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

No Cinch Winning Stardom, Says Margot Stevenson Margot Stevenson entered the theatre the hard way. She climbed stairs, knocked on doors, pleaded for interviews with agents, managers and producers. She began her trek to the offices of Broadway producers while she was in school and for five years was completely frustrated in her ambitions. A fighting Irish girl, she never gave up and finally obtained a coveted interview with Gilbert Miller. He gave Margot her first “break”—a small part in “Fire Bird,” starring Judith Anderson. Margot was just seventeen. Like every new and young actress, Margot Stevenson found herself in many “tryouts” but few plays that reached Broadway. She rehearsed for weeks in plays that never even had tryouts. Finally she “caught on” and played “Bella” in ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street.” Then came “Stage Door” and another small part while she understudied Margaret Sullavan. Here was the role Margot really wanted to play—the part enacted by Miss Sullavan. But Mat 102—15c MARGOT STEVENSON Miss Sullavan was of unusually robust health. Then one night, Miss Stevenson was told to go to Philadelphia for the tryout of “You Can’t Take It With You.” She was broken-hearted but could do nothing about it. Ten days later Miss Sullavan was stricken and Miss Stevenson was in Philadelphia—and missed her chance. But she remained in the role of “Alice” in “You Can’t Take It With You” for two long years—lacking a month. The comely brunette can have no regrets for this role led to Hollywood and a Warner Bros. contract that has much promise for the future. Actress-Psychologist May Robson is a real psychologist. She owns apartment houses and bungalow courts and keeps them filled by inviting tenants with children. Kids are poison to most landlords, but May proves her psychology training by posting a monthly prize for the child that does the most toward keeping the place in perfect order. Education Comes First Margot Stevenson, now appearing in Warner Bros.’ “Granny Get Your Gun,” received her early training from her father, a noted actor. “Learn as much as you can from books,” he advised her, “and after your education is complete, seek a career.”’ Margot followed his advice and after school sought small roles on the stage where she achieved a sound acting foundation for the screen. PUBLICITY—"GRANNY GET YOUR GUN” (Review) May Robson in Comedy Role in “Granny Get Your Gun’’; Now at the Strand The Strand audience last night hailed May Robson’s performance in Warner Bros.’ “Granny Get Your Gun” as one of the most entertaining of her career. As dean of the films’ lovable-oldcharacters, Miss Robson has managed to turn in consistent bell-ringing performances. Here Mat 104—15¢ MAY ROBSON is one to rank with her best comedy roles. As “Man-Killer Minerva,” Miss Robson plays a character who’s alternately a sweet old lady in lace and a rough-andtumble grubstaker. She handles Training School For Directors Hollywood’s cutting rooms, those fireproof cubicles where the first working prints of the motion pictures are cut: and spliced and fitted together, scene by scene and reel by reel, are the class rooms for the majority of the better film directors. It was from a cutting room, as a film editor of many years experience, that George Amy recently stepped to become Warner Bros.’ newest director of motion picture features. Amy’s most recent picture, “Granny Get Your Gun,” opens at the Strand on Friday, with a cast headed by May Robson, venerable mistress of comedy, the young and beautiful newcomer Margot Stevenson, Harry Davand a dozen other well known actors and actresses. Critics have pointed out that “Granny Get Your Gun,” a brisk-paced comedy melodrama with May Robson in character as an amateur cowgirl detective, is a perfect example of film cutting and timing done not with the editor’s shears but with the camera itself. This, of course, is because Amy, tall, thin and studious behind a pair of thick lensed dark glasses, served years of apprenticeship with miles and miles of pictures before he got the big chance to direct his own. As before stated, many of Hollywood’s better known directors went through the same school, some, of course, for a shorter time than others. Lloyd Bacon, Michael Curtiz, William Dieterle, Edmund Goulding and Anatole Litvak all were cutters or had cutting experience before they became directors. the varied characterizations with her true versatility. When Minerva gets back to Nevada, where she grubstaked her fortune years before, “Granny Get Your Gun” is launched at a brisk pace. Her granddaughter, Julie Westcott, portrayed by Margot Stevenson, visits her while getting a divorce from Phillip Westcott, played by Hardie Albright. Phillip shows up and demands money before permitting a divorce. He blackmails his wife with two worthless gambling checks she had given at the local casino. Determined to clear things, Minerva visits him secretly to buy the checks, discovering him murdered. Believing Julie guilty, she substitutes her fingerprints on the gun and all about the murder room, then “confesses” to the murder. Her friend, Nate Paulson, played by Harry Davenport, is the local attorney and prepares to defend her. Minerva announces she is to plead guilty. But when she learns that Julie did not commit the crime, she realizes she’ll need all her wiles to explain away the evidence in which she engulfed herself. The courtroom gasps as Minera enters, a sweet old lady, who proceeds to vamp the jury. She is exonerated, but then realizes she must find the real murderer to clear Julie of suspicion. She is sworn in as temporary sheriff and leads a wild chase, her expert marksmanship finally aiding in bringing the real criminal to justice. ’ The clever, well-timed original screen play was written by Kenneth Gamet and directed by George Amy. May Robson Toughie In New Strand Film That grand old lady of the screen, who can intimidate a desk sergeant in the best “Apple Annie’’ manner or melt the heart with the sweet expression of Whistler’s “Mother,” is a twogun moll now. In Warner Bros.’ “Granny Get Your Gun,” which opens at the Strand Friday, May Robson takes a one-woman stand against a group of assorted ruffians and gives a small western mining town a brief taste of what the old days must have been like. Miss Robson’s correct role is a variation of her beloved gruffbut-tender roles. The all-vintage, all-years, allmakes and models automobiles that crowd the warehouse-like garages of the Hollywood motion picture studios never know what is going to happen to them next. They are turned over, wrecked, crashed, skidded, burned, driven off cliffs with the steady regularity that the scripts, calling for such violence, pour out of the typewriters of the scenarists, and that amounts to some eight hundred every year. Naturally, it takes an unusually large number of highly skilled repair experts to keep these valuable motion picture properties in repair for repeated use. That is, when it is possible to salvage them after a violent accident. Many of the older cars could not be replaced if destroyed and many of the expensive foreign cars could not be Granny’s Recipes S Vitagraph, tne Mat 202—30c May Robson, currently starring in “Granny Get Your Gun” at the Strand Theatre, is just as at home in the kitchen as she is in a movie studio. Queried as to her favorite recipes, she said that they would take up a good-sized volume. She selected three, how ever, that she thinks are tops for simplicity, speed and taste. PIMENTO MEAT LOAF | Pound Ground Beef 42 Tablespoons Diced Pimento V2 Cup Cooked Rice | Egg Y% Teaspoon Pepper Y2 Cup Cracker Crumbs 3 Tablespoons Diced Onions | Teaspoon salt Combine ingredients, mix thoroughly and shape in loaf and place in greased baking dish. Garnish top with single rings of onion. Bake in moderate oven for 45 minutes. PECAN CREAM CANDY 412 Cups Brown Sugar ¥2 Teaspoon Vanilla V4 Teaspoon Salt V2 Cup Chopped Pecans 2 Cups Sour Cream Dash of Flavoring Combine cream, sugar and salt. Cook until a drop in a cup of cold water will form a soft ball. Cool to room temperature, add flavoring. Beat until thick, then add nuts, and pour into buttered pie tin, and cool. E BAKED COCOANUT PEARS 6 Pears (Fresh or canned) Ya Cup Lemon Juice ee Cup Shredded Cocoanut Ve Cup Honey Roll whole peeled pears in lemon juice, then in cocoanut. Place in shallow, buttered tin, dot: pears with honey and bake in hot oven for ten minutes. Serve with toasted crackers. See Page Fivefor Exploitation Idea on Above Feature! Actress Is Modest Margot Stevenson, now ap pearing in Warner Bros.’ “Granny Get Your Gun,” appears an exceedingly frank young lady. Left by one of her studio staff to fill out a biographical questionnaire, and confronted with the question, “What is your pet aversion in life?’’, Miss Stevenson wrote, ‘My disposition.” May Robson Has Wild Chase in Ghost Car obtained from Europe if their present studio mates were demolished. One such old car that Warner Bros.’ mechanics thought was beyond salvage when it had finished its work is the ancient Ford driven by May Robson in “Granny Get Your Gun,” the film coming to the Strand Theatre on Friday. This car received such a battering at the venerable Miss Robson’s hands that it came out of the picture with radiator smashed, front axle and frame bent and broken, one wheel collapsed, four tires blown out, rear axle gears stripped, clutch broken, motor out of line and not a piece of glass in the wind shield. B Miracle of it all was that May was alone behind the wheel while all of these multiple damages accrued during one of the films’ Spry At Seventy-Six A Hollywood glamour girl, scorning the use of a double, drove a speeding old Model T Ford all over the Warner lot during the filming of “Granny Get Your Gun.” The car was wrecked, but the girl stepped out as spry as ever. The girl was seventy-six year old May Robson, Warner Bros. actress. wildest chase scenes. As a hard-bitten, hard-laughing, hard-talking old desert character, May sets out, gun in hand, to track down a murderer, and clear her granddaughter, played by lovely Margot Stevenson, of suspicion. She accomplishes this only after a wild chase in the battered old car. Setting a fierce pace through the narrow little streets, she is unable to stop the speeding vehicle. The resulting damage to car, houses, buggies and other cars is something Warner Bros. garage and technical experts will long remember. — Featured in the cast with Miss Robson and Margot Stevenson are Harry Davenport, Hardie Albright, Granville Bates, William Davidson and a _ dozen others famous for their work. George Amy directed the Kenneth Gamet original screen play. Page Seven