Dodge City (Warner Bros.) (1939)

; PUBLICA Shorts On Production And Star Personalities; Column Of Odd, Interesting And True Flash News Items On The Film ‘Dodge City’ Dots And Dashes (NOTE: The items may be used to make up a guest column in local daily; or as fillers for part of a column; or as separate spot news releases. Of course, you add your theatre name and playdate ). The apparent paradox of casting the Irish Errol Flynn as a Western cattleman in "Dodge City" is justified in history, according to findings of the Warner Bros. research department. During the period depicted in the Technicolor picture (1872-78) the plains were full of Englishmen and Irishmen who had come to this country seeking adventure and land. * * * * When the Lt. Governor of Kansas delivered the Governor's invitation and the petition of the people of the state of Kansas to Warner Bros. asking them to hold the world premiere of “Dodge City" in Dodge City, little did they know that it would become the most talked-of town in the United States for weeks before and after the event, or that the population would swell from 14,000 to 50,000 for the event. * * * %* An historical relic which might well have occupied a place in the Smithsonian Institute recently went up in flames that motion picture audiences might enjoy a thrill. The relic was a baggage and mail car built for the Santa Fe Railway in 1869, and it was set on fire to provide the thrilling climactic scene in "Dodge City." * * * Olivia de Havilland estimates she has travelled a distance equal to that around the equator going to and from film locations. Acknowledged to be Warner Bros.’ best (and loveliest) ambassadress of good will, she recently travelled to Modesto, Calif., where "Dodge City" was filmed. * * * * The special trains which the Santa Fe Railway ran to Dodge City for the world premiere of the Warner Bros. Technicolor production of "Dodge City" carried more celebrities than any train since the famous “Forty Second Street Special." Included were movie stars, columnists, news correspondents and photographers, and motion picture executives. * * * * Nine of the principals die with their boots on in "Dodge City,” including Bruce Cabot, Victor Jory, Frank McHugh and John Litel. That this gory record is fully justified historically is proven by the data on Dodge City's famous Boot Hill cemetery which shows that ninety odd men and two women who came out second-best in gun fights were buried there between 1872 and 1878. * * * * Ann Sheridan, playing a dance hall hostess in "Dodge City," sings an old favorite—"Little Brown Jug." Ann, who is the pride of Texas, maintains that she knows 462 verses to the song, although sings only three or four in the picture. Now, Ann! * * * x One cinematic bath scene that censors will never object to is Alan Hale's in "Dodge City." Hale's mountainous form is well-covered by mountains of soap suds which fill the huge old-fashioned tub. Above the tub hangs the boastful legend that it is the only tub between Chicago and Denver. * x * * The "Dodge City Special" carried a club car decorated in the style of the "Gay Lady" saloon, which figures largely in the picture. Another car was rigged up by Western Union with 20 sending machines where the news correspondents could file their-stories covering the event. * x * * Bruce Cabot who has won film fame for his tough hombre portrayals, confessed on the set of "Dodge City," that his first studio job was that of “kiss tester.” He worked in screen tests opposite ambitious beauties and each test involved a kiss to determine the ambitious one's reactions. * « * * Some curio-collecting resident of Modesto, Calif., or vicinity now owns a gold railroad spike that isn't really gold but which was worth much more than its weight in gold to the Warner Bros. studio. The “Dodge City" troupe was reenacting a golden spike driving ceremony symbolizing the extension of the Santa Fe Railway into Dodge City, Kansas, when they discovered that the spike was missing. Delay and replacement cost much more than the original spike. * * * * For the scene in “Dodge City" in which one of the poker players gets shot in the famous Gay Lady saloon, Michael Curtiz, the director gave instructions to the prop man to deal a five-card hand including two aces and two eights to the man about to be shot. Aces and eights are the famous "dead man's hand," so known to veteran poker players all over the old West. The hand was named after a famous Mississippi gambler who was slain just as he had shown these two pairs. * * * * The Westmore brothers, Hollywood's famous make-up and hairdressing artists, recently performed a rush "glamorizing" job on—of all things —a cow pony. "Big Boy" Williams brought the horse to location on "Dodge City" to ride in the film, but on the first day a calf chewed off most of his tail. A new tail was made up by the Westmores in less than 24 hours. * * * * The Santa Fe Railway treasured its lone surviving west Kansas timetable of 1872 so highly that it would permit Warner Bros. studio to keep it only long enough to photograph it. The studio then used the photos to prepare its own facsimile timetable for use in "Dodge City." The ‘document’ makes one appearance in the screen story, when Henry Travers peruses it and observes that it took eight hours to travel from Newton, Kansas, to Dodge City. Now it takes something less than three. * * * * A replica of the famous Westmore Beauty Salon on Sunset Boulevard was set up on the "Dodge City Special," and parked there when it ar rived. Kansas belles from far and wide flocked there to be made up by the hands of the Hollywood experts who makeup the stars. * * * = The greatest indoor screen brawl ever put on celluloid is the saloon fight in "Dodge City." Director Michael Curtiz had 150 men brawling on the floor, on top of the bar, on the stairs and balconies. The fight, occupying ten minutes of finished footage in the picture, took more ¢ an five whole days to film. eeoseen Hee ne ERROL FLYNN Mat 108—15c Stars In Peril As Fans Break Window Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland narrowly escaped being cut by flying glass in a strange accident at Modesto, Calif., while they were on location with the Warner Bros. troupe filming ‘‘Dodge City,’’ the Technicolor production which is now showing at the Strand Theatre. Flynn and Miss de Havilland were dining together in the coffee shop of a Modesto hotel. Crowds of people, anxious to get a glimpse of the first cinema stars many of them had seen in the flesh, pressed against the outside windows. One of the windows suddenly collapsed inwardly, scattering glass across the table at which the film players were dining. ; FRANK McHUGH Mat 105—15e Wordless But Noisy Not an actor on the set of ‘“Dodge City,’’? the Warner Bros. Technicolor western, spoke a line for three and one-half days. Michael Curtiz was filming a gun duel in a baggage car. The only sounds were pistol reports. The participants were Errol Flynn, Alan Hale, Bruce Cabot, Victor Jory and Douglas Fowley. Acting Family Bobs Watson, who plays the 9year-old son of John Litel and Sara Haden in ‘‘ Dodge City,’’ the Warner Bros. western in Technicolor, is one of nine children—six being boys—all of whom have appeared in Hollywood films over the past twelve years. The boys and girls are sons of Coy Watson, himself a pioneer in Hollywood films as a technical man. GUINN WILLIAMS Mat 112—15e “Big Boy” An Expert Guinn ‘‘Big Boy’? Williams, the strapping, 235-pound poloplaying actor, did double duty during the filming of the Warner Bros. Technicolor production, ‘*Dodge City.’’? Besides playing one of the important supporting roles in the million-and-a-half-dollar production which stars Errol Flynn, he served as a part-time technical adviser to Director Michael Curtiz. One amusing thing about the technical end of Williams’ duties was the fact that, by his own confession, most of his knowledge of things western had been gained from his work in numerous ‘‘hoss operas’’ for small, independent producers, ealled ‘quickie outfits’? in Hollywood. Gift From Sailors Bowls Olivia Over Reading that Olivia de Havilland had taken up bowling, a group of sailors at San Diego shipped the brown-eyed charmer a mahogany bowling ball as a gift. When unpacked, the mahogany proved to be only a shell which came apart in two halves, revealing three pounds of chocolates inside. The sailor boys inclosed a note asking ‘‘Livvy’’ to autograph a real bowling ball for them to use in their Navy tournament games. OLIVIA De HAVILLAND Mat 103—15c Join Forces Again Olivia de Havilland and Victor Jory are again together in the cast of a motion picture production for the first time in four years. Miss de Havilland portrays a western belle and Jory a gun-fighting killer in ‘‘ Dodge City,’’ the Warner Bros. Technicolor western. The last time they played together in the screen was in ‘‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’’ Jory played Oberon and Miss de Havilland played Hermia in Warners’ picturization of the Shakespearean famous fantasy. Has Historic Role The role which red-headed Ann Sheridan plays in ‘‘Dodge City’’ —that of a dance hall queen and sweetheart of the town’s big-shot gunman—had its counterpart in a real life character named Dora Hand. Dora was a one time opera singer in New York whose thirst for adventure brought her out to wild and woolly Dodge City, where she worked as an entertainer in a dance hall and saloon. ANN SHERIDAN Mat 104—15¢ Adopts 1870 Style Olivia de Havilland in her screen life shuttles between hoopskirts and bustles. As a consequence she not only knows her history like an H. G. Wells but knows the feminine fancies of*the various times in which she has pictorially lived. While preparing for ‘‘Dodge City,’’ which is laid in 1872, Olivia beeame intrigued with the pinafores young ladies of the day wore. Working with Milo Anderson, studiv stylist, they hit upon a modern version of violet velveteen which Oliva wears over an antique blue sheer wool frock. Cowboys Were Cops Forty cowboys engaged to ride herd on 2000 steers working in ‘“‘Dodge City,’’ rode herd one Sunday on the population of Modesto, Calif., and environs, instead. An estimated ten or eleven thousand persons drove thirty-five miles to the location site that Sunday to watch Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and the other stars enact scenes for the big production, and it was the cowboys’ job to keep the visiting crowds in order. BRUCE CABOT Mat 110—15c Nickels And Dimes Worthless In 1872 In preparing data for the filming of ‘‘ Dodge City’’ the Warner Bros. Technicolor production opening Friday at the Strand Theatre, the studio research staff learned that the smallest accepted piece of currency to be circulated in that frontier outpost at the time the railroad was invading the land of the buffalo and the red men (18721878) was a 25-cent piece. One astute merchant, thinking to win the favor of the thrifty, sent east for a shipment of nickels and dimes, with which he announced himself as prepared to make change, but this move proved unpopular, and the merchant found both himself and his wares shunned by the cattlemen. A He-Man Motorist Rain or shine, Bruce Cabot likes to travel with the top of his rakish convertible coupe down. He never wears a hat and he presented quite a figure tearing along the roads with his hair, grown long for his role in ‘‘ Dodge City,’’ streaming in the wind. VICTOR JORY Mat 111—15c¢ Has Novel Hobby Victor Jory, one of. the screen’s baddest bad men, occupies his time in the makeup chair manufacturing strange objects which he ealls ‘*pretties.’? He makes them of anything handy, a burnt match, a hairpin, an orange peel. After completing an object he gives it a name such as ‘‘ Apple With a vengeance,’’ ‘‘nude pineapple,’’ ‘‘unprincipled albatross, ’’ Jory plays Yancey, the killer, in Warner Bros.’ lavish Technicolor production, ‘‘Dodge City,’’: starring Errol Flynn. Odd Combination One of Alan Hale’s assignments for his role in ‘‘ Dodge City,’’ was to memorize the words and music of a Sunday School hymn of 1872, titled ‘‘Life Is Like a Mighty River.’’ Another of Hale’s assignments was to learn the rebel yell, as he played a rough, tough, unreconstructed survivor of the Lost Cause who had turned cow boy on the frontier. ALAN HALE Mat 107—15e¢ Boards The Surf Errol Flynn, the adventurous star of ‘‘ Dodge City,’’ has added surfboarding to his lengthy list of athletic accomplishments. The Warner star disclosed on his re turn from Honolulu that he has mastered the surfboard under the expert tutelage of Duke Kahana moku, the celebrated Hawaiian swimming star who is now the sheriff of Honolulu.