Heart of the North (Warner Bros.) (1938)

ADVANCE PUBLICITY — ‘‘HEART of the NORTH” Royal Canadian ‘Mounties’ [fh HERO EIJARDS Heroes of Technicolor Epic There’s no such organization as the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police. Nor the Northwest Mounted Police. They exist only in fiction. That famous force of red-coats who preserve law and order on sea, land and river over vast sections of Canada is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. And, most of the time, the ‘*Redeoats’’ don’t wear red! They wear a brown forage tunic, heavy blue pants with gold side stripes, and a standard type of high boot, all topped off by the characteristic flat-brimmed Stetson (or in winter a fur hood). These are a few of the facts that will become particularly apparent in or Warner Bros.’ B. ‘“Heart of the Mat 104—15ce North,’’ which Dick Foran opens Friday at the Strand The tre, because this film is not only Technicolor throughout but strictly authentic. That term ‘‘ Northwest Mounted Police’’ was given the parent organization of the present big and efficient force over 100 years ago, when first one little band of them and then another went into the Northwest Territories to bring law and order, and help cope with a growing Indian problem. Before that time the Hudson’s Bay Company’s employees had policed the area. : Later the force became known as the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police, then the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, and finally PATRIG KNOWLES IS ‘DADDY’ TYPE Youthful Patric Knowles, who is given to playing Errol Flynn’s younger brother and such in pictures, has become a cinema father. And his child is a five-year-old, at that! He thinks perhaps this inspired ‘bit of casting was the result of his becoming a father in real life, just a few days before it was decided he’d play father to little Janet Chapman in ‘‘Heart of the North,’’ the Warner Bros. Technicolor drama opening next Friday at the Strand Theatre. Michael Patric Knowles was born May 11, 1938. ‘CA few days Patric Knowles 1ater I heard the first rumors that I was to be the Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman who was little Janet’s father,’’ Knowles remarked. Mat 103—15e ‘*T welcomed the idea, because I think the tradition of choosing grey-beard or at least paunchy, middle-aged fathers for tots in pictures isn’t realistic.’’ Knowles is twenty-six. When Janet was born he was twenty-one, which, he points out, is old enough to be a father. The young actor was born in England of Irish-English parentage. An apprentice typesetter in his father’s publishing house, he ran away, went on the stage, and married the beautiful young stage actress who so recently bore him a son. When Pat scored a hit and got a film contract, his wife gave up her career. the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A modern ‘‘ Mountie’’ gets quite irked if you persist — as do most of the more careless fiction writers, comic strip artists and so on — in using ‘‘Northwest.’’ They’vre proud of the fact that all Canada is their territory now, and the coastal waters on each side. A large percent of the personnel is now afloat instead of a-horseback, and their ships patrol even the Aretic shores and rivers. About ten per cent remains ‘‘mounted,’’ in the sense that they can use horses in their duties. Even fewer of the Mounties do much mounted patrol riding. A greater number travel the airways. ‘‘Heart of the North’’ deals with these modern Royal Canadian Mounted Police — the sort who use airplanes. However, the territory covered is at or near a farnorth fort on the Mackenzie River, with hunters, trappers, miners; the hold-up of a Mackenzie sternwheeler, a murder and a pursuit; in general the whole list of problems of this modern frontier and its guardians of law, order and justice. In top roles are Gale Page, Gloria Dickson, Dick Foran, Janet Chapman (child starlet), Patric Knowles, James Stephenson, Allen Jenkins and Anthony Averill. Natural scenery locations figure heavily in the picture for the stress throughout is on realism. To End All Fish Stories Allen Jenkins,, Arthur Gardner, Gale Page and Glori.. Dickson, all of the troupe which filmed ‘‘ Heart of the North,’’ the Warner Bros. Technicolor picture opening Friday at the Strand Theatre, staged a fishing party one Sunday morning while the troupe was on location at Big Bear Lake, Calif. They got sun-burn and one tiny troutlet, which was tossed back. So that night, at dinner, ‘‘ fishing expert’’ Jenkins was served a tiny sardine on a huge, parsley-garnished platter by a waitress who got her orders from Gardner and the Misses Page and Dickson. JANET CHAPMAN IK HEART OF NORTH Janet Chapman, Warner Bros.’ tiny five-year-old starlet, had a bodyguard during the filming of ‘‘Heart of the North,’’ the Technicolor drama about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre. He was ‘‘Rex’’ giant German shepherd dog, who appears with Mat 105—15c GOOD COMPANIONS — Tiny starlet Janet Chapman and her faithful pal, in “Heart of the North,” coming to the Strand. her in the picture. ‘‘Rex’’ won the job one day on location by pulling her from the water in Big Bear Lake in Southern California when Janet got beyond her depth — of 41 inches! — and no one around her but the dog noticed she was in trouble. The dog’s owner and trainer, Earle Johnson, promoted this offstage relationship between the tot and his canine star, not so much for Janet’s sake as to facilitate the animal’s work in the picture. In the picture he is her companion and bodyguard, too, and for best results the relationship was carried on in private life. Once on the shore of the lake the dog leaped ahead of the tot as she started walking up a path, and would not let her pass. Growling, he advanced cautiously ahead of her, leaped, and caught a watersnake by the neck. The snake was harmless but might not have been. Gale Page Called Typical Brand of American Heroine Hearing someone boast that he’s 100 per cent American, Gale Page of screen and radio fame and now playing in ‘‘Heart of the North’’ at the Strand, will shake her head sadly. 3 ‘“T’m only about a 10 per cent American,’’ she’ll declare. That’s her gentle jibe at professional patriots. Her ‘‘about 10 per cent’’ is, of course, American Indian. One of the pioneer men in Gale’s family tree married the daughter of an Indian chief, and got not only a beautiful wife but immunity from redskin raids as a result. Up in Spokane, Washington, where Gale was born Sally Rutter, she was best known for quite a while as the niece of Miles Poindexter, former U. S. Senator and former Ambassador to Peru. As soon as she finished private school in California, however, she went to Chicago to see about making a name for herself. After a month of vain trying, she paid her final dime to a taxi driver for one more visit to NBC headquarters. Fortune promptly smiled. ‘Gale landed as an actress in such radio offerings as ‘‘ Fibber McGee and Molly,’’ ‘‘Today’s Children,’’ and Roy Shield’s Revue. Then the motion picture scouts trailed down the girl with that fascinating con “she recently tralto voice and highly dramatic line-reading ability. They saw a five-foot-five, slender, dark-haired girl with eyes which a touch of ‘£10 per cent American’’ in one’s ancestry can bestow on people whose skin is white. Of four contracts waved at her, she signed the first — that offered by Warner Bros. She recently completed her fourth leading role for Warner Bros. in ‘‘Heart of the North,’’ the studio’s biggest Technicolor special since ‘‘The Adventures of Robin Hood.’’ i Her first picture was ‘Crime School,’’? and won a good deal of public aeclaim for her work in ‘‘Four Daughters.’’ Her very fine acting isn’t the sole reason why the studio officials smile so contentedly when Gale Page’s name is mentioned. She’s what they visualize as the future wholesome, clean-cut film heroine, the new ‘‘type’’ which is fast supplanting the more exotie ones. Mat 101—15e¢ Gale Page Presto-Chango Artist Joseph King is an actor who can go from Jekyll to Hyde without the drug Stevenson’s hero-villain compounded. Nor does he need the services of the studio makeup man. Joe does it with facial muscles. He can hold his face up, or let it go. When he lets it drop — ker-plump! — it falls into lines expressing villainy. When it’s up, so to speak, he’s a rosy-cheeked, middle-aged, cherubie sort of fellow, big, husky, hearty. Then he plays beneficient characters—honest police officers and judges, army colonels and such. Currently, he’s using the villain side in the Warner Bros. Technicolor drama, ‘‘Heart of the North,’’ coming to the Strand. ‘TEMPERAMENT IS OUT’ says GLORIA DICKSON Gloria Dickson, blonde bombshell of Warner Bros. dramatic actresses, is willing to sign a contract guaranteeing that she -will never become ‘‘temperamental.’’ ‘¢Temperament is the bunk,’’ said Gloria pithily one day on the set of ‘‘Heart of the North,’’ the Warner Bros. picture in Techni color coming to the Strand. Off-stage Gloria clowns a great deal, and fraternizes with the technical and labor crews on her pictures. One day on location in the San Bernardino mountains for ‘‘Heart of the North’’ she was practicing comedy methods of walking. Pigeon-toed, club-footed, knock-kneed, bow-legged — until Dick Foran, Gale Page, Patrick Knowles, Anthony Averill, and others sitting around were howling with mirth. . Attracted by the din, Director Lewis Seiler came over to investigate. ‘‘Say, stop that!’’ he eried. ‘‘You’re supposed to be working up for your crying scene.’’ Gloria made a face at him. ‘“Phat’s just what I’m doing! ’’ she said. ‘‘The more they laugh the sadder I’m feeling.’’ That was merely a quip, of course — but when she went into a scene with tiny, five-year-old Janet Chapman and Ace, a giant police dog, she turned off the comedy like a light. Her face became a tragic mask. Tears welled up, ran down her cheeks. ““T don’t know why I should do it, though,’’ chuckled Gloria a few minutes later, when the scene had been finished. ‘‘ Nobody could es Mat 204—30c GLORIA DICKSON — glamorous blonde star who plays opposite Dick Foran in the Technicolor production “Heart of the North” which is coming to the Strand Theatre on Friday. steal a scene from that child and the dog. I bet that’s a scene in which my fans never notice me.’’ There’s not an ounce of affectation about her. Affectation, thinks Gloria, is cheating — one’s self. ‘““We were taught that in the Federal Theatres,’’ she said. ‘‘To me, it sounds logical. Acting may [10] once have been synonymous with affectation, but today it’s something else again — what I might describe as a struggle for a great conviction and sincerity in feeling an imagined situation. And unless you have a great conviction and sincerity ingrained in you by habit, you can’t project it.’’ ‘TOUGH GUY’ LABEL IS JENKINS’ AIM Allen Jenkins, one of the sereen’s better comedians, is also one of its Peck’s bad boys. For example, he finds it easy to get into a fight. He usually loses, for he picks opponents bigger and tougher-looking than himself. But most of Allen’s mischief is of the bean-shooter, tack-on-chair brand, and actually he’s quite an upright citizen. For which $ compliment he’ll # probably try to sock the writer. It’s the toughie stuff he wants to be .complimented about. His latest picture role is that of a hard-bitten but comical corporal in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in the Warner Bros. Technicolor film, ‘‘ Heart of the North,’’ coming to the Strand Theatre next Friday, which was filmed almost entirely on mountain, forest and river locations. Like most actors, Allen thinks he should have been something else. He claims he is happiest when in some smallish town, where people know him well and accept him as a ‘‘citizen.’’ He says he’d like to go to Morro Bay, Calif., one of his favorite stamping grounds, settle down and be a ‘‘oentleman on an estate.’’ But that, he hastens to explain, is only a figure of speech. Mat 102—15c Allen Jenkins ““Me, a gentleman?’’ he says. His background would be a seeret if hard-boiled Jenkins had his way. Of theatrical parentage, he’s a cultured product of the Ameriean Academy of Dramatic Art of his native New York City. It’s “Dead-Eye”’ Dick Dick Foran broke the bank of the Big Bear Valley (Calif.) shooting gallery and made it stop giving out prizes—when he held forth at the shooting counter. He fired eighteen magazines without & miss, winning twelve prizes. Foran was on location with the company filming the Warner Bros. Technicolor special ‘‘ Heart of the North,’’ which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre.