A Child Is Born (Warner Bros.) (1939)

20 BABIES SET UP QUITE A HOWL ON STUDIO SET Babies aren’t stuck with pins to make them cry for the movies. Even if a person cruel enough to do such a thing could be found he couldn’t get away with it. Twenty babies, some six days old and the average age of the lot fourteen days, cried to their hearts’ content in scenes for Warner Bros.’ ‘“‘A Child is Born,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. If they had decided to laugh instead, that would have been equally all right with Director Lloyd Bacon. The set, representing a nursery in a maternity hospital, sounded for all the world like a brooder house on a chicken farm with the concerted chirping of the wailing babies. It wasn’t that the infants were uncomfortable or unhappy. A battalion of nurses, and, in some instances, mothers of the babies, hovered around keeping them comfortable. And it wasn’t because they were overworked. Lois Horn, studio school teacher and welfare worker, whose word is law above the director’s in such cases, saw to that. During every “take” she stood by the camera, stop watch in hand, to make sure that the babies were not under the lights more than the thirty seconds at a time set by law. The babies cried because they wanted to. One or two babies started the song and the others took it up because they liked the sound of their voices. You can’t do anything about making a baby cry or laugh. Babies have to be in the mood to do what you want them to do, and it is the smart and patient director who waits and recognizes the mood. 'A Child Is Born' Based On Author's Own Diary The Strand Theatre’s next attraction, opening on Friday, will be “A Child is Born,” with Geraldine Fitzgerald, Gladys George, Gale Page, Jeffrey Lynn, and a large supporting cast. A stirringly original drama, it has for its background the maternity ward of a great city hospital, and deals with pathos and humor that constantly attends the beginning of life. Mary McDougal Axelson, who wrote the novel from which the screenplay was adapted, based her material on the diary she kept during her seven weeks confinement in a maternity ward. Drama At Strand Friday “A Child is Born,” a heartstirring drama that goes behind the scenes in the maternity ward of a great hospital, will be the next attraction at the Strand Theatre. Based on a novel by Mary McDougal Axelson, the screenplay was written by Robert Rossen and directed by Lloyd Bacon. Geraldine Fitzgerald, sensational Irish star who recently made her debut in “Dark Victory,’ heads the cast with Gladys George, Gale Page, and Jeffrey Lynn. Litel A Civic Worker John Litel, recently elected vice-president of the Encino (Calif.) Chamber of Commerce, is waging an intensive campaign to induce more picture people to move into the community. The Encino Chamber of Commerce is one of the most active community organizations in the state. Litel’s latest picture for Warner Bros. is “A Child is Born,” at the Strand. ADVANCE PUBLICITY — 'A CHILD IS BORN’ Mat 206—30c EXPECTANT FATHERS — Johnnie Davis and Jeffrey Lynn lay in a toy supply a little prematurely in this scene from "A Child Is Born,’ coming Friday. Double Dose of Fatherhood Is Tough on Johnny Davis Johnnie “Seat” Davis has just gone through the unenviable experience of a man with two wives, both expectant mothers — one in real life, and one in ‘reel’ life. There was no case of bigamy or polygamy involved. One wife was real, the other Johnnie’s cinema mate in “A Child Is Born,” the Warner Bros. drama of a maternity ward which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. But real or make believe, the double dose of expectancy was a bit too much for the worried Johnnie, who first won fame as a comedian and has no desire to play tragedy. In “A Child Is Born,” Johnnie’s wife is Jean Sharon. While Johnnie was pacing the floor with Jeffrey Lynn, whose celluloid wife, Geraldine Fitzgerald, also was infanticipating, he was momentarily expecting a call to rush to his real wife, the former Martha Lee Garver, to a maternity hospital. Misery loves company so Johnnie unburdened his soul to Jeffrey while the camera set the scene down on film and Director Lloyd Bacon watched attentively. “This father racket is no picnic,” Johnnie said, stark tragedy in his voice. “Fourteen hours I been sittin’ here — waitin — another hour and I'll start cuttin’ paper dolls.” He stopped as with panic stricken eyes he watched a tank of anesthetic being wheeled into the delivery room. “I —I guess that’s for — for her,” he said pathetically. ‘‘She she’s having an awful tough time.”’ “Gee,” Lynn murmured sympathetically. “The first one died,” Johnnie continued, “it was a boy. This one’s just got to be all right. She saved all his things for this one. I built a little chest for her to keep them in—she wanted it enameled just one certain shade of blue —” “Cut!”? shouted the director. “That’s swell. Now we’ll pick it up from here —” “Tl stick to comedy after this,” Johnnie said shakily after completing the call. ‘This picture is too close to home to suit me. No man should be an expectant father twice at the same time. It’s just too much!” Of Six ‘Reel’ Mothers, Spring Byington Is Only Real One Of all the actresses who play the roles of patients in the maternity ward in the new Warner Bros. picture, “A Child Is Born,” which opens at the Strand Theatre on Friday — Geraldine Fitzgerald, Gladys George, Nanette Fabares, Gloria Holden, Jean Sharon, and Spring Byington—Spring Byington is the only one who is actually a real life mother. She has two young daughters. Spring’s acting career began when she was not much older than her oldest daughter is now. She scored an _ achievement in her first professional appearance that many actors wait years to accomplish. With only the experience of school theatricals to her credit, she obtained her first professional job at the famous Elitch Gardens. But her ability for doing the unusual was somewhat of a heritage for Spring, whose latest picture, “A Child is Born,” a Warner Bros. production, opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. Her father was. superintendent of education for the State of Colorado, and her mother studied medicine after her children were born—was a prominent physician for many years. After the Elitch Gardens engagement, Miss Byington went to New York and became prominent on Broadway, playing in more than 30 shows. Her first screen appearance was with Katherine Hepburn in “Little Women.” Since then she has made many pictures and added to her popularity with her portrayal of the mother in the Jones Family series. Spring is five feet three inches tall and weighs 120 pounds. She has blonde hair and blue gray eyes and her sunny disposition and winning smile make her quite the most winning personality on any stage and her screen services are in great demand. [16] Geraldine Fitzgerald will never ride an elephant to a Hollywood premiere. She will never be “blanketed in orchids,” either, as the columnists sometimes report of other stars. She likes elephants and she dislikes orchids and she is quite sure that to be seen on one or wrapped up in the other would label her as a show-off. Everyone who knows Mics Fitzgerald knows she isn’t that. Miss Fitzgerald reached Hollywood without benefit of much advance publicity and without attendant ballyhoo on her arrival. Within three days she was hard at work in “Dark Victory” with Bette Davis and George Brent. After that she was lent to Samuel Goldwyn to play in “Wuthering Heights.” Then she returned to Warner Bros., her home studio, for the leading role in “A Child Is Born,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. Meanwhile Hollywood became etter acquainted with the smoky-eyed Irish beauty who had appeared so suddenly in the ranks of the favorites, but who ‘refused politely to stay in pic tures more than six months at a time. They learned that she had been a student actress at the Gate Theatre in Dublin after giving up her early ambition to become an artist. They knew that she had played in the Mer GERALDINE FITZGERALD A Pen-Point Portrait cury Theatre in New York in Shaw’s “Heartbreak House” and that that appearance had led directly to her Warner Bros. contract with its six months vacation provision. In California for six months, she did not pick an orange during all the time she was there. She didn’t buy a Mexican jumping bean, either. She straightens crooked pictures on walls no matter in whose house she is when she finds such a state of affairs. This kept her rather busy for several weeks of her first winter in Hollywood. Miss Fitzgerald likes rainy weather, primroses, fairy stories and onion soup. She is afraid of the dark, alarmed during thunder storms and annoyed by wind. She has parties. “It’s all wrong, of course,” she says, “but I do.” She likes to sleep late mornings and takes her shoes off first when she undresses for bed. She has a remedy for seasickness and she has been lost. She refuses to enlarge upon that last admission. She has never seen a “fair” and she is anxious to visit one. She likes rocking-chairs and hammocks and she believes a psychoanalyst would read “frightful meanings into my answers to these questions.” fun at her own Gladys George Has Glamor But Rarely Gets to Show It Consider the strange case of Gladys George. She has more glamour than almost any actress in Hollywood but— The only chance she has to show that glamour on the screen is either as a sweet mother type or a rough and ready lady of the demi-monde or of the cheaper side of the show world. She’s the latter type in Warner Bros.’ sensational drama of events in a maternity ward, “A Mat 114—15c GLADYS GEORGE Child Is Born,’ which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. But that’s always the way with Gladys George. She’s an extremist, not by choice but because that seems to be what life has in store for her. In real life she’d be a chambermaid if she had to. She was one once, years ago when the cards were stacked against her in her efforts to get an acting job, and she’d do it again if necessity demanded. But there’s little danger of that necessity because Gladys George has won her success the hard way. After three years in Hollywood, following her sensational success in “Personal Appearance” on the stage, her position on the top of the ladder is firm and secure. Gladys George is a most interesting person. She likes cats, of the four-legged variety, and is forever picking them up in the street and taking them home. There she bathes and feeds them, then finds them homes. She thinks her husband Leonard Penn, is tops as an actor. And he never gets peeved but on the contrary enjoys it immensely when people address him as “Mr. George.” Which would seem to indicate both are regular folks. In the privacy of their home she and her husband like to do travesties of Shakespeare. She likes to dress her hairdresser’s hair. Her favorite scent is sweet pea and she tosses economy to the winds in selecting the orchid as her favorite flower. She is five feet three inches tall, weighs 115 pounds and has blonde hair and hazel eyes. She’s afraid that her colored maid and chauffeur are thinking of marriage — but she’s the type to drive them to the Yuma plane if she thought they meant it. Johnnie Didn't Let Wife Read Script Johnnie “Scat” Davis was probably the most nervous expectant father Hollywood has ever known. With the stork due to arrive at his home any day, he was playing an expectant father role in Warner Bros.’ “A Child is Born,” which is now showing at the Strand Theatre. And in that picture all the mothers had trouble of one kind or another. So much so that Johnnie didn’t let Mrs. Davis read the script. Was One Of 'Our Gang’ Johnny Downs, who plays a very young and worried expectant father in Warner Bros.’ “A Child is Born,” at the Strand Theatre, was the All-American boy of the first “Our Gang” short subject comedies.