20,000 Years in Sing Sing (Warner Bros.) (1932)

PERSONALI (Advance Story) Spencer Tracy’s Intensity Marks His Entire Life is only way to get Spencer Tracy’s telephone number is to find Spencer Tracy’s dog ‘‘Pat’’ and take the number _ off the collar. The only way to find Spencer Tracy between pictures is to make a tour of all the polo fields within a thousand miles of Hollywood. The only way to understand his present great success in pictures is to watch him work. There is a peculiar intensity about the way Spencer Tracy works and lives and guards his telephone number. He does ail these things and many others as though his life depended, momentarily, upon the effort he put forth. He has an amazing vitality and he keeps it in high gear. The long hours and_ irregular meals which Tracy endured during the making of the picture “20,000 Years in Sing Sing,” under the direction of Micheal Curtiz—who .almost never either eats or sleeps during production—brought forth no complaint from Tracy. He was absorbed in the character and fired with a vital enthusiasm for the story. He didn’t eat or sleep much, either. That he made an intense job out of his part you can judge for yourself, as the picture comes GOSSUNO5550 aa ee Theatre ORG 25 oscars “Intense” is the best word to use in describing Spencer Tracy’s work or himself. Whatever he does he does violently, with immense enthusiasm. If he rough houses with his young son, Johnny, a beautiful red-headed boy of eight years, both of them come out of the encounter exhausted. When he became intercste4 inf polo after reaching Hollywood from New York, he rode morning, noon and night, paying little attention to meals or engagements until he . : ar ba? p 1s" nords itly fond n. Beside the eight year old boy Johnny theie is the five months old baby, Louis», born while the busy father was preparing for the role in “20,000 Years in Sing Sing.” The thirty-two years of Spencer Tracy’s life have all been spent in a strenuous manner but not all of them have been as prosperous as the present ones. A long period of only average success on the New York stage proceeded his sensational success as “Killer Mears” in “The Last Mile” there. Among one of the early audiences at that play was Lewis A. Lawes, warden of the great New York state prison, Sing Sing. | Picked by Warden Lawes | Perhaps even then Warden Lawes had in mind the book he was later to give to the world under the title “20,000 Years in Sing Sing,” and perhaps he pictured Spencer Tracy playing “Killer Mears” as the typieal prisoner to figure in a dramati “ zation of that book. However, that is, it was Author Lawes who recommended Spencer Tracy to Warner Bros. as the only actor he knew who could play the Tom Connors role in “20,000 Years in Sing Sing,” as he would like to see it played. The Tom Connors role was the kind of a part that Tracy likes to play. There is meat in it. It is technically a heavy lead, which gives an actor more opportunity but requires a greater ability than a straight lead. Tracy, who is really a small man, with slim wrists and small hands, plays “tough” roles with great realism. In pictures he has been in prison more than any other one player. Along with William Powell, Edward G. Robinson, Warren William and others on the Warner Bros.First National roster of . players, Tracy got his training for the stage at the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York. He went there from Marquette University ‘and his first role was in the Theatre ya eee ee Nea te ap Ft ¥ | tea CATE EC UEC LL OF, he Fe" eo te Ce ee | | eyed in Stock | dango,” with He ‘ained the f. aart Walker and was later . . posse a 6S 7 “Nea uwicOopb’s Ua ugh ter,” and was seen next in “Con flict,” “Nigger Rich” and “Bread.” | Following this came his great suc: cess in “The Last Mile,” which won him attention from motion picture producers and resulted in his contract with Fox studios. His first screen appearance was in “Up the River,” followed shortly by “Quick Millions.” Some ten years ago he married Louise Treadwell. They live in Westwood, a part of Los Angeles, not far from the golf links and polo fields where he spends much of his time between pictures. His mother and brother are with him there. He drives a big roadster with the top down, never wears a hat aud . plays at life just as enthusiastically as he plays parts. And he .is still Warden Lawes’ favorite actor. There is a notable cast supporting Mr. Tracy, including Bette Davis, Arthur Byron, Lyle Talbot, Shelia Terry, Warren Hymer and Louis Calhern. The screen play was dramatized from Warden Lawes book by Wilson Mizner and Brown Holmes, and adapted for the screen by Courtenay Terrett and Robert Lord. Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis as seen by the artist, in First National’s stirring picture, “20,000 Years in Sing Sing.” Cut No. 18 Cut 30c Page Sia Mat 10c TY FEATURES (Advance Story) Bette Davis Discovers That Audiences Own Movie Stars Finds Great Difference in Attitude of Public Toward Stage Players and Film Folk on Street TAGE folk don’t belong to their audiences—their public— but motion picture players do, seemingly, body and soul. That’s what Bette Davis thinks. That’s what she discovered, she says, in a recent-trip to the Atlantic Seaboard to make a personal appearance at various “nounces it theatres. Bette, who has the leading feminine role opposite Spencer Tracy in the First National picture ‘‘20,000 Years in Sing Sing,’’ which will be shown on the screen of the ........................ Theatre MOE ae ee , was a successful Broadway player prior to going to Hollywood. And as that was only a matter of little more than a year ago, she knows by comparison what she is talking about. Never, while on the stage, was she accosted in the street by fans, she declares. Never did she receive fan mail and rarely was she approached by a stage door Johnny. “Oh, mebbe, once in a while,” she laughed. “But,” she said, “when I appeared on the street in New York, in Washington and Philadelphia on my first return to the East since entering pictures, I was literally mobbed by | Movie Actors “Theirs” | “But movie persons ‘belong’ to the people by prior rights agreed on long ago when the movies were young, I suppose. They began by taking Mary Pickford and Bill Hart and Charles Ray to their hearts. These actors were ‘theirs’ in a very peculiar sense. By the very liking they showered on them, they made them successful. Cut No.8 Out80c Mati0c ————EESEEoaaDnDOD0@lT™"D™DlEEl™]a]|]|=|=|=|=S=S—S————_—_—_—— movie fans. I consider that a won-: ~ aderful complimen:.’ The fans wantsd to kKiuow how she pronounced her name, whether “Bet” or “Bettee’—and she pro“Bettee”’—where she bought her gowns, who dressed her hair, whether she had any old evening dresses, afternoon gowns, or sportswear that she didn’t want, whether they couldn’t have the orchids she was wearing, and a hundred other things. It was never so when she was living in New York and playing in person in theatres right on Broadway. She’could shop, or walk down Fifth Avenue, or stop for a drink of soda water at the corner drug store without arousing the interest of anyone. Now everything she does is observed. People whisper “There’s Bette Davis” when she passes. Some of them seek to talk to her. " Bette says it’s because of the difference of the two mediums of entertainment—stage and screen. “Stage people have always been a little superior,’ she says. “You never heard your grandfather or grandmother speak of going up to Sarah Bernhardt or Henry Irving or Ellen Terry and asking them for their autograph. Had they done so, they probably would have been cut dead. Stage people on the stage and stage people off the stage, consider themselves beings in two worlds apart. The public never has felt really familiar with any of them. a Picture Starr Sricadly “People aren’t used to having picture stars go high hat on them. Picture stars are supposed to be friendly the way Mary Pickford always has been. I don’t think the motion picture players will ever grow away from that—or even want to.” Bette doesn’t want to. In her short year in Hollywood, beginning with a part opposite George Arliss in “The Man Who Played God,” and now in “20,000 Years in Sing Sing,” opposite Spencer Tracy, she has had more than her share of success. In her present picture she plays the part of a gun man’s Moll, but she’s on the level herself. In fact, she sticks to “her man” to the end. There’s something fine in the girl she represents, just as there is in the man who goes to the electric chair for her. The story is a real one, written by a man who knows the people he writes about—Lewis E. Lawes, Warden of Sing Sing prison. It was adapted by Courtenay Terrett and Robert Lord. There is an excellent supporting cast, including Arthur Byron, Lyle Talbot, Sheila Terry, Edward J. ‘McNamara, Warren Hymer, Louis Calhern and Spencer Charters. Michael Curtiz directed.