Dames (Warner Bros.) (1934)

Oddities e Production Items e Human Interest Stories As suggested in The Film Daily’s poll of motion picture editors 300 Beautiful Girls In Novel Act on Magic Set Busby Berkeley Creates Amazing Revolving Contraption For ‘“‘Dames’’ By CARLISLE JONES AKE: Three hundred beautiful girls. One catchy rhythm. Thirty tons of revolving steel. Half a dozen telescoping stairways. Five thousand yards of black velvet. No Stage Door Romances Await Screen Chorus Girls Dancers In “Dames” Know Only Hard Work Says Former Woman Journalist By PATRICIA HARPER (Editor’s Note: Miss Harper, who has been a newspaper reporter, feature writer, artist and Hollywood scenarist, worked in the Busby Berkeley ensembles of the Warner Bros. special musical ‘‘Dames.’’) “I EN must work and women must weep’’ was an old : saying of our grandmothers. Times have changed. Perhaps, once upon a time, a woman’s place was in the home, but today there are women in every field of endeavor and the advent of the musical films has created a strictly feminine profession. Camera chorus girls is one job where men can’t say that women are usurping their rightful place! Three hundred girls were gathered by “Buzz” Berkeley for the dance ensembles of the picture titled “Dames.” Some of them Patricia Harper, one of Busby Berkeley’s hand-picked beauty chorus appearing in Warner Bros.’ “Dames.” (No mat available — Order still No. D. Pub A 301—10c) have stirring ambitions and hope that being picked as a Berkeley beauty may prove a stepping stone to featured parts and eventually stardom. To others, like myself, it is just a job, the same as typing, slinging hash or what have you, despite the hidden hope that one may be spotted by a director and lifted out of the chorus line. _One will find here girls from every walk of life. The daughter of a duke, a society girl, a girl who hitch-hiked her way to Hollywood, beauty contest winners, college girls and just home girls. They’re all here. From Writer To Dancer I used to be a newspaper writer, a sob-sister. During the depression I found my way into the Berkeley chorus via Eddie ‘stage sister. Cantor’s musical, “The Kid From Spain.” When Berkeley is seeking girls for his ensembles he isn’t content with merely calling the film ecasting agencies. The call goes out to offices, factories, employment bureaus, both domestic and business, anywhere that he may be likely to discover a new type. The “beautiful but dumb” are not wanted here. Personality, intelligence and, above all, the willingness to work, are assets required of Busby Berkeley girls. The life of a movie chorine is quite in contrast to that of her No sleeping until noon with only a matinee and evening performance. We punch a time clock just like any other business girl and we arrive in work-a-day clothes and usually old Fords. No late supper after the show with home big “butter and egg” man or out of town buyer for us. The wise girl tumbles into bed promptly and catches her required number of hours sleep before the alarm clock awakens her for an early morning call. And she’s out of luck if she figures she can step out of the chorus into a Rolls Royce, a Fifth Avenue penthouse and an unlimited charge account at Tiffany’s. There are no stage door Johnnies at the studio. The most prominent thing about the entrance to a Busby Berkeley set is the “No Visitors” sign above the door. No Stage Door “Johns” If some bald head in the front row likes the shape of a chorine’s—ah, nose—he can’t hang around backstage and meet her, for the distance from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, or wherever the film happens to be showing, to Hollywood is discouraging enough in itself. Even if he happens to live in the movie city, his chances of meeting the girl are practically nil, for the addresses and telephone numbers of the Stir well for a month of six weeks. Photograph from every conceivable angle and you have: “Eyes For You,’ a Busby Berkeley number, in the Warner Bros. mammoth musical spectacle “Dames,” which comes to the Leen eae PH GALES ON w-.c.cme, oxn85 with Joan Blondell, Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler heading an all star cast. There is no quick and easy way to build a convincing spectacle in an important musical picture. Every breath-taking moment in the “Shadow Waltz” number of “Gold Diggers of 1933”; every visual ecstacy of the “Waterfall” sequence of “Footlight Parade,” and all of the mirrored magnificence of the famous waltz number in “Wonder Bar,” represented days and weeks and sometimes months of painstaking preparation. It was true of the lavish spectacles mentioned above and it is doubly true of Busby Berkeley’s astounding contribution to the new musical, “Dames.” Consider the steel, concrete and ornamental paint and plaster mechanism which makes possible the camera magic in the chorines are jealously guarded by the casting office. What men she meets are in the course of her regular social life. Aside from the director and his assistants, the cameramen and a few electricians, her acquaintance list is rather limited, on the set. Even if all these were single they wouldn’t go far were they distributed among three hundred beauties. Of course there are exceptions when some girl steps from the chorus into a Beverly Hills mansion, but most of the Marys, Tillies and Juliettes of the profession eventually marry butchers, bakers and candlestick makers who have never seen the inside of a studio. Some already have homes and husbands—yes—and even some are proud mothers supporting children! No champagne and caviar diets for these Berkeley girls! It’s beefsteak and potatoes, lamb chops and spinach, for above all Berkeley requires that his girls retain their health and energy. Late hours can’t fit in with such ideas, either. There are days and days of rehearsal. The girls walk and dance miles up and down stairs, on the stage and off the stage, with monotonous repetition and there is no applause from the front row to inspire one who is suffering with tired and aching feet. There’s only the critical director, his several assistants. blase electricians, cameramen and property men for an audience. But—all this hard work has its compensations for “Dames.” We’re working—we’re self-supporting—it’s our bid for a delightful feeling of independence. number “Hyes For You” .in “Dames.” Thousand Workers Involved Involved in the construction and decoration of the mechanical background of the new Berkeley spectacle, were nearly a thousand regular studio employes. Some of them worked only a few days on the project. Some gave it all their time for more than a month. Among the latter was Lewis Geib, head of the studio technicians and the engineer responsible for the suecess or failure of the machine. He started it, as usual, by cutting a big round hole in a sound stage floor and excavating deeply underneath it. In this cavity Geib built an all steel turntable, forty feet in diameter, which revolved on steel rails and which was driven by a self contained electric motor capable of turning the huge “platter” at ten different speeds in either direction. Mounted in this turntable, a fabricated steel Ferris Wheel, thirty feet in diameter, was fitted so that it rode in a eradle. The Ferris wheel was without a center or axle of any kind, and was driven by an endless chain, which circled the outside of the wheel, from its own power plant below the floor of the turntable. This upright wheel carried the platforms on which the girls ride in the completed picture, each platform so geared with the wheel that it remained solidly level at all times and in all positions. Fastened to the turntable itself and running like an _ inverted “V” through the Ferris wheel at an angle was a double set of stairs. Just to either side but off the turntable were other similar sets of stairways, two of them, one end of each mounted on a swinging pivot and the other on a moving tram, riding on _ ste2l rails and controlled by an endless steel cable and still a different set of motors, all under the floor of the set. The steps swung about the pivot in a wide are, either in unison with or independent of the turntable. . New Effects Made Possible Berkeley had then, a huge turntable which would revolve horizontally in either direction, carrying with it an upright circular Ferris Wheel and one double flight of stairs. He had the Ferris Wheel, which would give vertical rotation, carrying girls in great circles over and under the fixed stairway on the turntables. This precious child of his imagination had cost some $40,000 for the mechanical part alone, but it enabled Berkeley to live up to his reputation of always supplying new thrills to the axdience at a Warner musical. But the end was not yet. The entire set was upholstered in black velvet, Berkeley demanding for that purpose, almost all the material of that nature that could be found in Los Angeles. This was literally the greatest plaything the new genius of sereen spectacle had ever had to work with. He fairly reveled in this new opportunity. He loaded the stairs and the turntable and the Ferris Wheel with costumed girls and turned them this way and that and shunted them backwards and forwards. Four or five hundred tired but triumphant workmen ean testify that that final sentence is really and understatement of facts. “Dames” is a gigantic musical comedy spectacle with an all star cast which includes Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, ZaSu Pitts, Guy Kibbee, Hugh Herbert, besides several hundred beautiful chorus girls. The music and lyrics were written by three noted teams of songwriters, Warren and Dubin, Fain and Kahal, and Dixon and Wrubel. Ray Enright directed. The star spectacle from the Warner musical, “Dames.” Mat No. 19—20ce Page Nine