Goodbye Again (Warner Bros.) (1933)

(Advance Feature Warren William Balks At Night Work In Pictures Not Temperament but Good Sense Prompted Star of “Goodbye Again,” To Register Protest HE guy’s gone Barrymore,’’ 66 was the first frank comment on Warren William, Warner Bros. star, when he refused to do night work during the filming of his latest First National picture, ‘‘Goodbye Again’’ which opens at the ............ ee a eatre-On 33-3. It’s one of the easiest charges in the world to aim at Warren, because he does look as much like Barrymore as Barrymore does _ himself. Away back in the early days of Warren’s stage career, a critic, Alexander Woollcott, said of him, ‘‘ He has a Barrymore accent in his speech and a Barrymore tone in his voice, and he looks the very image of the young John Drew who played Petruchio.” But Warren’s refusal to work nights on his most recent picture wasn’t, as might easily have appeared, a touch of the Barrymore temperament as well. No one in Hollywood, is farther removed from temperament and all that the word implies than Warren William, He happens to be an actor who takes his art as_a business. He hopes to practice it for many years to come. And so he tries to give it today the same amount of thought and application that he hopes to give it ten or twenty years hence. “No one can work all day at acting, and expect to work the same night at acting, without a proper amount of time for preparation for the next day’s work and still be able to give his best efforts.” ete He didn’t say any more. He didn’t have to. Warren’s studio, as it happens, understands his viewpoint only too well, and was willing enough to grant his point. Pictures may be in a hurry, but they are never in such a hurry that a proper amount of time cannot be taken for learning lines and business at nights. eee The criticism came from other sources. It became laughable, also, as Warren became better known. He began his stage career because his father wanted him to become a newspaper man. Warren himself wanted to be a marine engineer. So they compromised on the stage. Nothing, surely, could be farther removed from temperament than the office of a marine engineer. Calmness, strength and acquiescence in any reasonable demands made upon him have marked Warren’s career from the first. He started out on the stage, wishing to be a comedian. His first light comedy role was given him in his present picture, “Goodbye Again.” Little temperament there! Yet, just as he proved to his father that he could make a good actor of himself—a far better actor than newspaperman—he was to prove with this picture that even the producers may have been wrong about him. In “Goodbye Again” Warren has the role of a popular novelist who is worshipped by women, which fact leads to no end of merry marital mix-ups in this hilarious comedy, based on the noted Broadway stage success. There is an exceptionally strong cast, which includes Joan Blondell, Genevieve Tobin, Helen Chandler, Ruth Donnelly and Wallace Ford. The direction is by Michael Curtiz. | E F JOAN BLONDELL From earliest infancy the Warner Bros. star, Joan Blondell’s life has been closely allied with the theatre. Her father, a well to walk. known vaudeville performer for twenty years, earried his family with him on his numerous treks across the country on the various vaudeville circuits, the group had a part in the act not excluding even the baby, Joan, when he was scarcely able and each and every member of Following her sensational debut in ‘‘Sinners’ Holiday,’’ Joan next appeared in ‘‘The Office Wife’’ and then in a quick succession, ‘‘Tllicit,’’ ““Other Men’s Women,’’ ‘‘My Past,’’ ‘‘God’s Gift to Women,’’ ‘‘Night Nurse,’’ ‘‘Blonde pee 7? «The Famous Ferguson Case,’’ ‘‘Blon die Johnson,’’ ‘‘Three On a Match,’’ ‘‘Central JOAN BLONDELL Park,’’ ‘‘Big City Blues’’ and ‘‘Gold Diggers Cut No. 1 Cut 15¢ Mat 5e Again.’? HELEN CHANDLER Helen Chandler, next to be seen in an important role in the First National production “Goodbye Again” was born and educated in New York City. She is a graduate of the Professional Children’s School. Her stage experience started when she was cast as Hedwig in “The Wild Duck” in which she made a marked success. After several seasons on Broadway, she was claimed by the movies, “Music Master” constituting her first screen appearance. Later she returned to the New York stage for an extended run in “Springtime for Henry.” Her recent pictures include “Vanity Street,’ “Christopher Strong,” “The Last Flight” and “House Divided” in addition, of course to the current “Goodbye Again.” Page Siz of 1933.’’ She is now appearing in ‘‘Goodbye GENEVIEVE TOBIN Genevieve Tobin who has one of the feminine leads in the First National picture “Goodbye Again” was born in New York City and educated there and in Paris. Like so many of her contemporaries, she is a product of the New York stage but in addition has played much abroad, notably a year at the Queen’s Theatre in London where she was featured in “The Trial of Mary Dugan.” Her first screen role was in “A Lady Surrenders.” More reeent appearances were in ‘Pleasure Cruise,” “The Infernal Machine” and “Perfect Understanding,” the latter with Gloria Swanson in a London made production. “Goodbye Again” is her first picture under the Warner Bros.-First National banner. ADVANCE FEATURES (Advance Feature ) Joan Blondell Got Her Man But Admits She Chased Him By ROSALIND SHEPARD HICH is the surest way to ‘‘get your man’’? Chase him for all you’re worth? Or push him so hard into the arms of your rival that he’ll bounce right back to you? I asked those questions of Joan Blondell, who ought to know the answer. She’s tried both ways on and off the screen. ‘*Wither method,’’ Joan replied promptly, as if she had already given the matter much consideration, ‘‘is swell.’’ One is just as effective, and sure, as the other. ‘‘But,’’ she added complacently, belying her own words, ‘‘I chased George.”’ “George,” I don’t need to tell you, is George Barnes, Joan’s husband, and one of Hollywood’s most one cameramen. He photographed his own pretty wife in “Goodbye Again,” the Warner Bros. picture coming to ULC: Grn ee ree tren eee Theatre. In this picture, she plays opposite Warren William, with Genevieve Tobin as the rival. They met, under the same conditions, when Joan was loaned to another company for a_ picture. Joan took one look at the personable cameraman, and smiled the famous Blondell smile right at him. But he didn’t smile back. For days she kept on trying. Finally, one day, she was rewarded. He smiled. Then she started in to wrangle a date. The first “bid” came, unfortunately, the night of Joan’ s own birthday dinner at home. She missed it—romance was more important. From then on, Joan modestly admits, George didn’t have a chance. Yet, when he finally proposed, she said No! After “chasing him,” making him “fall,” she then played “hard to land.” But the second, or maybe the third time he popped the question, Joan gracefully capitulated, and a happy Hollywood hillside home is the mute answer to my question as to “chasing versus running away.” Warren William, playing opposite Joan in “Goodbye Again,” is inclined to agree with her. “Tt’s good psychology,” he thinks. “Tf a man knows that a girl likes him enough to chase him a little bit, it does grand things to his selfesteem, and naturally, he likes her back. More romances, I’m sure, have been started by a girl being ‘satisfied’ with the man of her choice, and not being afraid to show it, then there have been by moonlight and roses.” In “Goodbye Again,’ however, Joan, playing a secretary in love with her boss, a popular novelist who knows too much about feminine psychology for his own good, takes just the opposite tactics. Genevieve Tobin wants him, and chases him. So Joan, jealous but too proud to let on, throws them together, deserts him in compromising situations, and all but hires them a minister. Result, Warren, hurt at Joan’s sudden withdrawal, piqued and wounded in pride, takes a violent dislike to the woman who is chasing him, and comes running back to the one who is “hard to get.” “So, you can take your choice,” says Joan. “Both ways seem to work.” But maybe—just maybe—you have to be Joan Blondell! “Goodbye Again,” in which the two ways of “getting your man” are so effectively presented, is a racy, frothy comedy with unusually amusing dialogue and situations, taken from the current Broadway stage success of the same name. Helen Chandler, Wallace Ford, Ruth Donnelly, Hugh Herbert, Jay Ward and Hobart Cavanaugh also are featured in the cast and Michael Curtiz directed. BIOGRAPHIES + WARREN WILLIAM Warren William, now appearing in “Goodbye Again,’ always wanted to be an actor but it wasn’t until after he served in the in Europe. gineer-actor WARREN WILLIAM Cut No. 2 Cut 15ce Mat 5c Engineers’ Corps of the A.E.F., and the armistice had been been signed, that he joined a theatrical troupe, organized to tour the Army Camps When he returned to America, the soldier-en decided to find out whether lay audiences might not approve of his ability as definitely as his doughboy audiences on the other side had done. Warren found himself in a road company of ‘*T Love You.’’ A season in stock ensued, then Broadway gave him a chance in Rachel Crothers’ ‘Expressing Willie.’’ Talking pictures were still in the novelty stage when Warner Bros. invited Warren William to Hollywood. With such pictures as ‘‘The Dark Horse,’’ ‘‘The Mouthpiece,’’ ‘‘Three On a Match,’’ ‘‘The Match King,’’ ‘‘ Employees’ Entrance,’’ ‘‘The Mind Reader’’ and ‘‘Gold Dig gers of 1933’? he has risen steadily in popularity. WALLACE FORD Not far from where Charles Chaplin played as a ragged urchin in the streets of London, a foundling was left with the Dr. Bernardo orphanage. He was Wallace Ford—lIrish, blue-eyed and today one of the best young actors in Hollywood. He was sent off to Manitoba, Canada, when he was eleven, to be apprenticed to and adopted by a wheat farmer. But once in America, he ran away, to join Theodore Robert’s stock company in Winnipeg. When he wasn’t playing a boy’s part with the company, he shined shoes or washed dishes or ran errands for his meals and keep. Since then he has been with boat shows, with repertory shows, he was a Singer in a saloon in St. Joe, he has been a hoofer, a ham actor, he has done juveniles and characters. His pictures include “Employees’ Entrance,” ‘“Possessed,” “The Wet Parade,” “Freaks,” “Hypnotized,” “Central Park” and his current production, “Goodbye Again.”