3 Men on a Horse (Warner Bros.) (1936)

Real Bookie Says He Makes Nothing On Bets Only Commissions Earn Living For Expert In ‘Three Men On A Horse”’ Don’t find fault with the man who plays ‘‘Qus,’’ the bookie, in ‘‘Three Men on a Horse,’’ the First National pic ture which comes to the ......... See Theatreson—................ For Dick Barton who is ‘‘Gus,’’ is a real bookie and has been one for fifteen years. Mr. Barton had no intention of working in the picture when he came to Warner Bros.’ studio. He merely dropped in at Director Mervyn LeRoy’s request to act as technical advisor for the scenes showing a bookmaker’s office. The actor who was to play “Gus” didn’t show up, so Mr. Barton took his place. Mr Barton is a portly gentleman, He seems too portly to be a horse player, but he is one. Hardly a day passes, without his placing a bet on some nag or other. He figures he is lucky if he breaks even at the end of the year—on his betting. The only way to make money on horse racing is to be a bookie, he says. He doesn’t believe that all horse players die broke, but he’s certain that most of them do. And he says that hunch players always die with a “hunch” on their backs. Forty per cent of Mr. Barton’s customers are women, he says. He doesn’t like to have them around. They are, for the most part, claim agents or “wuzzers.” A elaim agent will go down the list of races until she finds one in which two horses with similar names are running. Say the two horses are called Shasta Song and Shasta Water. She’ll bet on one and if the other comes in she’ll how! that she bet on the other. A “wuzzer” is a woman who always says, when the race is over and she learns the name of the winner: “I was going to bet on him.” Mr. Barton knows some choice race track slang. A horse never won a race—he “win” it. “In a book” means in a bookmaker’s establishment. A “puddle jumper’ is a show bettor. A “plunger” bets them on the nose. “Stabbers” are long shot players. A horse that drops “in the two hole,” places. “Chalk players” bet only on the favorites. A “Desperado” will bet on anything. Most bettors play hunches, Mr. Barton says. Women are nearly all huneh players. They use the pin system; that is, they stick a pin in the form chart. This is probably as good as any, according to Mr. Barton, who last week won $50 on a nag named “Little Elsie.” His wife’s name is Elsie, so he put a few dollars on the horse’s nose and it came in. The biggest amount Mr. Barton ever paid out was $12,000 on a plug ealled “Amador.” “Amador was not a horse in the true sense of the word,” says Mr. Barton. “He had been running at county fairs and had always come in last. Then they took him East and some bird comes in and plays $1,000 across the board on him. He win.” Mr. Barton has never won any big sum like that. Once he put $14 on a horse and got back $294, at bookie “limit” odds of 20 to 1. If he had been at the track he would have had a small fortune because the horse paid 200 to 1. He still feels badly when he thinks about that. “Three Men on A Horse” is a riotous comedy based on the stage hit by John Cecil Holm and George Abbott. The cast includes Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Carol Hughes, Allen Jenkins, Sam Levene, and Teddy Hart. The picture was directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Page Twenty-eight Bookies’ Nightmare “Slow Burn” Comedian Now in “3 On Horse’”’ Edgar Kennedy, who plays Harry the Bartender in “Three Men on a Horse,” now at the esate eeree Theatre, is renowned in Hollywood as the one master of what is called the “slow burn.” That means, he can most perfectly depict a man growing more and more angry, when things go wrong, and then suddenly bursting into an explosion of rage. When spoken of in the film colony, Edgar is commonly called “Slow Burn” Kennedy. Imagine four fellows who can’t lose on a horse race and you'll wnderstand what happens to the book-makers when Sam Levene (left) Allen Jenkins (standing) Teddy Hart (who wears a derby) and Frank MeHugh (right) start their parlay in ‘‘Three Men on a Horse’’ which COMES 10-thé— 7 Theatre On .......cccccccccceeee Mat No. 222—20¢ NE Had To Do It, So She Went And Did That’s Been Philosophy Of Ingenue In “Three Men On A Horse” By DAN MAINWARING Carol Hughes started on the right road to being an actress by being born. This very necessary event to achieving stardom occured in a Chicago hospital, January 17th, 1915. Then she was given a name—Katharine it was—at first. This was also a very important occasion as there are very few actresses nowadays without names—in fact, I can’t recall one, at the moment. First National Studios, where Miss Hughes worked in “Three Men on a Horse,” now showing at the ee oe Theatre, had nothing against the name Katherine or Kay. One actress named Kay Francis has done right well by the place. But it seems there’s another Kay Hughes in Hollywood, so Katherine Hughes became Carol Hughes. She’s getting used to the name and answers to it most of the time. Though Miss Hughes doesn’t remember the name of the hospital in which she was born, she remembers the name of the street on which she lived for some 12 years. It was Belden Street. “The back yard looked out on the St. Vincent de Paul home,” Miss Hughes says. “It was a fine place.” Miss Hughes says she hated school. She went to the Arnold grammar school and the Waller High School. In her first few years of life Miss Hughes showed very little promise of becoming an actress. She couldn’t even talk which would be a handicap for any screen star. If Mervyn LeRoy had met Carol in these tender years, it would have never struck him that she fitted the part of Frank McHugh’s wife in “Three Men on a Horse.” But when she entered school, things began to happen fast. She learned how to read and write, and bother teacher. So she left, and a career on the stage seemed to be her lot. Thus we see how careful planning in childhood for the future leads to success. “One summer when I was 11 or 12, I was at Madison, Wis.,” she says. “My aunt, Loretta Parsons, who is a singer, introduced me to Melvyn Douglas, the actor, Director Mervyn Leroy Stages Many Rehearsals He Got Better Scenes In “Three Men On A Horse” By Doing So The stage isn’t the only place where actors rehearse. Sereen actors do it, too, and at length. When for instance, a successful stage play is filmed, each scene is carefully rehearsed. Taking one scene at a time, they go through it—often ten of fifteen times before it is shot, then they go on to the next one. Director Mervyn LeRoy believes in thorough rehearsals. He uses the master shot rehearsal method. That is, he takes a long scene and rehearses it first. Then he breaks it up into shorter scenes and rehearses each one bhefore he shoots it. Let’s drop in on the company he was directing in “Three Men on a Horse,” the First National picture which comes to the ete ees Theatre on ............... . The set is a saloon—not a high class one. It is supposed to be located below the street level in a shabby hotel. A stairway leads down from the lobby. At the left is a bar and there are big brass spittoons by the brass rail. A few tables are scattered around the room. In one corner is a telephone booth. In another is a wash room. At the right is an elevator, one of those old ones that give no privacy at all. Probably, when you come through the stage doors, only the electricians are on the set, getting the lights ready. Director LeRoy and his script girl may be studying the script. Frank Me Hugh, the star, is apt to be telling stories to Allen Jenkins, Teddy Hart, Sam Levene and Edgar Kennedy. Finally LeRoy looks up. “Let’s run through this,” he says. The electricians get off the set. The actors take their places with Kennedy behind the bar, Me Hugh in the wash room, Hart at the top of the stairs and Levene and Jenkins at one of the tables that is covered with horse racing form charts. “All right, Frank, you come and he took me to lunch, I was so excited, I couldn’t eat, and I forgot to thank him after it was over. But that meeting convinced me I wanted to be an actress.” When Carol was 14 she got a job in a stock company in Oshkosh, Wis. “T was only five feet two but I weighed 118 pounds and looked 18 years old,” she says. “We went all over Wisconsin playing in short versions of musical comedies. I had never danced, but I had to so I did.” Then Miss Hughes returned to Chicago. She played in almost every vaudeville house in and around Chicago. She played there later as the “dumb girl” in an act with Frank Faylen. It was this act, by the way, that got her into pictures. She came with Faylen to Los Angeles and a Warner Bros. scout saw her at the Orpheum theatre there and gave her a test. Miss Hughes is taller than five © feet two now. She is five feet four and weighs 114 pounds. She likes Hollywood but she likes Chicago better. And she likes Nolsomis, Illinois even better. Her grandfather, Thomas Hughes, was once mayor of that town and she is quite proud of the fact. Miss Hughes has the role of a greeting card writer’s wife in “Three Men on a Horse,” a riotous comedy based on the stage hit by John Cecil Holm and George Abbott. Others in the east include Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Allen Jenkins, Sam Levene and Teddy Hart. t out,” LeRoy says. McHugh comes out. “Now, Sam, you go over to him and ask him if he feels all right,” the director says. Levene does just that. He leads McHugh to a chair and puts him in it. McHugh is supposed to be very drunk and he slumps over the table, “Now, Teddy,” the director calls. Down the steps comes Hart, making a great deal of noise. _ “Now what do I do?” Levene asks, “Let’s see,” says LeRoy. He sits down and studies the script. Then he looks around the room. “You take Jenkins by the arm and lead him away from the table a bit. And you say to him: ‘Erwin’s a genius.’ And. Jenkins says: ‘I think he’s screwy.’ ” They do as they are told. LeRoy shakes his head. “It isn’t so good. We’ll have to do it a different way.” “This is how we did it in the play,” Levene says. He was a member of the New York cast of... the show. He demonstrates. “Not bad,” says LeRoy. They try it Levene’s way. Still it doesn’t satisfy the director. They try it another way. This time it is good. Over and over the scene is rehearsed until it is perfect. Finally LeRoy motions to the cameraman. He and his crew put the camera in. place. “Ready?” LeRoy asks. The cameraman nods. Then there is another rehearsal and this time it was just Me Hugh’s entrance. “We'll take it,” LeRoy says. “Three Men on a Horse” is an hilarious comedy taken from the famous Broadway play by John Cecil Holm and George Abbott, the screen play being by Laird Doyle. Meet The Wife Carol Hughes is ‘‘Mrs. Oiwin’’ who weeps and wins through peals of hilarious merriment in Warner Bros.’ horse-laugh ‘‘Three Men on a Horse,’’ which opens at the Mes aT Oe Theatre ON .....ccc.ecccceees Frank McHugh and Joan Blondell head the cast. Mat No. 111—100