Hollywood Hotel (Warner Bros.) (1937)

Musical Film Spotlights Famed Premiere More colorful than its most glamorous star are Hollywood’s world premieres. Everybody has heard about a premiere, but not everybody has seen one. Now that oversight is to be remedied, for in Warner Bros. musical ‘‘Hollywood Hotel,’ the greatest Hollywood premiere of all has been staged in minutest detail. You will be able to see it next Friday at the Strand Theatre, when the spectacular picture has _ its local premiere. Every phase of an authentic premiere is portrayed, from the showing of a picture inside a theatre to the departure of the stars and guests. Waiting throngs rush police lines and autograph seekers lay siege in lobby and on sidewalk to win the coveted scrawls. Lending an air of absolute authenticity is the presence, along with many stars, of Louella O. Parsons, ace movie columnist and critic of Los Angeles, whose column is widely syndicated. Miss Parsons, making her first screen appearance as an actress, plays herself in the picture. Dick Powell, Ted Healy, Rosemary and Lola Lane, Alan Mowbray, Glenda Farrell, Hugh Herbert, Mabel Todd, Johnny Davis, and Allyn Joslyn are principals of the cast who appear at the premiere. In addition, many famous movie personalities not otherwise cast in the production will be seen. A motion picture theatre complete from marquee and box office to balcony and fire escape was constructed on the back lot at Warner Bros. studio as a setting. Radio Chatter : Good evening, folks, and greetings from Hollywood, land of the glamor boys and girls. And here’s the latest, hot-off-the-ether news from the land of make-believe. “Hollywood Hotel” which opens tomorrow at the Strand Theatre is based on the famous radio program, emceed by Louella Parsons. Miss Parsons makes her movie debut in the picture. Bette Davis walked onto the set of “Jezebel” the other day in her underwear. But don’t be shocked! Girls’ underwear during the Civil War covered a multitude of shins. Humphrey Bogart, who drops the machine gun to manage a wrestler in “Swing Your Lady,” has started off on a prospecting jaunt. We always say, “Gold Is Where You Find it,” Humphrey. Ted Healy, stooge-gent of “Hollywood Hotel,” runs a florist shop when he isn’t gagging for the cameras. 7 Rosemary Lane, another “Hollywood Hotel” star, is stepping out with several different Hollywood Lotharios, ’tis rumored. * Dick Powell, star of “Hollywood Hotel” presented Mrs. Dick Powell, (Joan Blondell to you) with a new yacht as an anniversary gift. Mat 205—30c RADIO FAVORITES—Benny Goodman, of swing fame, and Frances Langford, blues crooner, step up to the mike to take a bow for their work in “Hollywood Hotel,” the new musical film coming to the Strand. Swing King Has Actors Doing the Susi-Q on Set Swing music, the order of the day, is variously reported whereever one of the famous swing bands performs from Coast to Coast, as starting the patrons to dancing the Suzi-Q in the aisles. But what it does to the swingsters of the band themselves is even more spectacular. They’ll go without sleep. They’ll go without food. Swing is king, and they forget themselves completely, as loyal subjects should! This was demonstrated when Benny Goodman and his famous Benny Goodman is so superstitious about anyone picking up his clarinet and blowing it that, while working in Warner Bros. “Hollywood Hotel,” he disjointed the instrument after playing it each time, and stuck the pieces in pockets. He wore a pongee shirt with special pockets for holding each piece. A further precaution taken by the famous band leader re his clarinet playing is using ice packs on his lips every night to keep them in perfect condition. Swing Band showed up one day at Warner Bros. Hollywood studios to start working in the movies. It was to be their first major film appearance, and in the big musical “Hollywood Hotel” at that. It was their chance to go to town on special music written for the production by Dick Whiting and Johnny Mercer. How they went to town will be seen and heard when “Hollywood Hotel” opens next week at the Strand Theatre. Now, ordinarily, film actors, from the star down to the lowliest extra, seize every moment of idleness when on the set to sit down quietly and rest. They enjoy appearing before the camera, it’s true. But they don’t go around in 30 off moments spouting their lines to each other. It was different, however, with the Goodman performers. From the very first day they showed that swing was in their blood, in their hands and lungs and feet. When performing before the camera, recording before the mike, they threw themselves into it without stint. No matter how often retakes of a scene were made, they were straining, like hound dogs on a leash and a hot trail, to perform. But when other actors would retire on finishing their lines to lounge offstage and take life easy, not the band players. Off to the sidelines they’d flit, it’s true. But with instruments in hand. Then they’d gather in little groups of two or three. In one corner would be three trumpeters. Around the tiny rehearsal piano, always in evidence offstage when a filmusical is being made, would be a trombone player or two. Other groups would cluster elsewhere. Sweet and low they’d play, so as not to disturb proceedings on the set. Teddy Wilson, the colored piano ace, was always the center of one group. Others clustered about Gene Krupa at the drums, or Guitarist Allan Reuss. These were the time-setters, the pacemakers, the “senders” or hot stars. The others were “cats.” All phrases are out of the richly expressive jargon of swingsters which the boys employ. The fact that they were up half the night every night of the week, playing swing at the huge Palomar dance hall on the edge of Hollywood, only to appear for an 8 o’clock call at the studio, made no difference. His Sister Ethel Banker for Benny Goodman A woman is the “money man” for Benny Goodman and his famous swing band. She is Ethel Goodman, an older sister of the shy genius of swing. secretary to the organization. Actually, however, she is more than secretary. For Benny is a bachelor, as are most of his boys. And Ethel mothers them all, puts iodine on cuts, wraps up sore throats, looks after their diet. A tall, graceful, dark-haired woman, she always has her hands more than full with sixteen ebullient temperaments. And more than ever was this the case when the king of swing and his boys were working at Warner Bros. studio in the new filmusical “Hollywood Hotel,” which is now showing at the Strand Theatre. For one thing, Benny and his boys got mighty short rations of sleep while they were movie actors. They played every night at the Palomar dance pavilion until 1 o’clock, Saturdays and Sundays until 2. They broadcast on Tuesdays besides. During the day they got to the studio to answer an 8 o’clock call. But Sister Ethel took care of them. Others might be awed by the fame of Drummer’ Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, Vibraphone player and Teddy Wilson, pianist, who with Benny on the clarinet form the quartet. But not Sister Ethel. They meant no more to her than so many crazy men who had to be told what to do, so she told ’em. Result was they got to bed when sleeping time came and rolled out bright-eyed in the morning, ready to swing it at the studio. Hello’ Girl Never saw Switchboard Most famous “hello girl” in the world, Duane Thompson, answered telephones and made connections for three years before ever facing a real switchboard. That was because she made her reputation as “Sally,” telephone operator of the “Hollywood Hotel’ air show, for the three years since it first went on the air. And in radio a switchboard wasn’t necessary to create the desired illusion. But now it’s a movie which is showing at the Strand Theatre. Along with Louella Parsons as emcee, Raymond Paige and _ his orchestra, Frances Langford as “Alice,” Singer Jerry Cooper and Announcer Ken Niles—all veterans of the famous air show—‘‘Sally” Duane Thompson joined the cast of Warner Bros.’ “Hollywood Hotel” when a broadcast was incorporated in it. So she sat down at last before a switchboard and began making connections as the telephone operator who speaks the familiar “Holly-wo-00-ood Ho—o—te-e-ll.” It isn’t Duane’s first picture appearance, however, for she was once a “Wampas Baby Star.” That was in the days before the famous Wampas, organization of Hollywood studio press agents which used to make annual selections of ten outstanding starlets, was dissolved. She was sponsored, then, by Harold Lloyd, while working in Christie comedies. Radic Plies