Call It a Day (Warner Bros.) (1937)

PRODUCTION READERS STORIES ON STARS Pa BL Gl Ta FRIEDA LIKES VARIETY FOR MOVIE ROLES Frieda Inescort is one actress who has never been typed. What’s more, she’s never going to be if she can help it. Miss Inesecort, who has one of the leading roles in “Call It a Day,” a Cosmopolitan production released by Warner Bros., which comes to the Theatre ON ca hee , feels she has been lucky. So many other actresses have been typed on the stage or screen. She points to the cases of several of her friends, as illustrations. All of them are fine actresses and all of them have been typed as silly, fluttering women. When she started her stage career, Miss Inescort was assured that she would be typed as an English lady —that producers wouldn’t even consider her in other parts. They did. She was an ingenue, a _ sophisticate, a hard-boiled woman of the world, a slattern, and finally she was Portia in George Arliss’s production of “The Merchant of Venice.” Her first Hollywood part was that of the secretary in “Dark Angel.” Since then she’s played a seore of varied characterizations. In “The Great O’Malley” she was the poverty stricken wife of Humphrey Bogart and wore nothing but gingham. In “Give Me Your Heart” she was the invalid wife of Patric Knowles. In “Call It a Day” she is the middle-aged wife of Ian Hunter—and the mother of three children, played by Olivia de Havilland, Bonita Granville and Peter Willes. Not one of her screen parts have been similar in any way. Not once has she been typed and she’s glad of it. “Call It a Day’—adapted from the Dodie Smith play which was such a sensational stage hit in London and New York—is a smart, sophisticated comedydrama based upon the experiences of the various members of an English family when the first day of Spring stirs their blood. STAIR SHOT IS DIFFICULT One of the most difficult camera shots ever made was necessary in the Cosmopolitan production “Call It a Day,” a comedydrama which is now on view at the Theatre. Mounted on an immense crane, the camera followed Frieda Inescort and Roland Young down five flights of stairs. Filming the scene occupied an entire day. For the scene, a stairway was built from the floor of stage four to the ceiling. The camera, manned by Cinematographer Ernest Haller, was mounted on the erane, which is the biggest in Hollywood. The shot began at the top of the stairway. Slowly the crane was lowered and the camera followed the two stars down until they reached the bottom step. Also in “Call It a Day” are Olivia de Havilland, Ian Hunter, Anita Louise, and Alice Brady. Archie Mayo was the director. What Every Family Knows The question is—who gets the first bath? Olivia de Havilland (right), Bonita Granville, her kid sister, or Peter Willes, their brother? Yow’ll see them all in the laugh-filled lowdown on love and spring fever—“‘Call It A Day,” the Cosmopolitan Production com ing to the Theatre, on release. as a Warner Bros. eeeceeereese Mat No. 201—20c OLD TIME CHARM HARDER TO SuW THAN 1937 SORT Charm is an elusive thing. It’s simple enough to furnish a room beautifully—to arrange furniture artistically and lay the carpets and hang the pictures. But to give a room charm—to make it look as though it had been lived in for years—that’s a different matter, according to °George Hopkins. Hopkins should know. He’s a set dresser at Warner’ Bros. studio and recently he dressed sets for the Cosmopolitan produetion, “Call It a Day,” now at the Theatre. He says it’s one of the hardest assignments he ever had. Much of the picture is Jaid in the home of a middle-class family in London. The house is an old one— the family has lived in it for twenty years. So Hopkins had to give it charm and at the same time make it look as though it had been lived in by a family of six. Frieda Inescort, one of the stars of the film, who spent much of her life in just such an English home, says that Hopkins has succeeded admirably. So does Ian Hunter—he’s also English. Miss Inescort likes best the job Hopkins did on the living room. He made it fussy—without giving it a cluttered-up look. And he didn’t forget one detail, from the fender on the hearth to the aspedistra in the bay window. (An aspedistra is a fern). Next, she chooses the bedroom Hopkins dressed for Olivia de Havilland and Bonita Granville—who play Miss Inescort’s daughters. This was done in blue—blue _ bedspreads, blue rugs, and blue furniture. All of it had an old look —all of it had charm. “Call It a Day” is a smart, sophisticated comedy-drama. The strong cast is headed by Olivia de Havilland, Ian Hunter, Anita Louise, Alice Brady, Frieda Inescort and Roland Young. NASTY BRAT PART WON FORTUNE FOR THIS LUCKY LASS Most bad little girls get the back of the hairbrush. But not Bonita Granville, filmdom’s prize “brat.” The wages of meanness is a big weekly paycheck for Bonita, who at 13 is one of the best paid child actresses in Hollywood. Because of her work as the spoiled child in “These Three,” she is playing one of the leads in “Call It a Day,” the Cosmopolitan production released by Warner Bros., and now on view at the Theatre. She is cast with such famous players as Ian Hunter, Frieda Inescort, Olivia de Havilland, Anita Louise, and Roland Young. Bonita was born Feb. 2, 1923, in New York City. Her father was Bernard Granville, musical comedy and vaudeville star, and her mother was an actress. At the age of three, Bonita joined her father’s vaudeville act. It was Bonita’s resemblance to Ann Harding that got her her first film part. Miss Harding’s studio needed a child who looked like the star to play her daughter in “Westward Passage” and Bonita got the job. There followed other small parts. With the brat part in “These Three” she shot to the top. The little girl is still in the Hollywood High School and is in the tenth grade. She is studying interior decorating and dress de signing, painting, music and dancing. Bonita’s film favorites are Bette Davis, Pat O’Brien, Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper. She wants to visit London, Paris and Rome. She likes spaghetti and still plays with dolls. She hates brats, catty people and hypoerites. She collects ivory elephants “Call It a Day”—adapted from the Dodie Smith play which was such a sensational stage hit—is a smart, sophisticated comedy. MOVIES SET MANY STYLES, EVEN IN KITCHEN GADGETS Every time a new motion picture with an interesting set in it is released, the fans start writing letters. They want blue prints of the set, still photographs of it, and pictures of the furniture that is in the rooms. When the Cosmopolitan production,. ~“Call> It: =a, “Day’18 flashed on the screen of the Theatres one Fa : the fans are going to start writing letters again. This time they’ll want pictures of the English kitchen that Art Director John Hughes designed for the film. Mr. Hughes’ kitchen is not at all like those shining things of tile, linoleum, chromium and enamel that you find in modern homes and apartments. Like many English kitchens it is on the street level with a stairway leading up to the dining room. An enormous coal stove is set in a recess in the wall and back of the stove is a battery of copper pots and pans. Chintz curtains cover the windows. Odd pieces of china stand on edge on a shelf that circles the room. The floor is of pegged oak. ae There isn’t a single electrical device in Mr. Hughes’ kitchen— not a dishwasher or a mixer or a percolator or a toaster. He feels such things detact from a kitchen’s beauty. TIGHT BUDGET GIVES OLIVIA 60 CENT LUNCH When Olivia de Havilland pays more than sixty cents for a studio lunch, she puts a crimp in her personal budget. Sixty cents is her daily allowance for the noon meal when she is working at the Warner Bros. studio. That includes the tip, too. “Once I ate a dollar’s worth of lunch,” she confesses. “And I went to sleep on the set that afternoon. Besides, I had to go without dessert the next day to make up for it—so it really wasn’t worth while.” The little brunette star is currently appearing in “Call It a Day,” a Cosmopolitan production which comes to the ROUT Oe cOlias itr ea cau ane, jane Olivia’s mother is the keeper of the budget funds but Olivia is the budgeteer, and her sister Joan, is the “bad influence” who thinks budgets are made to be disregarded and who frequently urges Olivia to spend more than planned. “Before Joan came down to live with us,” explains Olivia, “T followed my budget very closely. Lunch is my main expense, because mother foots nearly all the other bills. Sometimes when I have interviews, the studio buys my lunch for me and I save the sixty cents. “That money goes into my reserve fund, which is kept in a child’s bank. There has never been more than $1.25 in it, however, since Joan got here, because she’s always trying to take me on a shopping spree.” FILM SCENES ARE ‘MATCHED’ WITH RECORD Two men and a women stood listening to a phonograph record on the “Call It a Day” set. Over and over the sound man played the record and from the loud speaker came the voices of Frieda Inescort and Roland Young as they play a scene for the film. Young was attempting to convince Miss Inescort that she should desert her husband, to whom she had been married twenty years, and marry him. Neither Miss Imnescort nor Young were listening to the reeord. The listeners were Director Archie Mayo, Ian Hunter, who plays Miss Inescort’s husband, and Marcia Ralston, who plays the actress with a yen for Hunter. There was a good reason for the phonograph 1ecord. Director Mayo was trying out a new technique. He was attempting to match, in tone, tempo and spirit, two similar sequences. In “Call It a Day,” a Cosmopolitan production released by Warner Bros., which is now showing at the Theatre, two domestic dramas are played simultaneously. Young is with Miss Inescort, making love to her and she is resisting his advances, trying to remain true to her husband. Miss Ralston has Hunter in her room, doing her best to break down his resistance. Mayo planned to intercut the scenes—to show first a flash of Young and Miss Inescort. To make the whole sequence successful, the scenes must match. As the Young-Inescort scenes were filmed first, Mayo had a record made and when he filmed the Hunter-Ralston scenes he played the record before each take. Director Mayo says that, to his knowledge, this is the first time the “playback” has been used in a dramatic sequence. Playbacks are used extensively in musical films where voices are recorded separately from action. Anita Louise Blonde Anita Louise is the girl next door, and a perfect reason to “Love thy neighbor” in “Call It A Day,” the Cosmopolitan comedy-drama that comes to the wach 5 eeetene TREC OM. cele sei eccst ce Mat No. 113—10ce Page Thirteen