Granny Get Your Gun (Warner Bros.) (1940)

PUBLICITY—"GRANNY GET YOUR GUN” Sere Sheriff Wears Gingham 4 Mat 201—30c SHERIFF MAY ROBSON won't let Harry Davenport cramp her style in Warner Bros.—First National's "Granny Get Your Gun." The film, also featuring Margot Stevenson, Hardie Albright and Wm. Davidson, opens Friday at the Strand. (Lead Story) It’s ‘Sheriff’ May Robson In ‘Granny Get Your Gun’ Rarely has a movie set been the scene of such hilarity as that of “Granny Get Your Gun,” the Warner Bros. film which makes its local debut on the Strand Screen Friday. The responsible party was the film’s venerable star, May Robson, who is always good for a laugh, on the screen or off. And the particular set-up on “Granny Get Your Gun”’ offered opportunity a-plenty to whet Miss Robson’s whimsy. Her role calls for a hard-bitten old grubstaker whose pet passions are desert rats, shooting pistols at tin cans and mean horseback riding in spite of her seventy-odd years. Miss Robson romped through these experiences as enthralled as a star-struck deb in her first role. And her vixenish sequence when, dolled up in frills and old lace, she tries to impress a jury into thinking her a sweet old lady, caused many a round of chuckles. Appearing with Miss Robson, the screen newcomer, Margot Stevenson, a Broadway import, does a fine piece of acting, as do the other seasoned players, Harry Davenport, Hardie Albright, William Davidson and Granville Bates. The original screen play, by Kenneth Gamet, directed by George Amy, offers the players fine opportunities. When “Man-Killer Minerva,” portrayed by May Robson, gets back to Nevada, where _ she made her fortune years before as a grubstaker, she is accompanied by her granddaughter, Julie, played by Margot Stevenson, who is divorcing her husband. When the girl’s husband tries a little blackmail, Minerva gets after him to buy back the pertinent papers but finds him murdered. Suspecting Julie, she plants evidence pointing to herself as the slayer by placing her own finger prints about the murder room. Discovering the girl innocent, she exonerates herself in the courtroom scene mentioned. Then, to clear Julie, she gets out her shotgun and sets out on a one-man rampage that winds up with her leading the criminal to justice. ‘Granny Get Your Gun,’ Loaded With Laughs; Opens at Strand Today Warner Bros.’ “Granny Get Your Gun,” which opens at the Strand today, is a film that gives full sway to a character who has long been rated tops in her field by movie-going audiences— that sprightly septuagenarian, May Robson. Her “Aunt Etta” of “Four Daughters” and “Four Wives” has endeared her to the public, which has demanded that May be starred in an endless chain of fan letters to her studio. The leap from the tender Aunt to her current brusque role is a true test of her versatility. The setting for “Granny Get Your Gun’’ is Nevada, where ghosts of former gold-rushes still stalk and there is wild excitement a-plenty. The theme revolves around an old grubstaker, a ribald damsel of some seventyodd years, whose shooting, riding and hard talk make her as feared as she is loved. “Man-Killer Minerva” is Miss Robson’s screen name. The story opens with her return to the scene where she had grubstaked her fortune. She has brought her granddaughter Julie, portrayed by Margot Stevenson, to establish Nevada residence while bringing divorce proceedings. Harry Davenport Holds Long Record It was at the age of five that Harry Davenport began his acting career. He’s seventy-four now and is going stronger than ever before. He is ninth of as many generations of players, who trace their ancestry back to the Irish stage of 1680. This makes Davenport without question the oldest active actor in point of continuous service in the United States today, having been a player for sixty-eight unbroken years. And _ strangely, since coming to Hollywood for a “visit” several years ago, from which motion picture producers would not let him return, he has been kept more active than ever in his career. He won wide praise for his part in “Gone With the Wind,” his portrayal of the court physician in “Juarez,” and for his roles in “You Can’t Take It With You,” “The Cowboy and the Lady” and other works. Harry Davenport’s current career in pictures is not his first go at them. In 1917, the days of the silents, he was a film director of many early pictures. CAST OF CHARACTERS /SYNOPSIS MiriervatHatton: =). 22293002974 2 oe ae SAS MAY ROBSON ING EPS) PTET YS en od CAE I OIC eT ee Harry Davenport Julie West€ott. oo ssn soe ow einen ge ieieyaie oo 6 es Margot Stevenson Phillio Westeotts: csr Os: Wes > BS. Hardie Albright PERRO ae ae iss 6c Gia ja ehan hidta ce cheap gen & ahem Clem Bevans FE aa OtE ea EOE OES BIR eee Clay Clement Btbeweral d deci, Magers jenssiceks teuols -nicershe| «ay dh oteel ans sae t William Davidson CNPC MMAR Ne ole an hs a wetland Ce MSs 8 Arthur Aylesworth Tom? Redd eh Ao EEs «ape exe Sle sk oe aden! oa Granville Bates COP TTAETAL DEER AACS HORT UNE Pe EO UTR MRE rh A coe. MER Ann Todd COLLET 11S. co hese aes ae HD eI TRC PERU MLERED, AP Sy OO mg Vera Lewis | RM eee Gore See es One aT a pore ee tee eeees Max Hoffman, Jr. OO ecg yale Sic WEE eos Diack Denarau ce casey leet eee Archie Twitchell Swe Te Gels as... Be Al fe ee. ~R Walter Wilson PEACE SEU OTEND oes so a5) Wye ira se Peeoe ale UMMA goal dhasae leva tals a ees Nat Carr PRODUCTION Directed by GEORGE AMY Original Screen Play by Kenneth Gamet; Based on a Story by Erle Stanley Gardner; Director of Photography, L. Wm. O’Connell, A.S.C.; Art Director, Hugh Reticker; Dialogue Director, Ted Thomas; Film Editor, Jack Killifer; Gowns by Milo Anderson; Sound by C. A. Riggs. Running time .. . 56 minutes Page Six (Not for Publication) Minerva Hatton (May Robson) is back in Nevada, where she grubstaked her fortune years ago. Her granddaughter Julie Westcott (Margot Stevenson) is visiting her while getting a divorce. They are blackmailed by Julie’s husband, who has two gambling checks the girl has given the local gambling casino. Minerva, trying to buy these back, comes across his murdered body. Believing Julie guilty, she substitutes her fingerprints and pleads guilty. When she learns of the girl’s innocence, she does an about-face, appearing in court as a sweet old lady in dainty clothes instead of her rugged, desert outfits, to play on the jury’s sympathy. Freed, she must still find the murderer to exonerate Julie, to whom suspicious circumstantial evidence points. Much sleuthing, and Minerva is convinced of the slayer. She has herself sworn in as temporary sheriff, leaps into a Model T Ford and has a fine opportunity to use her marksmanship in nabbing the criminal. When Julie’s husband, played by Hardie Albright, tries blackmail, Minerva goes to his rooms to buy the dangerous evidence he has acquired. But she discovers him murdered. Now she has a problem on her hands and goes to work. Believing Julie guilty, she substitutes her fingerprints all over the murder room, then “confesses” to the crime. It is almost too late to rectify this action when she discovers that Julie isn’t guilty at all. But Minerva has a way with her and puts on a terrific courtroom scene. She is freed, but must still find the murderer to clear Julie’s name. This is done by every ruse Minerva can pull out of a bagful of desert tricks. She’s sworn in as temporary sheriff and galloping, shot-gun Minerva bags the killer single-handed. This gusty yarn offers a fine opportunity for Miss Robson’s talents, and reports from Hollywood have affirmed that she takes full advantage of it. In the able supporting cast are such seasoned players as Harry Davenport, William Davidson and Granville Bates. The Kenneth Gamet original screen play was directed by George Amy. Oldsters Set Fast Pace in New Film How two oldsters, their combined ages totally well near 150 years, literally ran a comparatively young motion picture production crew ragged is the Hollywood saga that remained after the filming of “Granny Get Your Gun,’’ Warner Bros. comedy melodrama, which opens at the Strand Friday. The pace setters were May Robson, filmdom’s _ perennial glamour girl, and Harry Davenport, white haired film and stage veteran for more than 50 years an actor and director. Played against a western background, with much of the action taking i place in des ert locales of Nevada, majorty of the scenes were made out of doors under the ordinary hardships of such _loca tions. Mat 101—15c Most unMAY ROBSON complaining members of the company were Miss Robson and Davenport, who in spite of their long and arduous working hours, generally topped each day’s activity by a card game with the crew or a half hour of horse back riding. It was during a shooting match that May herself delivered a classic line which was given her to repeat in the picture during the next day’s filming. The grand old lady had just made a fine display of marksmanship. Complimented on her skill, she passed it off casually by saying, “That’s really not shooting. When I was a girl I could hit a silver dollar tossed in the air and bring it down in nickles and dimes.” “Granny Get Your Gun’ has Miss Robson, in a Ma Pettingill type of role, and Harry Davenport, as her old desert-country lawyer, solve a murder mystery involving her granddaughter, Margot Stevenson. Others in the cast are Ann Todd, Hardie Albright, Vera Lewis, Granville Bates and William Davidson. George Amy directed. "2 May Robson Starred After Fifty-Seven Years of Acting It does not seem like only yesterday to May Robson that she made her debut in the theatre. For that day was back on September 7, 1883. Now, after fiftyseven years of acting, Miss Robson has her first motion picture starring role in “Granny Get Your Gun,” the Warner Bros. film coming to the Strand Friday. That debut was in the old Brooklyn Grand Opera House, and the exhibit was a pin-wheel melodrama called “The Hoop of Gold.” Miss Robson was_ the ingenue, nineteen years old and five feet tall, weighing ninetyseven pounds. She had been advised she was too “delicate” for the profession. She recalls that now with a chuckle, this amazing woman of seventy-five whose _ sprightly activity is a constant source of amazement to Hollywood. Slip Mat 103—15c MAY ROBSON ping on cables on the set and routine accidents are shrugged off by May. Her current “Granny” role is ample proof of her stamina. She handles the ribald, riding, active, shooting, cut-up desert character with full vitality. So far as the records show, Miss Robson’s career in the theatre is unique among actresses. In the many years since she first walked on stage, she has not been absent from the theatre for a single season. Most of those years were spent on the stage, many of them in Charles Frohman’s old Empire Theatre Company, and four of them in cne play, “The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary,” in which she made her debut as a star. Most of the famous theatres of her early day are gone. She has survived them, just as she has survived the memory of such of her early plays as “Jim the Penman,” “Nerves,’’ “Gudgeons,” “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” “Raspberry Shrub,” “Gloriana,” “The Fatal Cord” and a score of others. Twelve years ago she shifted from stage to screen, and since then has made an average of eight pictures a year. Actor Stages Come-Back Harry Davenport is a perfect example of the adage, “It’s never too late,” in Hollywood. A few years ago, Davenport was acting and directing for the Federal Theatre Project at $90 a month. He had turned seventy, his savings wiped out, and neither stage nor screen producers were interested. And yet, with just one turn of the Hollywood wheel Davenport was right on top. He has just completed fine roles in “Gone With The Wind,” “Juarez,’’ “You Can’t Take It With You” and “Granny Get Your Gun.” Now nothing will shake the kind of success he’s found, for it’s based on ability.