Manpower (Warner Bros.) (1941)

‘MANPOWER’ — PUBLICITY La Dietrich's legs are always news — ask your feature editor. He'll especially like this Dietrich profile — legs and all. ‘Hose for Miss Dietrich’ Didn't Mean Silk Stockings Those Famous Legs, However, Are Hose for Miss Dietrich didn’t mean what the studio visitors hoped it would, when that item appeared on the script clerk’s schedule of details for “Manpower”. Hose for Miss Dietrich, in this case, wasn’t hosiery. It was ordinary garden hose. The star was supposed to stand under it until she was wet enough to look as if she had just come in out of the rain. The new film, which opened at the Strand on Friday with Edward G. Robinson and George Raft supplying the “Manpower”, gives Miss Dietrich plenty of opportunities to look her best, up to and including the famous legs, but she has a few bedraggled moments in the picture too. The heroine of “Manpower” does not find life a bed of roses. That fact is a great relief to the lovely star. “I’m glad to be playing a real sort of person again,” she admits. “And modern clothes are awfully nice after being in old-fashioned petticoats and dresses that trail on the floor.” As the screen’s outstanding exponent of one hundred per cent glamor, Miss Dietrich finds herself being two people most of the time. One is the allur Very Well Displayed in ‘Manpower’ ing siren of the screen and the other is the regular fellow of the between-takes moments. Most film stars manage to keep their roles and their real personalities completely independent, but Miss Dietrich’s glamor is persistent. She reports for work at the studio in a sixteen cylinder limousine. But she wears men’s trousers and an ordinary sports jacket. Her specially made chromium dressing table always sports a single rose in a crystal vase. She insists on doing her own make-up chores, even though the Perc Westmore establishment at Warner Bros.’ studio is rated just about the best in the business. But she does not do so because she thinks she knows more than Westmore. “I enjoy it,” she explains. “I got into the habit of doing things for myself when I began my acting career, and I just can’t get out of the habit now.” As for the sixteen cylinder car and the de luxe, straightas-a-ramrod chauffeur who goes with it, Miss Dietrich has to get up at five o’clock in the morning to prepare for her day’s work at the studio. At that hour she is hardly in Robinson in New Type Role at Strand Step right up and call Edward G. Robinson “Hank.” Go ahead. It’ll be all right. That’s his name. He’s “a vigorous, jovial, simple, generous, excitable lineman,” according to the script of his new Warner Bros. Picture, “Manpower,” in which he stars with Marlene Dietrich and George Raft. The picture is currently showing at the Strand. It’s an old story in Hollywood: actors are forever coming up with “entirely new roles,” something they’ve never done before. But it’s a cinch that the ‘jovial, simple, generous lineman” is a far cry for Edward G. Robinson. He has done characterizations of various kinds, from the earnest, brilliant Dr. Ehrlich to the brutal, intelligent Larsen in “The Sea Wolf,” but all of his characters have had at least one thing in common: Robinson has never been less than a dominant man. Romance has always been rather incidental in the roles Robinson played up until now, but in “Manpower,” he makes love to, and marries Marlene Dietrich, a lady who could never be a mere incident in any man’s life. Dietrich, as B-Girl, Croons in 'Manpower' Marlene Dietrich sings two new songs, with music by Frederick Hollander, who wrote her famous “Falling in Love Again,” in her Warner Bros. picture, “Manpower,” which opens Friday at the Strand, with Edward G. Robinson and George Raft co-starring with her. The songs, with lyrics by Frank Loesser, are titled “I’m in No Mood for Music Tonight,” and “He Lied and I Listened.” Miss Dietrich sings them in a night club scene. She plays the part of a B Girl. High-Voltage Girls Give Raft Trouble George Raft, whose leading lady in “Manpower” at Warner Bros. placed first in a scientific sex appeal test conducted by San Francisco State College students of psychology, and whose current heart interest, Betty Grable, placed third, is in a real dilemma. “Between all that high voltage,” he grinned, “I’m going to get short-circuited for fair. “When I heard the news I sat down quietly and blew a fuse.” George should be used to all that voltage after his highpowered role in “Manpower,” where he is cast opposite alluring Marlene Dietrich. shape for the long drive to the studio. A chauffeur and a nice fast car make the day’s work so much easier. The day’s work, in the case of “Manpower’’, was apt to be quite a job. In addition to the scenes for which Miss Dietrich had to be wetted down with a hose, there were several takes of the lady being slapped and knocked down a flight of stairs by George Raft. Raft at first refused to make the sequences, although Miss Dietrich not only wanted the scenes but insisted on making them herself. (A double might have been used in a few spots.) After Raft finished the fight scenes, he was a shaken man. Pulling a punch calls for a lot more care than a mere swing, and he was worried that he might not pull all his swings enough. But Miss Dietrich reported that his timing was perfect. The man who really had the hardest job was Milo Anderson, who designed Miss Dietrich’s gowns. “She plays a working girl in the picture,” says Anderson, “and her clothes are supposed to look fairly cheap. But anything we put on that girl looks expensive.” Plenty of Action In ‘Manpower’ The bigger they come the more often they fall in the movies, if six-foot-two-inch Ward Bond is any criterion. Bond, an outstanding Hollywood character actor, specializes in getting his come-uppance from the Cagneys, Robinsons and Rafts, whom he outweighs by at least thirty pounds. Raft and Robinson get in their licks in Warner Bros.’ “Manpower,” which is decorated by the falling Bond in one of the intervals between being decorated by Marlene Dietrich. There are a number of reasons why the bulky ex-tackle from U.S.C. who began his career as a _ screen not-sotoughie during summer vacations from college, finds such steady employment. The public likes to see the little man knock the big man down and Bond makes it convincing. He takes one of the best falls in the business. He is one of the not too numerous huge actors who can speak lines and fake punches with equal finesse. Bond is a graduate engineer but ever since graduation he has been working steadily before the cameras. He has appeared in more than seventyfive feature pictures in the last ten years. Still MP 49; Mat 202—30c MANPOWERFUL PAIR—Marlene Dietrich works her particular kind of manpower on Edward G. Robinson in the Strand's new hit—entitled—you guessed it—''Manpower'". George Raft is co-starred with them. BRIEF BIOGS EDWARD G. ROBINSON . . a lawyer but later decided to become an . took part in college theatricals .. . World War | interrupted his career and he served in the U. S. Navy... has appeared in many stage hits . . with his performance in "Little Caesar"... actor.. . wanted to be . won Hollywood fame Mat 115—15c owns a very impressive collection of modern paintings . . . characterization is all-important to him... some of his best-known screen hits are "Five Star Final", "Kid Galahad", 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy", "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet" and "The Sea Wolf" . . . his latest role is in Warner Bros.’ "Manpower". MARLENE DIETRICH .. . her name is synonymous with glamour .. . has red-gold hair and blue eyes .. . received stage training in Max Reinhardt's school of drama ... did much motion picture and stage work in Europe before coming to U. S.... shortly after coming to Hollywood she scored a hit in "Morocco"... followed it with "Desire," "The Garden of Allah", "Knight Without Armor" and "Destry Rides Again". . . she makes her Warner Bros.’ debut as the alluring night-club hostess whom both Edward G. Robinson and George Raft battle for in "Manpower". Dist. Mat 116—15c Mat 117—15c GEORGE RAFT ... hails from New York City where he worked as an electrician's helper... . became interested in boxing and fought professionally for awhile baseball he turned to dancing and became known as the "kid with the fastest feet in New York"... later left New York for Hollywood and the movies .. some admiration but it was started his reputation as a first-rate actor... since then some of his film hits have been "Bolero", "Souls At Sea" and "Each Dawn | . now is appearing in Warner Bros.’ . . . from boxing and . his role in "Taxi'’ caused "Scarface" that dynamic film, Manpower". Exit Robinson— But Dramatically! Eddie Robinson “goes out talking” again in his new picture “Manpower,” with Marlene Dietrich and George Raft as other members of the cast. Robinson is famous for many things in the line of acting and death-bed speech-making is one of them. He nearly always manages to stay alive and conscious long enough to explain and straighten out everything. He does that in “Manpower,” too, in an unexpected and dramatic way and leaves Miss Dietrich and Mr. Raft tearful but happy at the picture’s end. Robinson’s death scenes are always dramatic high spots. Proposal to Wed Floors Glamor Gal In rehearsing a scene for Warner Bros.’ “Manpower,” Edward G. Robinson suggests to Marlene Dietrich that they get a wedding license. Marlene’s next line is, “You mean you want to marry me?” She delivers it with such perfect incredulity that Robinson bursts out laughing, and says: “Don’t sound so surprised. I’m just expressing sentiments of about five million men.” Whereupon Director Raoul Walsh, who has been observing the by-play with amusement, says, “The name of this picture is ‘Manpower,’ not ‘The Great Mouthpiece!’ ” 13