Hard to Get (Warner Bros.) (1938)

Mat 201—380c OLIVIA De HAVILLAND who is fast gaining the reputation of being the screen’s number one romantic comedienne has one of her most delightful roles in “Hard To Get,’ a merry love tale which comes to the Strand Theatre on Friday. England’s Chief Charm Was Not Being Hollywood By OLIVIA de HAVILLAND (Co-starred with Dick Powell in ‘‘Hard To Get,’’ coming to the Strand Theatre Friday) Whoever it was that wanted ‘‘to be in England, now that April’s here,’’ certainly knew what he was talking about. I was in England in April and it was very beautiful. I hope to go back some other April. It ought to be a wonderful place to spend a honeymoon — not that I’ve any plans along those lines, because I haven’t! Not many people know how tired and worn out I was when mother and I left Hollywood for a long vacation. I spent half my time in tears and neither my family nor I knew why I acted as I did. I had been working hard for months without many holidays so when the chance came for a long vacation, we just said, ‘‘Look for us when you see us. Goodbye.’’ And then disappeared. Mother was really worried about me, I know now, so she and I spent the week before our start in making plans to slip into England without benefit of publicity. It was up to me, she said, to pick a new name for myself and then to get a personality to fit. I chose Holiday as a name for rather obvious reasons I think, and then picked ‘‘Levinia’’ as a first name so there wouldn’t be any slips on mother’s part when she forgot and called me ‘‘Livvy’’ as she and my sister do at home. For the first three days and nights on the boat I slept almost continuously. I woke up often enough to eat but that was about all. By the time we got to England I was feeling much better and ready to really enjoy the vacation I felt I had earned. We had our plans—plans that we had been talking over for months. We rented a little car and started in a general direction away from London. We hoped we could lose ourselves in the rural districts and we succeeded. It’s a wonder we ever found our way back. But what fun we had! After we had had our fill of driving wherever the best road seemed to lead and in staying in quaint little English hotels and inns, we began to study the map and pick out the places we would like to see. One day we found two small English villages marked ‘*Mousehole’’ and another nearby, called ‘‘Cheesering.’’ At least that was the way we read the names but the people in the vicinity called them ‘‘Mouselle’’ and ‘“Chezring.’? So we drove to ‘‘Mouselle’’ or ‘“Mouse Hole’’ as we called it. It was a tiny village and the street —there was only one—was so narrow that we didn’t dare stop the car, much less park it. So we drove through and on to the other little town. There wasn’t much to see there either and not even a posteard to be bought and sent to friends in Hollywood. Hollywood seemed very far away and seven o’clock calls were forgotten entirely. The weeks we spent in England were the only weeks I’ve had in nearly four years when I could forget Hollywood and pictures entirely. When you go into a picturesque old inn that Shakespeare or Bacon or Dickens may have stayed in one night or more, when you get the smell of smoke of fires that burned two or three centuries ago, Hollywood seems very unreal and, I’m afraid, a little unimportant. But now it’s very important to me again. I came back so much rested that my family thought the trip had been worth much more than it cost. PLAYED MAD — AND SHE MEANT IT! Olivia deHavilland was playing a scene in her latest Warner Bros. picture, “Hard To Get,” a romantic comedy co-starring Dick Powell which is due to open Friday at the Strand Theatre. She had to show pique at her boy friend, Dick Powell; engage in a quarrel with her good-natured father, Charlie Winninger; slap her little sister, Bonita Granville. The little dark-haired beauty played the scene with perfect fury. Director Enright yelled “Cut”? and ran over to congratulate the actress. “That was a fine scene,” he told Olivia. “You did it very well,”’ “Don’t compliment me,” said Olivia. “‘Give the credit to these white pumps. They’re a half size too small, and they’re killing me. Film Comedians Are Taken kor A New Kind of Ride One of the main sequences in ‘‘Hard To Get,’’ the Warner Bros. comedy starring Dick Powell and Olivia de Havilland, which comes to the Strand Theatre next Friday, supposedly takes place on the thirty-fifth floor of a skyscraper under construction. It is to this dizzy height that Charlie Winninger, Melville Cooper and Thurston Hall ascend on a hoisted girder. Charlie, Melville and Thurston depict bankers who have suddenly learned that Dick Powell possesses something valuable that they wish to negotiate for. Before the scene was made, Allen Jenkins rode up on the girder first. He wore a grin of happy anticipation. Allen leaped on the big beam, threw an arm expertly around the guy line, and rode upward with the poise of a bank president cashing an expense voucher. To Jenkins, the scene was nothing worse than a pleasant reminder of those exciting days during the World War when he was a riveter in a _ shipyard on Staten Island. The principle of construction is the same whether it’s a ship or a skyscraper, Jenkins explained after the scene was over and he had come down off his high perch. ““Girders are riveted into place much the same as are plates on a ship,’’ he said. Jenkins was not quite seventeen when he went into the shipyard. He had tried to enlist in the United States Army, but was under age and was rejected. Having lived on Staten Island and having played around with boats, he turned to shipbuilding as the most useful thing he could do to serve his country. Jenkins found one kindred spirit among the members of the ‘‘ Hard To Get’’ cast. That was Charlie Winninger, who also rode gaily to the top of the supposed skyscraper, twirling a cane, and yelling some characteristic Winningerisms to the ants on the ground below. “‘T’m just as much at home up here as Jenkins is,’’ Winninger confided. ‘‘I used to do a trapeze act in a tent show when I was a kid. I enjoy it.’’ Melville Cooper, who was Winninger’s comedy team mate in the picture, went through the sequence in an entirely different frame of mind. Cooper always has suffered from dizziness on a bridge or any other height. Roster Mat 203—30e SHE’S. ‘HARD TO GET? and harder to hold on to! Olivia de Havilland does the kicking, Dick Powell does the holding and you'll do the laughing when you see this romantic pair in “Hard To Get,” their first co-starring picture, coming to the Strand Friday. Director Ray Enright’s contribution to the liveliness of one of the most exciting motion picture sets in a long time, was a set of varsity sweaters for his athletic champions in the cast of ‘‘Hard To Get’? at the Warner Bros. Studio. Melville Cooper was the first decorated. He won his blue ‘““H. T. G.’? mongram on white sweater at the completion of ten days of camera takes with Charlie Winninger. In these ten days Cooper, playing the solemn butler who is forced to compete in various sports with his exercise-crazed millionaire employer, manages to beat Winninger at boxing, fencing, wrestling, ping-pong and throwing darts. Winninger, as the runner-up in this protracted competition, was [an] Cast Wins Varsity Awards awarded his ‘‘H. T. G.’’ also. The others to whom ‘‘Coach’’ Enright gave his varsity awards were: Olivia de Havilland, who outwrestles Bonita Granville in a catch-as-catch-can mateh with that pesky younger screen sister; and Dick Powell, who gets rough with Olivia, and makes it stick, when she drives into his gasoline service station without money, and has him fuel her car, and then airily tells the young man to send the bill to her father. In that scene Dick yanks Olivia out of her ear, and makes her work out her $3.48 gas bill by tidying up the bedrooms and kitchens of the cottages in the little auto court which operates in conjunction with his service station. *“Hard To Get,’’ opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. ADVANCE PUBLICITY PLAYERS’ BABIES OFTEN EXPENSIVE TQ STUDIOS ALSO Helen Hayes claimed her baby was “an act of God” and got away with it. But to unit managers and assistant directors in motion picture studios, a baby is a first rate nuisance and a menace to the budget. Babies delay motion picture production. A baby in a star’s family, arrived or expected, costs the player a considerable sum, but it often costs the studio even more in delays and altered schedules. No mere husband and prospective father, whether he is an actor or an electrician, is altogether himself the last few weeks before an expected “blessed event.” On the set of “Hard To Get,” the Warner Bros. comedy opening Friday at the Strand Theatre, Dick Powell was perched near the telephone for many days. He jumped each time it rang. He knew his lines but his mind was not always on his work. “Y’m as nervous as a cat,” he explained when he missed a cue, ‘and this nervousness became in tensified until the day when their baby daughter was born to Dick and his wife, Joan Blondell. Allen Jenkins, working in the same picture, even forgot his new boat, not yet launched, in his interest in his wife’s prospective blessed event. He and Dick Powell ran a stork race, which was won by Dick, whose daughter came several days before Allen’s wife gave birth to a baby girl. Caught! A Genuine “Picture Boner” Olivia de Havilland drives her light roadster into Dick Powell’s combination auto-court-service station. This scene is in the comedy “Hard To Get,” which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre. While Allen Jenkins fills the gasoline tank, Dick busies himself with oil, water and windshield. Midway through the scene, however, Cameraman Charles Rosher breaks it up. There’s a bad reflection in the windshield and the glass will have to be removed, he explains. After the windshield is taken out the scene is repeated. While Powell wipes the imaginary windshield, Miss de Havilland gets out of the car. She stands alongside it, leaning against the door. This time Director Ray Enright stops the scene. “You’ve got your arm through the windshield, Olivia,” he remarks. And sure enough, the actress has unconsciously looped her elbow around the upright, right through the place that ordinarily would be filled with glass. Mat 103—15c DICK POWELL — who is turning from crooning to comedy, tops the cast of “Hard To Get,” the hilarious romance coming to the Strand Theatre on Friday.