Broadway Musketeers (Warner Bros.) (1938)

Ability Not To Sing Won Anthony Averill His Film Career Anthony Averill first attracted the attention of a movie agent because he couldn’t sing. Averill, then a St. Louis newspaper man, was called on to sing ‘‘ Pennies From Heaven’’ at a press get-together, and not being much of a singer, he preceded his song with a witty monologue, which made a deep impression on the agent. Signed to a Warner Bros. contract, Averill’s dark good looks have already won him seyeral villain roles, the latest of which is in ‘‘Broad eers’’ with Margaret Mat 108—15e Lindsay, Ann Anthony Averill Sheridan and Marie Wilson which comes to the Strand Theatre on Friday. Movie critics who have seen his work are unanimous in predicting a brilliant future for the handsome and_ stalwart young Missourian. Born Anthony Alexander Norton Averill, February 20, 1910, he attended grammar and high school in St.-Louis, Campion Prep: School at Prairie du Chien, Wis. and Loyola University at Chicago, where he starred in football. He studied to become. a_ surgeon but left college before graduation and worked as a telephone lineman, elevator train guard, and advertising man before taking the newspaper job he was holding when the sereen beckoned. Strangely enough, he did not engage in school theatricals and did not go in for amateur theatricals until he was 24. Then the director of the Community Theatre at Webster Grove, Mo. induced him to try acting. But even then, he had no thought of taking his histrionic ability seriously until he was induced to come to Hollywood. Producer Foy Aims To Please All Tastes Well-meaning advisors were with producer Bryan Foy when he was casting ‘‘ Broadway Musketeers,’’ his latest Warner Bros. feature, which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre. The picture has three featured feminine roles. ‘“Being Broadway girls they ’ll all be blonde,’’ said one advisor. ‘¢You’re crazy,’’ snorted another advisor. ‘‘Blondes are as out of date now as bustles. Don’t you know all the girls are dyeing their hair red?’’ CoOsure chimed’: in. a vhird, ‘‘make them red-heads and offend the brunettes. Me, I like brunettes — why don’t you — ?’’ Then Foy explained he was going to have Margaret Lindsay, a brunette, as one of the girls; Ann Sheridan, whose flaming red hair has never been dyed, as the second girl; and Marie Wilson, a natural blonde, as the third of the ‘“Broadway Musketeers.’’ ‘And if green hair was popular I’d write in another fat part for a green-haired girl,’’ Mr. Foy concluded ingeniously. Story Finisher Wanted One of Marie Wilson’s ambitions is to find someone who will finish all the stories she starts. She loves to write, but is constantly getting her characters enmeshed in a plot that won’t unravel. If she ever publishes a book, she’s afraid the title of it will have to be ‘‘Unfinished Stories.’’ Marie’s latest Warner Bros. picture is ‘‘Broadway Musketeers,’’ which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre. way Musket Mat 301—45c ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL — Marie Wilson, Ann Sheridan and Margaret Lindsay truck on down the main stem and drink a toast to Broadway in their new co-starring picture “Broadway Musketeers” which will have its first local showing next Friday at the Strand Theatre. Motion Pictures Are Your Best Entertainment @ (Lead ) ‘Broadway Musketeers’ Exciting Drama Coming to Strand Friday Margaret Lindsay, Marie Wilson, Ann Sheridan And Janet Chapman Have Top Roles Pathos, comedy and spine-tingling melodrama were blended to produce the sentimental and yet vividly exciting Warner Bros. picture, ‘‘*‘Broadway Musketeers,’’ which is scheduled to open next Friday at the Strand Theatre with a east that boasts three leading women — Margaret Lindsay, Ann Sheridan and Marie Wilson—not to mention six-year-old Janet Chapman, who comes in for her share of acting honors. Because of the presence in the cast of this quartette of actresses, the new Warner picture is expected to excite much more than usual interest, inasmuch as it marks a significant step in the career of each one of the girls. For little Janet, it is her second motion picture, and everyone who saw her in her first, ‘‘ Little Miss Thoroughbred,’’ which made her Janet Gets _ Making motion pictures is a curious business, six-year-old Janet Chapman has decided. She was about to do a scene for Broadway Musketeers,’’ the Warner Bros. picture opening Friday at the Strand Theatre. “Now, Janet,’’ Director John Farrow explained, ‘‘we don’t want you to act in this scene. All you have to do is listen while Dewey Robinson tells you the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’’ Little Janet clapped her hands in glee. She knows and loves the story of Snow White and was eager to hear it again. This was going to be fun. The camera began to roll, and thickset° Dewey Robinson, playing a gangster who loves children in the picture, began his story. ‘“<Dis Snow White was a sweil lookin’ skoit,’’ Dewey said, his low comedy face ludicrously benevolent, ‘‘but the queen wasn’t no glue neck herself. So on accounta the queen gettin’ green-eyed over Snow White havin’ the edge on ’er for looks, Snow White had to lam. And did she take it on the loop!’’ Janet, lying with Margaret Lindsay on a couch beside which a star overnight, will want to see the amazingly talented child again. Marie Wilson has been in: pictures longer than tiny Janet, but it was her work in ‘‘Boy Meets Girl,’’ which first brought her the recognition that her ability, displayed im lesser roles, had long merited. Ann Sheridan has played a great many roles but she has never had a part that gives her the opportunities presented by her role in ““Broadway Musketeers.’’ Of particular interest is the fact that the singing voice with which she briefly charmed the ear in ‘‘San Quentin’’ gets its full recognition in her new picture. In her capacity of night club entertainer, she sings two songs. Margaret Lindsay has displayed her superlative acting gifts in many a good role before, but she Lowdown On Fairy Tale , regards ‘‘Broadway Musketeers’ as a notable step forward in her career, for it marks the first time she has been called upon to play a girl taking the downward path toward utter depravity. The chief male character in the story is played by John Litel, who is successively husband of Margaret and Ann, as well as father of Janet. Most of the other men concerned in the tale are sinister and villainous fellows, and. they are depicted by such splendid types as Anthony Averill, Dick Purcell, Richard Bond, Dewey Robinson and Horace MacMahon. In their childhood, according to the plot, Margaret, Ann and Marie had been chums at an orphanage. After many years of separation they meet again and then their fortunes and misfortunes are strangely intertwined. Mat 106—15¢ JANET CHAPMAN — baby ‘tind’ of the year, who is featured in “Broadway Musketeers” coming to the Strand on Friday. Robinson was seated, was fascinated. Her face was a study in expression as she listened in spellbound, puzzled wonder to his in [8] terpretation of the beloved fairy tale. ‘“She’s too smart,’’ Dewey continued, ‘‘to hit the tobey on accounta she might bump into some of the queen’s torpedoes, so she beats it t’rough the tall timber, and that’s where she meets up wit’ the dwarf mob.’’ Margaret had arisen and moved restlessly to a window. Farrow, who had been studying Janet’s reaction to the amazing story, delightedly called ‘‘ecut!’’—meaning the end of the scene. “‘That’s perfect in one take,’’ Farrow said. ‘‘It couldn’t have been better if we had warned Janet of what she was to expect and rehearsed her reaction.’’ ‘But when do I hear the story about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?’’ the puzzled Janet demanded. ‘“She hears it right now,’’ Robinson said indignantly, pulling a copy of the story from his pocket. ‘‘I won’t be a party to disappointing her.’’ And so, while the camera setup was being changed, Dewey and Janet repaired to a corner. And, perched on Robinson’s knee, Janet heard the real story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. ing here from Margaret Lindsay's Not A Hollywood Mystery Girl At last Margaret Lindsay has come forward with the explanation for whatever basis there may be in that rather common saying about her, ‘‘Margaret’s private life is more mysterious than Garbo’s.’’ After the Warner Bros. actress finished ‘‘Broadway Musketeers,’’ which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre, Hollywood saw more of her thanwathas for a number of years. ““My family was visit Dubuque, eonw<as. ck Ook went around where the picture people go, to show it: e.m’ “tbe sights and the sereen celebrities,’’? Margaret explains. “‘T’m no hermit or recluse im real life. But the reason I seem to be regarded as a mystery woman is that, for the most part, I associate with non-professional people. Jt is only by chance that some of them cross paths with motion picture people—chiefly because they, too, like to go to some of the places where the film crowd is wont to gather. ‘“My reason for associating with non-professional people between pictures is simple, and has nothing t)» do with snobbishness or even a desire to ‘be alone.’ As a matter of fact, I like film people as a class as well as, or better than, any other I know. ‘But I do feel that if we picture people associate only with each other we lose our touch with humanity and to that degree our ability to play characters other than actors.’’ Mat 104—15e Margaret Lindsay Ann Sheridan Sings Two New Hit Tunes Ann Sheridan, who studied to be a school teacher at North Texas Teachers’ College and discovered she had an excellent blues singing voice, has been given another of her much too infrequent opportunities to exhibit this talent on the screen. In Warner Bros.’ ‘‘ Broadway Musketeers,’’ which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre, Miss Sheridan sings two songs, both written especially for this production by Moe Jerome and Jack Scholl. They are *°Has It Ever Oceurred to You?’’ and ‘Who Said T hat) his Mat 105—15e JTsn’t Love?’’ Ann Sheridan ib hese tars song she sings while doing a strip tease dance for the picture. But don’t crowd, boys —the night club is raided by police, as a coneession to Ann and censorship, before the dance progresses very far. Ann, who possesses an exceptionally mellow, pleasing singing voice, sang. for the first time on the sereen in ‘‘San Quentin.’’ He Can’t Keep Ties Jobn Litel always gives the tie he is wearing to any person who admires it. The studio had to restrain him from doing this during the filming of ‘‘Broadway Musketeers,’’ until all matching sequences in which he wore a certain tie were completely filmed.