Hollywood Hotel (Warner Bros.) (1937)

Dick Powell Is Slapped — Joan Watches Joan Blondell, returning unexpectedly from a Catalina vacation, got back to Warner Bros. studio just in time to see another woman slap her husband’s face. The other woman was Lola Lane. The husband as you know was Dick Powell. And the slap was so heartily administered it left a mark. It happened in a huge hotei lobby. Joan entering in search of Dick was halted by a milling mob of people. Over their heads she could see Dick in excited altercation with Miss Lane at the lobb: entrance to the coffee shop. “But, darling,” she heard Dick say to the beautiful Lola, “don’t you remember I kissed you last night?” There was pleading in his voice. But Lola glared and, for reply, slapped his face—hard. Wide-eyed, in slacks and loose tweed coat, Joan craned to take it all in. Then a whistle blew, the crowd parted, and Dick seeing Joan ran to greet her. Lola came up on his heels. Joan grinned at her. : “Bet you wouldn’t do that to him,” said Lola. “I wouldn’t, either, except that it’s in the script.” For it was all a part of Warner Bros. spectacular filmusical “Hollywood Hotel,” now showing at the Strand Theatre. The lobby was really a stage set. Busby Berkeley was the director. GUARDS MUSICAL LIPS Benny Goodman, King of Swingaroo, puts an ice compress on his lips for fifteen minutes every night before retiring after a day’s work in Warner Bros.’ filmusical ‘Hollywood Hotel,” now at the Strand Theatre, in order to reduce swelling caused by playing the clarinet. Mat 117—15c A HEART-TO-HEART HOOK-UP— Dick Powell and Rosemary Lane, the crooning love team in “Holly_wood Hotel,” the star-studded film musical now at the Strand. Mat 203—30c WOO-WOO! I’M LUCKY—But this time the chorus cuties are doing the wooing while Hugh (woo-woo) Herbert is simply flabbergasted! It’s all part of the fun in the new musical “Hollywood Hotel,” at the Strand. From Hymns to Blues Songs In One Tonsil Operation Misfortune, according to Frances Langford, may often be Fate’s way of revealing the best within one. Frances is only a little thing of five feet two, weighing 101 pounds. She’s not much bigger, in fact, than a pint of water. Where all that husky contralto singing voice comes from is some question. And as to being a philosopher— “How can you expect weighty observations from a mere atom?” she asked. “Just the same, I know what I’m talking about. Why, I remember a colored boy in my home town who had his legs cut off. Sam had Frances Langford’s recent fan mail brought a proposal of marriage from a miner at Forty Mile Reach, Alaska, who said he fell in love with her voice on the “Hollywood Hotel’ air show and was planning a trip to Sitka to see her in Warner Bros.’ filmusical “Hollywood Hotel.’”? He concluded: “If you look as good as you sound, I won’t even ask you to come up here, but I'll quit the gold fields and make the trip down to Hollywood to fetch you home with me.” no education and no advantages, and you’d think that kind of accident would make him an absolute dependent on the community, wouldn’t you?” “Well, it didn’t. Before that he’d been only a shiftless colored boy, cutting lawns and such things now and then. But when he lost his legs some man gave him a little money to open a newsstand. And now Sam has all the colored boys in town working for him. He owns half a dozen newsstands. He’s a boss. So, you see!” Frances knows from experience, too. Take her own case. Now a star singer on “Hollywood Hotel,’ nationwide radio show. And currently she is featured in support of Dick Powell and Benny Goodman and his swing band in Warner Bros. _ filmusical, “Hollywood Hotel,” which is now showing at the 28 Strand Theatre. But it wasn’t always like that. For Frances has a deep dark past. Once she sang in the church choir. It was in her home town of Lakeland, Fla. Her voice was a high soprano. That’s when misfortune came. She suffered an acute attack of tonsilitis, had her tonsils removed, and at first could only croak. She thought her life was blasted. “Why, the very idea of not being able to reach high C in the choir any more made me just want to die,” she said. Mother Langford, however, had different ideas. She was a concert pianist. “Seems to me,” she said, “that I’ve heard of contralto voices as being pretty good, too. Let’s see if you can sing contralto, honey.” So she played the piano, Frances sang contralto, and Eli Witt listened and approved. He was a Tampa cigar manufacturer, and he approved so much that he put Frances on a weekly air show to advertise his cigars. “Never did like sopranos,” he said. “They screech. But a contralto, now — that’s something like.” Rudy Vallee began hearing about, the new gal singer with the husky warmth in her voice and, on a visit to Florida, gave her an audition. Liked her so well he took her to New York to sing on his air program. Soon, with a nation-wide following, the songbird was flying high by singing soft and low. She took her own vaudeville show on the road for a successful tour, returned to New York to sing on three national radio programs. One day, or night rather, singing at a dinner at the Waldorf, she was caught by Walter Wanger. He it was who persuaded her to try Hollywood where she became an overnight sensation and was drafted for the cast of Warner Bros. “Hollywood Hotel.” “So, you see how it is,” said Frances. “Maybe if I’d kept my tonsils and my soprano screech, I’d still be singing in the choir.” Orchid Room Of the Air In Film Musical Leading orchid raisers of the United States were called upon by wire recently to ship their flowers by air express to Warner Bros. studio to help dress the Orchid Room set of “Hollywood Hotel,” the gigantic musical that is now showing at the Strand Theatre. The set, already used for dancing and dining sequences in the picture, was redecorated for the broadcast, at which time many movie celebrities, other than those among the principals engaged in the picture, were shown dining and were introduced by microphone. Orders for orchids were wired far and wide when it was found that available supplies in Hollywood would be wholly inadequate to provide for the lavish floral display proposed. Outstanding feature of the decorations planned by Art Director Robert Haas were four huge baskets, 20 feet in diameter and standing 15 feet high, brimming with orchids. The baskets were of silk over wire frames. Tables were strewn with orchids and each women present, including those among the 350 extras in evening dress, was given an orchid corsage to wear. In the same setting, Director Busby Berkeley later staged the finale of the big filmusical. Inasmuch as shooting time for the two big scenes was lengthy, and orchids wilt, three times as many orchids as required were ordered in order to furnish replacements. FANS SEND LOLA FAN Lola Lane, featured in Warner Bros.’ “Hollywood Hotel,” now showing at the Strand Theatre, received the all-time high in fan letters with the arrival from the Imperial Geisha House of Kyoto, Japan, of a huge and intricately embroidered silken fan. An interpreter found the lines of embroidery were names of the geisha girls. That’s true devotion! Mat 102—15c JOHNNIE DAVIS who does his best scattin’>—which is another style of hotcha singing—with Benny Goodman’s Swing Band in “Hollywood Hotel,” now at the Strand. rent teblic: