Back Pay (Warner Bros.) (1930)

Sold In Advance To Countless Readers As Fannie Hurst’s Most Famous Short Story! ORCHID OF THE SCREEN TURNS TO RED-BLOODED WOMEN Corinne Griffith Reveals New Depths in Portrayal of Country Girl in “Back Pay’’—Tired of Being Called Beauty (ADVANCE FEATURE) For the past year or so, Corinne Griffith has been undergoing a gradual metamorphosis in her screen personality. Instead of the blue-blooded noblewomen, virtuous clinging vines and languorous ladies of the salon of her early performances, the one oe time orchid lady of the silver sheet’’ has turned the key on hot-house roles and transplanted herself to hardier soil. This new Corinne Griffith, born of rebellion and revolt against saccharine society sirens in stories built around twenty or thirty French gowns, has become wicked, wayward and wild and glories in her escape from the drawing room to the very heart of the slums, the uncertain crossroads and lowly by-paths of life. “A long time ago, I became heartily sick and tired of hearing about my poise, my beauty and my ability to wear clothes well,” says Corinne. “T want to be an actress, not a fashion plate. For years, the publicity built up around my face just because I happened to get my first start in pictures by winning the beauty prize at a Santa Monica ballroom contest, when I was sixteen years old, has proved a detriment rather than an asset. Tired of Being a Beauty “To this day I’m constantly reading how I was selected as Queen of the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Not a word of truth in it—I was just a child when my family moved, for a time, from Texarkana, Texas, to New Orleans because my father had business there. I attended boarding school and studied art, intending with the ego of my eleven winters and ummers to become a great portrait painter. It had never entered my ead at that age to go on the seccn. Furthermore, I was regarded as the ugly duckling by my family. I was pale, delicate and thin and I had failed to inherit my mother’s great luminous brown eyes, the distinguishing mark of beauty in our family, as mother is very proud of her Italian origin. To have the only blue eyes in the family was almost a sin. “But once I had been tagged with the beauty label there was no getting away from it. Artists invited me to sit for them, couturieres wanted me to be their first to wear their most expensive models and producers cast me in stately, insipid roles where I could be clad in jewels and satins. As long as I walked through a part without stubbing my toes they were satisfied, but I, myself, was miserably unhappy. I longed to play women in varied walks of life requiring keen characterization and I wanted to give vent to my emotions. Stories of Struggle “Stories of human struggle attract me most, whether it is a struggle for achievement, fame, money, virtue, power, love or existence itself. Redblooded characters present the greatest acting opportunities. I want parts which offer possibilities for contrast and shading. In short, “the aristoerat of the screen,” as many have called me, has kicked over the traces!” A Fair Exchange Although Corinne Griffith receives nearly a thousand requests per week for her autograph from admiring fans, it is a new experience for the First National star to collect signatures of others. But while making her latest all-dialogue drama, “Back | Pay,” by Fannie Hurst, which is proving an overwhelming success at the Theatre, Miss Griffith became so interested in all the other renowned works of this great American writer that she began a collection of Fannie Hurst first editions. When the author of “Back Pay” visited Hollywood, recently, to consult with Herbert Brennon on the filming of “Lummox,” she graciously consented to autograph all her novels and books of short stories in Miss Griffith’s library in exchange for an autographed copy of a portrait of the beautiful Corinne by James Montgomery Flagg. Since Miss Griffith has taken matters into her own hands she has departed more and more radically from her erstwhile goody-good roles. In “Outcast” she was a social derelict, a girl of the streets. In “Saturdays’ Children” she played a working girl with decidedly advanced and unconventional ideas regarding matrimony. In “Prisoners” she slipped down another rung in the social ladder by going to jail as a thief. In “Lilies of the Field,” her first all-Vitaphone production, she became a Broadway cabaret girl, wore tights, got drunk and amazed her audiences by executing a jazzy tap dance atop a baby grand piano. And now as Hester Bevins in “Back Pay,” the celebrated Fannie Hurst story which opens at the Theatre, on day, the new Corinne Griffith will be seen as a small town Southern girl who harbors a erepe de chine soul under her cotton frocks. Her wasted life is finally redeemed by the awakening of her better self when her childhood sweetheart whom she has deserted, returns from the war blind and _ helpless. “Back Pay” is directed by William A. Seiter and included in Miss Griffith’s supporting cast are such sterling players as Grant Withers, Montagu Love and Hallam Cooley. GRANT WITHERS A FIRST NATIONAL & VITAPHGNE HIT ea CAPITOL | Cut No. 10 Cut 4goc Mat 10¢ Page Two | One Of The Season’s Finer Pictures! Produced by WALTER MOROSCO "fe Based on story by FANNIE HURST A William A. SEITER PROD. Cut No.1 Cut 6o0c Mat 15c “Vitaphone” is the registered trade mark of the Vitaphone Corp. designating its products —— pay, CORINNE FFITH with GRANT WITHERS Montagu Love Hallam Cooley EMORIES of a beautiful romance was HIS back but what about hers? Luxury was happiness to her, until she tasted the wealth of a true love. NLY Fannie Hurst could tell such life-drama. the Orchid Of The Screen couk interpret it for the Vitaphone. It’s her outstanding Vitaphone achievement. Only Y y (tae REG, TRADE MARK PLAYS HEROINES OF MANY LANDS Corinne Griffith’s Characterizations Cover Wide Range of Nationalities (CURRENT READER) Corinne Griffith has been skipping all around the globe in her recent First National productions. As Lady Hamilton in “The Divine Lady,” she played a celebrated English beauty; as Riza Riga in “Prisoners,” she was a Hungarian waitress in a little town near Budapest; in the role of Mildred Harker in “Lilies of the Field,” Corinne portrayed a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, who became a Broadway cabaret show girl, nad now as Hester Bevins, in “Back Pay” at the Theatre, the versatile dramatic star enacts a Southern girl from a small town in Virginia, “Back Pay” is based on an original story by Fannie Hurst and affords Miss Griffith an opportunity for one of the most interesting characterizations of her entire career. After deliberately sacrificing love for riches and adventure, the heroine discovers that real happiness depends upon being true to oneself and that life collects an exorbitant interest from the wages of sin. Grant Withers and Montagu Love are the two masculine leads in “Back Pay.” William A. Seiter directed. Vivian Oakland Vivian Oakland was christened Vivian Anderson but chose the California city of her birth as her stage name when, at the age of nine, she began her professional career in an Oakland stock company. It was while appearing in a light operetta in New York that Miss Oakland made her screen debut at the suggestion of Edwin Carewe who cast her for the role of Beauty in “Destiny.” Her second picture was “Peter Ibbetson” with Wallace Reid. Her latest role is that of the principal feminine part in Corinne Griffith’s supporting cast of “Back Pay” by Fannie Hurst made for First National. “Back Pay” is the current athreetion=—atatne= 2 sa ee TheBITES Airc ee Se A Real Artist Montagu Love, who plays the heavy in “Back Pay” starring Corinne Griffith, which is the feature attraction this week at the Theatre, was a well known newspaper artist in London several years before he began his stage career. Love is particularly adept at drawing animals and illustrated articles in many magazines devoted to sports in addition to his newspaper assignments. Many of his original drawings now line the walls of his Hollywood home. SEITER ONCE MORE DIRECTS GRIFFITH Star of “Back Pay’ and Director Have Been Together in Many Pictures (ADVANCE READER) William A. Seiter, after gu Corinne Griffith’s destinies in “. cast” and “Prisoners” and also directing the talking sequences of her recent Maxwell Anderson Pulitzer Prize play, “Saturday’s Children,” has again directed the beautiful First National star in “Back Pay” by Fannie Hurst, which is soon to have its long anticipated premiere at the Theatre. About all the vacation Seiter has had between pictures during the past year is a deep breath. In addition to Miss Griffith’s films, he directed Colleen Moore in “Happiness Ahead,” “Synthetic Sin,” “Why Be Good” and “Trish Eyes Are Smiling.” Mr. Seiter really belongs in the category of Hollywood “pioneers.” He started as an extra man about fifteen years ago. His companions in those days of making the studio rounds in search of a day’s work were Harold Lloyd, Hal Roach and Sydney Franklin. Mr. Seiter will remain with Corinne Griffith when she begins her next picture, “The Lost Lady” by Willa Cather. ee