A Dispatch from Reuters (Warner Bros.) (1940)

DISPATCHES... (REUTER’S—PRODUCTION Director Dieterle Pushes A ButtonBedlam Results! The big man in the looseweave linen suit and the floppy straw hat pressed the button in the handle attached to the end of the long black cord held in his hand and all hell broke loose. Just a moment before there had been silence. The wind shrieked and roared like the crazed chorus of a_ thousand demons. Men leaned and fought to stand against its pressure. The long tongues of flame from the oil-soaked torches carried by a dozen of them whipped out horizontally. Fog billowed and rolled in great grey gusts over the bleak headland. Far in the distance, barely discernible in the eerie moonlight, the long curving lines of the surf ceaselessly chalked, then erased, their mysterious message. Not far away, apparently not more than a few hundred yards, two small tents side by side and lighted by lanterns from within, struggled to be free from the ropes that held them. A man, wrapped in a great coat and wearing a cap pulled low over his ears, stepped from one of them and rushed toward a group of figures struggling to erect a tall pole in the earth. Other poles, already set, were silhouetted in a long curving line that swept over the crown of the headland, down to the shore of the sea far below. In the light of the snapping torches the weight of the pole against which the men struggled finally gave way and it settled, like a gaunt and branchless tree, into the earth. William Dieterle, the big man in the linen suit, pressed the button again. Police whistles shrilled. The cyclonic wind abated, then died, as eight giant motor-driven propellors spun to a stop. “Tf you think that’s any fun out there on that set I wish you’d try it,” said Edward G. Robinson, walking toward the motion picture cameras, wiping streaks of dust and artificial rain across his face as he pawed at his eyes. “Open the doors,” shouted Jack Sullivan, assistant director. The huge doors of the sound stage were rolled slowly back. Blinding sunlight flooded the place. Technical workmen went about their duties, preparing for another magnificent shot of man’s struggle against the elements to string a telegraph line for ‘A Dispatch From Reuter’s.”’ E. G. Robinson Voted Best on Articulation Ten United States’ lip-reading champions today voted Edward G. Robinson the easiest person on the screen to understand. They said the British actors and actresses were the hardest, but picked Leslie Howard as a favorite. Next to Edward G. Robinson’s diction, they preferred Bette Davis’. The champions saw a private screening of “A Dispatch From Reuter’s” in conjunction with their 1940 national championships in Hollywood. They are making written reports on the picture which will be taken into consideration for national honors. “Robinson’s face is so mobile, his eyes are so expressive, and he says his words so sharply and distinctly that we can understand him even when he turns his profile.” Mat 203—30c HE MADE THE WORLD A LITTLE SMALLER—Edward G. Robinson as Julius Reuter, who first conceived the idea of a telegraphic world news service. "A eee Dispatch From Reuter's'' opens at the Strand on Friday. (REUTER’S—-ADVANCE FEATURE New Film Based on Life Of News Service Founder Edw. G. Robinson Portrays Reuter Paul Julius Reuter, the man portrayed by Edward G. Robinson in “A Dispatch From Reuter’s,” his latest starring picture opening Friday at the Strand, has his place in history as the originator and founder of the first modern world-wide news gathering and news disseminating system. “According to a Reuter’s dispatch ...” is a phrase that is as familiar to newspaper readers everywhere today as it was first to Londoners in the 1800’s. Paul Julius Reuter, later Baron Reuter, was born in Cassel, Germany, in 1816. When he was 13 he went to work in an uncle’s bank in Gottingen as an apprentice clerk, handling the mail and performing the other duties of an office boy. This activity made him aware of the delay and uncertainty of the mails and market reports from the larger European centers and his youthful mind, which often took imaginative flights, thought of many schemes and plans to expedite such services. In 1849 Reuter, then 33, established a carrier pigeon post between Aachen and Brussels, two points not connected by the new ever-expanding network of the magnetic telegraph. Reuter was well aware of the importance the telegraph was to assume in the field of communication, but he saw in his pigeon post a way to make money, get into the business of communication, and learn its problem pending the time he might expand into the telegraphic field. His pigeon post was a profitable venture but presently the gap between Aachen, Brussels and other middle Europe points were connected by the telegraph and the winged messengers were grounded. Reuter then went to Paris, determined to launch his news and market reporting system there, but was unsuccessful. In 1851 he went to England and immediately became a British subject, still fired with his big idea. In 1858 his chance came. He tied up the English Channel cable line, made arrangements in Paris to have one of Napoleon’s most important speeches dealing with the peace of Europe telegraphed verbatim, while Napoleon was delivering it in Paris, to his London offices where it was serviced to the London papers, particularly the Times. That was the first time that phrase “According to a Reuter’s dispatch,” appeared in print in a news medium. Success was now his. In 1866 he opened his own cable system between Cork and Cookhaven to expediate the delivery of news from America brought across the Atlantic by east-bound vessels, a dramatic gesture which provides one of the most exciting episodes in “A Dispatch From Reuter’s.” In 1871 he was given the title of baron by the Duke of SaxeCoburg and Gotha and Queen Victoria of England authorized him to use it in England. Real Newsman Now Edward G. Robinson’s long and varied career as a newspaper man—think back over the times he has been the traditional hard-boiled editor — has been made official. He has received from Reuter’s, the official British news agency which has representatives all over the world, a gold-plated certificate of honorary membership in the organization. Robinson’s current role is that of agency-founder Paul Julius Reuter in “A Dispatch From Reuter’s,” the film which is currently showing at the Strand. (REUTER’S—WOMEN’S PAGE Edna Best Plays Wife Who Aided Reuter to Fame Edna Best likes to play comedy parts and the game of poker. So the result is she is invariably cast as the oh so charming, oh so ladylike wife and mother on the screen. And poker, as well as all other card playing, is forbidden in the Hollywood studios during working hours. She has just finished playing a wife and mother role in “A Dispatch From Reuter’s” Edward G. Robinson’s new starring picture opening Friday at the Strand Theatre. Before that it was the same sort of role in “Intermezzo.” And before that she had her hands full of motherhood and the wild life of the jungle in “Swiss Family Robinson.” “Not the same family of Robinson I’m married into at the moment,” she states with the solemnity that fails to mask a mischievous sense of humor. “Eddie and I are Mr. and Mrs. Julius Reuter in ‘Reuter’s’ you know. The English Reuter’s. Busybodies.”’ She calls them busy-bodies because Julius Reuter, with the help of his wife, founded the world’s first great telegraphic news service, a service (British) that still carries the Reuter name. The events of his life, which is authentically portrayed in the picture, show that without his wife’s aid he might never have succeeded in making his dream of a world-wide news service come true. It was she who helped him in establishing his carrier pigeon post, she who persuaded him to risk his entire capital in the project which first established Reuter’s as a telegraphic news service. It took Hollywood some years to get acquainted with Edna Best and for Edna Best to get acquainted with Hollywood. When she first went there, under contract to M.G.M. she feared the place to the extent that the day before her first picture was to start she packed hurriedly and took the first train for New York. But now, happily wed to a successful business man, Miss Best, the only actor in the family, is “back in the groove again” (her own words), and she likes Hollywood and picture work well enough to keep at it till she gets that comedy part. Film Returns Old Job To Montagu Love Montagu Love returned to his first profession when he began his role as Delane in Warner Bros. “A Dispatch From Reuter’s’”’, starring Edward G. Robinson. The film is currently showing at the Strand. Delane was one of the most famous editors of the London Times, with a _ solid record through its scores and scores of years as being one of the most influential newspapers published. When Love was just out of school in his native England, he went to work as an illustrator for a newspaper in Portsmouth. In setting Love for the part of Delane, Director William Dieterle did the expected thing. The tall and stately actor has a part in every picture Dieterle directs, and also in many other Warner Bros. productions, for he is an able experienced actor and one whose great height and width of shoulder give him a commanding appearance. 9