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

Carol Hughes Now Likes Films Better Than Seals Ingenue In “Three Men On A Horse” Doesn’t Want Any More Vaudeville By CAROL HUGHES (Now playing the ingenue role in the First National picture, ‘‘ Three Men on a Horse,’’ which comes to the ee cee ee PRCGUE: ONxie cea) Sometimes we followed the acrobats. And sometimes: the seals followed us. One night the oldest gags would bring down the house. The next there would be a faint snicker in the gallery. Always we were getting on trains or getting off trains, living in a trunk, eating in bad restaurants, playing split weeks and four a day and two a day. But that’s all over now. I’m in pictures. I’m no longer Hughes of Faylen and Hughes, the dumb girl who thought Rex Beach was a summer resort and who looked pleased when she was told she had acute appendicitis. I’m Carol Hughes and you can find my name on the First National personnel list. (But she still plays dumb in her characterization in ‘‘ Three Men on a Horse.’’) Being a film actress is a lot different from following the acrobats. You can never stop the show in a motion picture studio. You go through a scene and watching you are grips, electricians, property men, carpenters, hairdressers and cameramen. In a vaudeville house, the audience looks bored sometimes but not all the time. On a sound stage the onlookers seem bored all the time. You do what you think is a nice piece of work and there is no applause. ‘Cut’? says the director. ‘Print it,’’ says the script girl. **Hold for a still,’? says the still cameraman. You leave the set and look around for the canvas chair that has your name on it. You don’t have to take trains to get to a studio. You keep your trunk in the attic and your clothes in the closet. You eat decent food and you don’t mind walking across your bedroom barefooted. You don’t hear train whistles all night and you don’t wake up in the morning and try to dress in an upper berth. Why shouldn’t I like it? Especially when Director Mervyn LeRoy gave me a wonderful part in ‘‘Three Men on a Horse.’’ I do not play the horse. I play Carol Hughes Her most important film role, and the one Carol Hughes likes the most, is that of the weeping wife of the greeting card poet ‘*Oiwin’’ who picks winning nags in the First National comedy hit ““Three Men on a Horse’’ now playing Gt tHE .....s.00...0005 Theatre. Mat No. 116—10c the wife of the man who can pick them, and most of the time I ery. I’ve cried whole buckets full of tears. ‘‘Three Men on a Horse’? is a riotous comedy based on the stage hit by John Cecil Holm and George Abbott. Others in the cast include Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Allen Jenkins, Sam Levene and Teddy Hart. The picture was directed by Mervyn Le. Roy from the sereen play by Laird Doyle. Oiwin Marches On Allen Jenkins (left) Frank McHugh (center) and Sam Levene (right) discover there’s gold in ‘‘Oiwin’s’’ nags as they rock the screen with laughter in Warner Bros.’ horse laugh, filmed from Broadway’s brightest comedy hit, ‘‘ Three Men on a Horse,’’ which opens at the .....cccccceccc0--. Theatre on Mat No. 208—20c Joan Blondell Is Never Bothered About Her Hands A man can put his hands in his pockets. Joan Blondell can’t. There are no pockets in the black satin dress she wears in “Three Men on a Horse,” the First National picture which comes. to: the —2......0.0...4. Theatre ONG tceanccres For that matter, there were no pockets in the dresses’) she wore in “Stage Struck.” But Miss Blondell is one person who never suffers from that peculiar ailment known as screen hands. Screen hands have nothing to do with that other malady, dishpan hands. Dishpan hands, the advertisements hold, are caused by using old fashioned yellow laundry soap. Your grandmother probably had dishpan hands, but she never had screen hands. When an actress is at a loss to know what to do with her hands, she is afflicted with the ailment. It usually attacks in a scene where she has to sit and listen to another player talk. If she twiddles her thumbs, sits on her knuckles or keeps twisting her wedding ring, she isn’t Joan Blondell. : Miss Blondell never resorts to such obvious tricks. If you had taken a walk out to the stage where Director Mervyn LeRoy was filming “Three Men on a Horse,” to watch her, you would know about that. The scene is the living room of Erwin Trowbridge’s home. Mr Trowbridge, otherwise Frank Me Hugh, is a writer of greeting ecards who has an uncanny knack of picking horse race winners. His house looks like it was occupied by a greeting card writer. It has overstuffed furniture, a phoney fireplace, a mantle covered with knick knacks such as boxes, sea shells, photographs and Elk’s teeth, and two horrible floor lamps. Through the window there is a fine view of empty houses, all alike, with for sale signs on the front of them. Erwin, accompanied by Mabel, played by Miss Blondell, and Frankie, who is really Teddy Hart, has come home to make his peace with his wife Audrey, known off the screen as Carol Hughes. While he talks, Mabel has to stand by the mantle with the camera watching her. She hasn’t a thing to say. The script gives her nothing to do. She just stands there and waits and adlibs comments about the joint. This is the sort of scene that causes screen hands. But Miss Blondell wasn’t stricken. She picked up boxes and looked in them, as a curious woman always does. She examined photographs; she took a trick ash tray apart and put it fogether again; she flicked some dust off the table. Her hands were busy every minute. Miss Blondell says it’s easy to figure out things to do. She thinks it is much harder to stand still and do nothing. “But sometimes I do that,” she says. “That is, if the scene calls for it. But Mabel would never have stood still. She isn’t that sort of a girl. “She is a hard boiled ex-chorus girl, nice but tough. The hardest thing in the world for her to do would be to stand still. She would have to move around and pick up things.” “Three Men on a Horse” is a rollicking comedy taken from the famous Broadway play by John Cecil Holm and George Abbott. Others in the cast inelude Guy Kibbee, Allen Jenkins, Sam Levene and Edgar Kennedy. The screen play is by Laird Doyle. Actor Wonders Who Had Nerve To Give Him Jeb Sam Levene Makes Film Bow In “Three Men On A Horse’”’ Sam Levene’s father is a cantor. Sam might have been one too, only he couldn’t sing. So he became an actor instead and eventually made his way to Hollywood to play the part of Patsy in the First National picture, ‘‘Three Men on a Horse,’’ now showing at the .... RPS EES oa fee Theatre. There is a section of New York known as the Bronx. Every afternoon you can see hundreds of women pushing baby carriages, around the Bronx. Sam once occupied one of those baby carriages, for he was born in that In First Film Sam Levene, whose portrayal of “*Patsy’’ in ‘‘Three Men on a Horse’’ kept Broadway in roars for two years, makes his film debut in the First National picturization of the same hit, which WUD COMO FO! EN ee ae, ERCOU GON: Teer en Mat No. 110—10c¢ ee sinteenceneenenine — a -enentactesat district on August 28, 1906. Sam had no intention of going on the stage at first. He wanted to be a doctor. But one thing led to another and finally he wound up in the American Aeademy of Dramatie Art, studying diction. “T was having a lesson one day,” Sam says. “Charles Jelinge, director of the Acadamy walked in and said he thought I should Shatter Laugh Record be an actor. After that I thought so, too.” Eventually, Mr. Levene made his stage debut in “Wall Street.” He was 20 at the time. One play followed another. He worked with William Farnum, Conway Tearle, Constance Collier, Francine Larrimore and Claudette Colbert among others and appeared in such plays as “Broadway,” “Yellow Jack,” “Spring Son,” “Milky Way,” “Tin Pan Alley,” “Dinner at Eight” and “Street Scene.” If it hadn’t been for John Cecil Holm, Mr. Levene might never have come to Hollywood. Mr. Holm with George Abbott, wrote “Three Men on a Horse” and Sam got a part in it. Aftor it had run for some sixty or seyenty weeks, Director Mervyn Le Roy went to New York, saw Mr. Levene in the show and gave him the same part in the picture. Mr Levene is a moderately tall fellow with brown hair and brown eyes. He says he got on the stage by accident and doesn’t remember who had the temerity to hire him. He thinks his best stage part was in “Three Men on a Horse.” His favorite actors are Paul Muni and Spencer Tracy. He likes all actresses and will name no favorites. He also _ likes Borscht, either Russian or Jewish, and Scotch and soda. He is superstitious and will pass no one on the stairs. Whistling in the dressing room gives him the shivers. Baseball is his favorite sport and George Abbott and John Cecil Holm are his favorite authors. Married? Not Mr. Levene. And he doesn’t know when he will be. Nor does he own an automobile or a boat. His favorite color is wine and that is one of his favorite beverages. He likes to read plays and has no servants. Yes, he saves money. He also gets up at noon when he isn’t working. Frank McHugh and Joan Blondell head the funniest laugh cast of the generation in the hilarious filming of Broadway’s biggest horse laugh in 10 years, ‘‘Three Men on a Horse,’’ the First National comedy hit coming to the ..........0..000. acs TREGUUES 01 SRO es Mat No. 224—20c Page Thirty-one