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

10 CURRENT PUBLICITY MILWAUKEE'S MOST FAVORED NATIVE IS PAT O'BRIEN His home town of Milwaukee is proud of Pat O’Brien. Pat, in fact, is probably Milwaukee’s most favored son. New evidence of the esteem in which Milwaukeeans hold the former local boy who has become a famous motion picture star reached him in the form of a request that came to the set of his latest Warner Bros. picture, “Garden of the Moon,” which is now showing at the Strand Theatre. A group of twelve Milwaukee lads between the ages of 14 and 18 have requested of Pat that he forward to them as many “relics of your career as you can spare.” The “relics” are to furnish the “O’Brien Acting Academy” formed by the group, which is headed by Peter Ryan, 17. The “O’Brien Acting Academy” is meant, the boys inform Pat, to help young fellows learn to be actors like him. They are planning to rent a cottage where they can rehearse various roles and hold their meetings. O’Brien is sending them scripts of the plays and motion pictures in which he has appeared and an assortment of theatrical souvenirs. A large 6-sheet advertising poster with Pat’s head on it was obtained by the boys from a loeal theatre manager and is to be given the place of honor behind the chairman’s table in the meeting room of the ‘Academy.’ ISABEL A FLUTTERER OFF SCREEN AND ON Isabel Jeans, for the benefit of those who came in late, is as fluttery a comedienne off the screen as on. Miss Jeans, who is intelligible on the sound track only because directors are admonished by sound men to slow up her conversation, has a naturally cottony manner of speaking. She speaks rapidly and her words tumble over themselves. One day last May on the set of “Garden of the Moon,” the Warner Bros. musical in which she plays a prominent part and which is showing at the Strand Theatre, she amazed a young man by asking him when Lord Cecil Douglas’ birthday was. After enlisting the aid of the studio’s research department and learning that Lord Ceeil Douglas is the younger brother of the Marquis of Queensbury, the young man brought back the information that the lord was born on Deecember 27, 1898. Miss Jeans was properly grateful for the information. Then she thought a moment. “T say,” she I-sayed, “but that’s a long way off. Silly, rather, to send him a birthday present now. But, I say, I'll send him a plain present now and tell him to save it for his birthday. Thank you so much. It was veddy kind of you, eh?” Miss Jeans, by the way, is the person who carried on a conversation for fifteen minutes with a low fellow who answered her in double-talk, while she carried on in her natural English fashion, which sounded like double-talk to the low fellow. Payne An Adonis John Payne, latest addition to the Warner Bros. talent roster, has the smallest waist and largest chest of any male player on the lot. The waist is 29 inches and the unexpanded chest 43 inches. Swimming did it, says John. His first Warner Bros. picture is ‘‘Garden of the Moon,’’ which is now showing at the Strand Theatre. puts over a good point — well, anyway, a point. “Garden of the Moon,” Mat 301—45 AT THE ‘GARDEN OF THE MOON’ — Jimmie Fidler and Margaret Lindsay look on while Pat O’Brien Warner Bros.” new swing musical comedy, in which the three are featured will have its first local showing today at the Strand Theare. ‘Garden of the Moon’ Fast-Moving (Review) Comedy Packed With Hot Tunes STORY SYNOPSIS: (not for publication). There’s a hot and tricky feud between Pat O’Brien, impresario of the famous night spot “Garden of the Moon” and John Payne, impertinent young leader of a hot swing band which O’Brien alternately hires, fires, and tries to rehire. Margaret Lindsay, pretty press agent for the “Garden” is right in the middle, but she soon swings over to Payne’s side. Jimmie Fidler, playing himself, helps Pat pull a final death-scene gag to make Payne sign on the dotted line. Five new and hot tunes are introduced by the band, with Payne doing a nifty job of vocalizing which lands him in the big time, and helps him win the hand of the ‘Garden’s’ pretty press agent. Length — 8589 ft. Something new and different in the way of musical comedies has been realized in ‘‘Garden of the Moon,’’ the Warner Bros. produetion based upon the Saturday Evening Post serial of the same name, which opened yesterday at the Strand Theatre. It has a story. A story that makes sense and is packed with first-rate comedy. It has tunes which only the stone-deaf can refrain from whistling, humming or singing, and it is presented with a spirited liveliness that ranks it as one of the year’s best comedies—musical or otherwise. Added to its superlative excel lence as sheer entertainment, the new musical gains enormously in interest because it introduces a personable young man who, by his work in this one picture, establishes himself indubitably as a singing and acting star of the first magnitude. The young man is John Payne, who shares top-billing honors with Pat O’Brien and Margaret Lind say. It is no aspersion on the contributions of the latter two—for, after all, their positions have long been well-established—to say that tall, dark and very handsome Mr. Payne is the big news Music and comedy are the two basie ingredients of “Garden of the Moon,” the Warner Bros. production based upon the Saturday Evening Post story of the same name which opens today at the Strand Theatre with Pat O’Brien, Margaret Lindsay and John Payne in the featured roles. Aside from the continuous entertainment it affords, “Garden of the Moon” is likely to become a memorable production because it introduces John Payne to the motion picture public in the first important role with which he has been entrusted since he came to Hollywood a couple of years ago. In this tall and handsome youth with his unaffected, ingratiating personality and charming singing voice, the Warner studio is convinced it has a veritable star of the most brilliant magnitude, a of the production. Pat O’Brien is said to have regarded his role as the manager of the famous night spot called the “*Garden of the Moon,’’ as one of the best in his career. He’s right. And he did full justice to the opportunity it gives him, for he is brilliantly effective in making an amusing and unforgettable character of the hard-boiled, double-crossing impresario he plays. Miss Lindsay—in a new type of role, as a girl press agent for the ‘“Garden’’—does a sparkling job which speaks well for her future sereen career. Assisting Payne in putting over the musical numbers, and also contributing importantly to the comedy, are a quartette of fellows long famous as musicians and unorthodox vocalists but not quite so well known as they should be for their comedy. They are Johnnie Davis, Joe Venuti, Jerry Colonna and Ray Mercer, and they’re worth the price of admission by themselves. Besides these entertainers, there is a highly competent aggregation of players handling the straight acting roles, among whom the most effeetive portrayals are eon Motion Pictures Are Your Best Entertainment @ New Musical Opens At Strand Today youth who possesses in superlative quantity, every quality that goes to make up the ideal young singing actor. Besides the three featured players, the new musical picture has a cast that includes some of the cleverest entertainers who have ever appeared on the screen. Four of them are famous swingstyle musicians who happen also to be first-rate comedians all. They are Johnnie Davis, Joe Venuti, Jerry Colonna and Ray Mayer. Another interesting feature of the production is the appearance of the famous Jimmie Fidler of the air lanes, who plays himself in the story. The impressive cast is rounded out by such reliable players as Melville Cooper, Isabel Jeans, Penny Singleton, Mabel Todd, Curt Bois, Dick Purcell and Running Time — 94 min. tributed by Melville Cooper, Isabel Jeans, Curt Bois, Mabel Todd, Penny Singleton, and, finally, that famous chatterbox of the radio, Jimmie Fidler, who executes with surprising skill the really difficult assignment of playing himself. No summation of the enjoyable features of the production could be complete without a tribute to the musical numbers contributed by the ever-reliable Harry Warren, Al Dubin and Johnny Mercer. They wrote five new songs for this picture, of which the ecatchiest is probably the lilting fox trot en titled ‘‘Confidentially.’’ As the basis for two unusually-staged numbers, they wrote novelty songs with the intriguing titles, ‘‘The Girl Friend of the Whirling Dervish’’ and ‘‘The Lady on the TwoCent Stamp,’’ which will undoubtedly be regarded by many people as the most enjoyable features of the production. Busby Berkeley directed the entire production and proves again, as he twice before was given op portunity to do, that his talents are not limited to the direction of dance numbers. Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay wrote the screen play from the story by H. Bedford-Jones and Barton Browne. a Granville Bates. The melodic background against which the efforts of the comedians are projected, consists of five new songs written by those famous fashioners of hit tunes, Harry Warren, Al Dubin and Johnny Mercer. Payne sings all of them, with the assistance on a couple of them of the vocal and instrumental efforts of the Messrs. Davis, Venuti, Colonna and Mayer, and all of them are played by a specially formed band of real swing virtuosi, of whom the four gentlemen just mentioned are the aces. The story, which is a very free adaptation of the original, with comedy stressed throughout, was written by Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay, and the produetion was directed throughout by Busby Berkeley. MARGARET LINDSAY PLAYS PRESS AGENT IN NEW MUSICAL he day of the ingenue, sweet young thing whose only excuse for being was to give the leading man someone to fall in love with, is just about a thing of the past in Hollywood. The ingenue type, long a standard of the stage and sereen, is giving over to ladies just as young who prefer to play ‘character roles,’’ to be known as ‘‘ character people.’’ Love is not their sole excuse for being these days. They want to get out and do things on the screen, to be real people instead of cream puffs. A glance at the later entries in a variety of Hollywood records reveals the new trend by which beautiful young things become holy terrors or newspaperwomen or lady press agents, which may ali be the same thing. Margaret Lindsay has resolved not to do ingenue roles so far as her studio will permit her to avoid them. The studio is Warner Bros., where the trend was first noticed and where Margaret is apparently Mat 106-—15¢ MARGARET LINDSAY — plays the feminine lead in “Garden of the Moon,” film musical opening at the Strand Theatre today. perfectly safe from the cloying sweetness of unadulterated ‘‘lave interest. ’’ In ‘‘Garden of the Moon,’? Warner Bros.’ picture which opens today at the Strand Theatre, Margaret is a feminine public relations counsellor for the large hotel enterprise of which the ‘*Garden’’ is a chief feature. She really works, and she battles regwarly with Pat O’Brien, manager of the ‘‘Garden of the Moon.’: She is also the object of O’Brien 's affections. Even more she is the object of John Payne’s affections, but all through the picture there is no single fleeting possibility of calling her an ingenue. Fidler At Home Jimmie Fidler felt perfectly at home while playing the role of himself in “Garden of the Moon,” the Warner Bros. musical now at the Strand Theatre. The motion picture studio. reproduced in detail for his broadcasts in the pieture the radic studio from which he broadcasts regularly on Tuesday and Friday evenings. In addition to making the set an accurate, “homey” reproduetion of Fidler’s real radio workshop, the studio also hired his regular announcer, Bob Sherwood, to do the announcements and introductions in the picture He Mystifies Them Writing them instead of reading them is John Payne’s idea of getting enjoyment out of mystery sto ries. He wrote one’ between shots of ‘‘Garden of the Moon,’’ she Warner Bros. musical now showing at the Strand Theatre, in which he has the leading role. Mystery writing is nothing new for him. For nine months he made his living in New York as a regular contributor to Astound ing Tales and Weird Stories,