Garden of the Moon (Warner Bros.) (1938)

ADVANCE PUBLICITY YOUR DAILY COLUMN (Latest news of forthcoming pictures from the Warner Bros. lot, pointed toward use in daily columns, house organs, programs and fillers.) % # *% BOMB AMMUNITION DEPOT Errol Flynn is promoted to job of sending replacements to front airlines just when Basil Rathbone is promoted on basis of work done under his command by Flynn and David Niven. They destroyed German ammunition depot. Rathbone gives boys hell for disobeying orders, then goes off to Flight H. Q. in high glee. Picture is 6‘ Dawn Patrol.”’ STARTS TODAY IN PRESSROOM Joan Blondell and Pat O’Brien start ‘* Unfit to Print’’ with argument in pressroom. Argument is beginning of love affair and rivalry between news hawks. Janet Shaw and Sybil Harris work in scene. * * *% POWELL PROPELLED TO RACES Unhappy over future, Dick Powell is propelled bodily toward steeplechase course where he must ride ‘‘ Jeepers Creepers,’’ wise horse that knows its rider. Anita Louise, Walter Catlett, Louis Armstrong and 40 others help start Powell on his way. Picture is ‘*Going Places.’’ * * * PAYNE TAKES BOMBER CONTROLS John Payne given controls of new Navy bomber for first time, under worried instructors Frank MeHugh and Victor Jory. They hope his bomber baptism won’t break things up. Picture is ‘‘Wings of the Navy.’’ * * * 45,000 STARS IN PICTURE But these stars were made of silver paper in the studio prop shops to decorate the ceiling of the night elub in ‘‘Garden of the Moon’’ coming to the Strand on Friday. The set was so big that it filled three stages and real stars Pat O’Brien, Margaret Lindsay and John Payne were kept plenty busy moving about from stage to stage for their many scenes. Director Busby Berkeley, who is used to big musical production numbers was the only one who felt at home. * * x FUN IN THE DORMITORY John Garfield and Dead End Kids rough-house in dormitory of training quarters as John begins preparations for fight to earn enough money to put Dead Enders in gasoline station business. Gloria Dickson finally quiets gang and sends them to bed for next day’s date-picking. Picture is ‘‘They Made Me A Criminal.’’ * * * SPEEDBOATS vs SUBMARINE Glenda Farrell, Tom Kennedy, Patrice Knowles, James Stephenson, Janet Shaw, Richard Bond will work tonight in scenes involving marine duel between submarine and speedboat. Shoot on Warner back-lot lake. Picture is ‘¢Torchy Blane in Chinatown.”’’ * * * ONLY 17 CAMELS IN CALIFORNIA Warners start census of camel residents of California in preparation for ‘‘ Desert Song.’’ Discover only 17 available. Need more. Plenty of goats around — will also be used in picture at oasis being built in desert near Yuma. * * * POKER GAME ON SET Card-playing on the set is strictly against studio rules, but. musicians (a notoriously card-playing group) in ‘‘Garden of the Moon’’. were exceptions to the rule. They played poker for a scene in the picture. Mat 204—30c A MILLION DOLLAR SMILE and a personality and singing voice to match make John Payne this year’s best bet for stardom. He’s currently topping the cast of “Garden of the Moon,” Warner Bros.’ swingy new musical comedy which comes to the Strand Theatre on Friday. John Payne May Emerge As An American-Model Flynn Warner Bros. are beginning to think that maybe they have another Errol Flynn in the person of John Payne, young leading man who got his first important screen break in ‘‘Garden of the Moon,’’ the Warner musical coming to the Strand Theatre on Friday. Payne has just expressed a desire to go on an expedition. He wants to find a ruby mine and thinks Ceylon, where rubies come from, would be as good a place as any to look, although the possibility of rubies in the upper reaches of the Amazon intrigues him. Like Flynn, who is an old hand at expeditions, Payne’s first brush with fame eame when he became an inter-scholastic champion in athleties, specializing in the javelin and hammer throw. Instead of boxing in the Olympies, as Flynn did, Payne wrestled for Mercersburg Academy and later for Roanoke College. Payne is as omnivorous a reader us Flynn, any piece of reading matter coming to hand being of interest. A yen for travel corresponding to Flynn’s has already taken the 26-year-old player to Hawaii, South America, Europe and Mexico. He sailed his first boat when he was 12 and lived on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. A few years younger than Flynn, Payne’s ‘‘break’’ is comparable to the one which catapulted the former to prominence. Flynn had been under contract for a couple of years before ‘‘Captain Blood’’ came along to give him his first ‘*break.’’? Payne kicked around in inconspicuous roles while he was under contract to two other studios before he signed his present Warner agreement. When Dick Powell stepped out of ‘*Garden of the Moon,’’ the Warners, who had just signed him, decided to give that role to Payne, since they had discovered he was a singer too. In that respect he has it on Flynn, who hasn’t sung so far. Taller than Flynn, Payne also has one of those bodies beautiful which elicit rapturous ‘‘Ahs!’’ from the lady section of an audience and honest admiration from ‘the males who would like to look like that in a bathing suit. Both gentlemen are married to actresses, Flynn to Lili Damita, Payne to Anne Shirley. Both use the same method of addressing their spouses; Flynn ealls his wife Damita. Payne ealls his Shirley. Besides his movie work, Flynn has done a good deal of writing, and his book ‘‘Beam’s End’’ has been on the best-seller list. Payne used to earn his living writing mystery stories—so chalk up one more talent which the two young men have in eommon., The many similarities between their established star and their latest candidate for stardom please the Warner folk, who hepe that the similarities presage as much of suecess for Payne as Flynn has had. Anyhow the firm thinks it has something of a corner on the dash-and-adventure market. PAT OBJECTED T0 TEMPTING FATE’ Seene 150, Page 110-A in the seript of ‘‘Garden of the Moon,’’ the Warner Bros. musical with Pat O’Brien, Margaret Lindsay and John Payne in the leading roles which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre, had to be re-writ ten because O’Brien is Irish. The scene had a line whieh Put was supposed to say after he broke his watch in the course of an argument. The line, to be spoken sadly after the horological mishap, was, ‘The watch my moth er gave me— on her deathbed.’’ Such an occurrence was supposed to make the O’Brien opponent in the argument, young Payne, sad too, and more amenable to reason, on Pat’s side. But Pat went to Busby Berkeley, the director, and said he couldn’t speak that line. He said it might be because he is Irish and there fore superstitious, but his mother is alive. Speaking the line as it was written originally would have been, according to Pat, something like thumbing his nose at fate. Berkeley heard Pat out and deferred to Pat’s Celtie reasoning. The line was changed to: ‘‘The watch my mother gave me—for my graduation.’’ Pat Runs Emotional Gamut From ‘A’ To At Least ‘Y’ All talk of gamuts to the contrary, it is a rare film role which gives an actor a gamut work-out that covers any more territory than Dorothy Parker’s famous ‘‘ A to B’’ gamut-running. Most film roles are played on one level, in one key, as it were. Characters are established as_heroes, heroines, heavies, comedians. They generally stay within the limits of their classification, their gamuts being restricted to actions which sustain their characterization in the screen play. Pat O’Brien, recently played his first real gamut part in a number of years. In.a way, it was reminiscent of his role in an old play he did once. It was reminiscent of Walter Burns in ‘‘The Front Page.’’ That editor ran the gamut habitually, for the benefit of his paper, his reporters and_ his very own self. He was a dynamic gyamut-runner, switching on a word from one stop to another. O’Brien played Burns on the stage and when he played in the sereen’s ‘“*Front Page’’ he was Hildy Johnson, something of a gamutrunner himself. After that, Pat’s roles ran pretty much in the groove. Recently, however, Pat worked harder than ever in the past. He was in ‘‘Garden of the Moon,’’ the Warner Bros. musical opening Friday at the Strand Theatre, his role being that of John Quinn, manager of the place. As the authors wrote it, Quinn is a hard guy, whose sole thought is the ‘*Garden.’’ He will do anything to keep it a great place. He lies, cheats, cajoles, plays honest or whatever the situation demands. His moods vary with the myriad characters he meets. ‘“Talk about working hard and running a gamut,’’ he said on the @ Motion Pictures Are Your set. ‘‘T haven’t had to do anything like this since I played four parts in the high school play. It’s different from my usual role and that’s why it’s harder. I’ve got to be a comedian, a lover, a tragic figure, a villain. I’ve got to register every emotion and thought with such a one-track mind as Quinn has. ‘““Maybe I am a little unscrupulous, but I’ve got to have a heart of gold, too. One minute I am bawling the living daylights out of a waiter and then I’m down on my knees to plead with some body else. Sometimes I use my arms and whole body to express an emotion. A second later I am underacting and underplaying for effect. ““The part is really an actor’s delight. It gives him a chance to do everything. The only trouble is that it’s hard to do everything different and well when you’re used to working as a type on one level. When they advertise this they can truthfully say I ran the gamut o* emoticns. What they won’t say is that it was one cf the toughest jobs I ever had.’’ Besides O’Brien, the cast of ‘*Garden of the Moon’’ ineludes Margaret Lindsay, John Payne, Isabel Jeans, Johnnie Davis, Melville Cooper, Jerry Colonna, and radio’s own Jimmie Fidler, who plays himself in the picture. Busby Berkeley directed from a screenplay by Jerry Wald and Rickard Macaulay, based on the Saturday Evening Post serial story of the same name. Mat 107—15e Best Entertainment @ Musicians Turn To Acting For ‘Garden Oj The Moon’ My. Winchell may not think Ben Bernie is an actor. The columnist may not even think Ol’ Massa Yowsah is a musician. There have been words printed in the Winchell pillar to that effect. The point is that Bernie holds a musician’s union ecard and has worked in the films. That leads to the thought that a number of other musicians (sie, Mr. Winchell) found their path to a screen career by way of trumpets, fiddles and other instruments caleulated to produce melod: y. Bob 3urns’ bazooka is in a special elassification of its own. Mat 108—15c Bernie started with a violin, which he supplemented by increasingly amusing patter. Dick Powell began as a multi-instrumentalist, playing practically anything hand ed to him. Fred MaeMurray played a saxophone and worked with bands, too, before he became a popular sereen star. He still retains his virtuosity. Johnnie Davis John Payne, who gets his break in ‘‘Garden of the Moon,’’ the Warner Bros. musical opening Friday at the Strand Theatre, in which he portrays a band leader, started his theatrical career as a band leader around Roanoke, Va., during high school days. He still plays the piano creditably, and in the picture he sings his band’s numbers, leading fifteen soloists and former band leaders through the musical action of ‘‘Garden of the Moon.’’ That same picture sees also the debut of several other ‘‘legitimate’’ musicians who are beginning their careers as full-fledged actors. Joe Venuti, called by authorities on swing the ‘‘ greatest hot jazz violinist of the country ’’ (rf. Hugues Pannassie’s ‘‘Le Jazz Hot,’’ a Paris classic on swing), is playing his fiddle, speaking lines and going through regular business like a regular actor. Jerry Colonna, who catapulted to film promimence after he was seen in a funny bit in ‘‘College Swing,’’ is another member of the ‘Garden of the Moon’’ orchestra embarked on an acting career. Co lonna is an expert in double-talk and an experienced comedy voea! ist, as well as an authority on the trombone, which started him indirectly on his acting jobs. Already established as a fea tured player is Johnnie Davis, who started blowing a trumpet in Bra zil, Ind., at the age of four or thereabouts. Arriving in Holly wood with Fred Waring’s Pennsy] ranians to play in ‘‘ Varsity Show,’’ Johnnie stayed on under contract to Warners. From the same aggregation came Rosemary and Priscilla Lane, who thus join the company of band-folk who are making good as film players. Tony Romano, guitarist, Sonny Brooks, trombone, Lew Snowden, saxophone, and ten others in the ‘“Swingadors’’ orchestra in 6‘ Garden of the Moon’? also have speak ing parts and numerous bits of business in the picture. All Zeros To Him Joe Venuti, first violinist with the ‘‘Swingado.s,’’ orchestra organized by Warner Bros. for *“Garden of the Moon,’’ the musical coming to the Strand Theatre, has an ear for musie but not for numbers. He has to ask his fellow musicians for his home phone number and address, although he ean get to his home well enough. It’s just that he can’t remember the street number.