract he signed several years later to star in Samuel Goldwyn films released through United Artists, which made him one of the highest paid stars on the American screen. 1200,000 FINALE IN “KiyULLIONS” Ice Cream Sequence In New Cantor Musical Filmed In Technicolor (ADVANCE FEATURE) As a magnificent gesture of confi¬ dence in the American public’s ap¬ preciation of novelty in screen enter¬ tainment, Samuel Goldwyn expended $210,000 on the production of a unique Technicolor fantasy ending for “Kid Millions,” his new Eddie Cantor picture showing . at the.Theatre. Yet this sequence provides less than 600 feet, or slightly more than half of one reel, of the picture! Nothing quite like this sequence has been filmed before. It may best be described as a “Silly Symphony.” done with human beings and with exaggerated settings and properties instead of animated cartoons. It is a Brooklyn street urchin’s wish come true—a fantasy of what a poor boy wants to do when he gets rich. Among the amazing settings are a fantastic ice cream factory, three huge “contented cows” which moo and nod and swish their tails while lovely Gold¬ wyn Girls as milk maids sing and dance for them; a gigantic ice cream freezer on the top of which an ice skating ballet of thirty beautiful girls is staged; a free ice cream counter where 500 youngsters are served ice cream to the rhythm of a new Kahn and Donaldson song hit, and a row of truly colossal ice cream sodas, each of which is thirty feet high. The technical ingenuity which made these settings possible is a splendid tribute to the imaginative genius of studio artisans. Marc Connelly wrote the Ice Cream fantasy. The scenes were designed by Willy Pogany and realized as sets by Richard Day, art director for Sam¬ uel Goldwyn. Omar Kiam, dis¬ tinguished New York style authority and designer, fashioned the costumes and clothes. The whole sequence is photographed in the new three-tone Technicolor process and a quality of color photography never before real¬ ized is achieved through the use of the new silent carbon lights in place of the incandescent lighting hereto¬ fore necessary because of the micro¬ phone. Seymour Felix staged the dances. The film is released through United Artists. Janice Jarratt, Famous Model, In ^*Kid Millions*^ (CURRENT STORY) Janice jarratt, the most famous and the highest salaried photographer’s model in the country and the inspira¬ tion for hundreds of magazine adver¬ tisements and posters, makes her screen debut as one of the Goldwyn Girls in “Kid Millions,” Eddie Can¬ tor’s fifth annual screen musical com¬ edy for Samuel Goldwyn, at the.... .Theatre. She comes from Jackson, Texas. Three years ago, she wrote to John Powers, the central office through which manikins and models are en¬ gaged in New York. She was invited to come to New York for a trial. Under the management of Mr. Pow¬ ers, she quickly became the most sought after beauty in the East. For Lux and Lucky Strike advertisements alone, Mr. Powers estimates that her smile has been seen by forty million people a week. The recent series of color photographs advertising Fisher Bodies helped further to familiarize the American public with her lovely, fresh beauty. Photographically, Miss Jarratt is fool proof. If is impossible to take an unattractive photograph of her. Janice trained herself into complete freedom from self-consciousness before a camera, as a child. She played in front of mirrors and thus provided herself with preparation to become the most photographed girl of her time. “Kid Millions” is released throuflh United Artistj. THE STORY Eddie Wilson, Jr., a male Cinderella of the Brooklyn waterfront, inherits untold wealth when a lawyer discovers that he is the son and sole heir of an archaeologist whose mysterious death comes just as he uncovers the tombs of long-forgotten Pharaohs. Eddie loses no time in boarding a boat for Africa to claim his fortune. On the same boat are other claimants to the Wilson fortune. Dot, a song-plugger, and Louie, her tough boy friend, have read an account of the story and arrange for her to pose as the dead explorer’s common- law wife. The story has also caused Colonel Larrabee, head of the Virginia Egyptological Society, and his daughter, Joan, to make the African trip. Larrabee’s society had sponsored the Wilson expedition, but the colonel had spent most of the money collected later on mint juleps. Joan is looking forward to meeting her fiance, Jerry Lane, Pro¬ fessor Wilson’s assistant, at Gibraltar. En route and in Alexandria, Louie and Dot try to dispose of Eddie after they discover that he is the sole Wilson heir, but he manages to escape. In the Street of Bazaars at Alexandria, Eddie manages to save the life of Fanya, daughter of Sheik Mulhulla, who, unknown to the treasure claimants, has sworn vengeance on the Wilson heirs because the Pro¬ fessor had desecrated the tombs of his ancestors. Eddie arrives at the Sheik’s palace a hero. Much to his disgust, Fanya insists on making love to him, a particularly dangerous thing for him since it arouses the enmity of Ben Ali, her fiance. As a reward for saving his daughter’s life, the Sheik arrays Eddie in royal robes and initiates him into the mysteries of the harem. The other Americans arrive just in time to hear the Sheik swear to boil alive all claimants to the Wilson fortune. Eddie, who does not hear the threats, however, insists on proving he is Wilson’s son. Fanya intercedes just as Eddie is about to be lowered into the boiling oil vats, and Mulhalla agrees to free him if he will marry his daughter. Eddie has little liking for the idea, particularly when Ben Ali threatens to cut out his heart. When Eddie convinces Ben Ali that he is yearning to get back to his sweetheart. Toots, in Brooklyn, Ben Ali instructs him to hide in the Chamber of the Dead, and promises to sneak him out of the palace in one of the mummy caskets. As the slaves are carrying the casket out of the tombs, however, they drop it and Eddie’s plan to escape is exposed. Ben Ali gets him to an airplane in which one of the other claimants had already deposited the fortune, and after a crazy flight across the Atlantic, Eddie lands in New York. The climax is a technicolor fantasy in which Eddie, now a mil¬ lionaire, opens a tremendous ice cream factory and, with the aid of Toots and the reformed Louie and Dot, provides good boys and girls with all the free ice cream they can eat.