Marry the Girl (Warner Bros.) (1937)

PAGE 5 — “MARRY THE GIRL” — PUBLICITY Six Comedians Star In Hilarious Movie Galaxy of Comedians Add Own Gags to Script Writers’ For “Marry The Girl” Film If the production schedule didn’t insist, motion picture comedies would never be finished. There is less routine in the writing and filming of screen comedies than any other branch of the business. The matter of laughs is a ticklish one. Funny people and funny business are both difficult to control. Accordingly, if the players in “Marry The Girl,” Warner Bros.’ all-star comedy with Frank MceHugh, Mary Boland, Hugh Herbert, Carol Hughes, Alan Mowbray, Mischa Auer, Allen Jenkins, Hugh O’Connell and a dozen other luminaries of filmland humor, had their way, the film would still be in production. “Marry The Girl,” as it is, has an unusual high humor content, say the Wise Men of the West. It comes to the Theatre on ......... As the picture progressed on the Warner Bros. sound stages, some one or other of the players or personnel connected with the film would pop up with a new gag. It would seem a shame to let it go, but too many changes and additions would lengthen the production schedule to a point longer than the Beard of the Prophet. Allen Jenkins Mat No. 106-——10¢ In producing comedies the mental hazard facing the producers is the five-letter word which spells “]-g-u-g-h.” The question is whether a bit of action, a line of dialogue, or a facial expression will get a laugh from the audience. The comedy isn’t funny until it has been howled at in a preview. That is the only gauge producers have before they release a film. Everybody on the set may have laughed all the way through the production of a comedy but it may flop with a very dishearteningly dull thud at the preview. On the other hand, nobody may have thought another comedy to be so very funny as it was being produced, only to discover that the audience laughs so much during the preview that the laughs overlap each other and obscure parts of the dialogue. Generally, however, when the east, as in the case of “Marry The Girl,” features a galaxy of old can be fairly certain of getting a fair degree of entertainment out of it. That is why film moguls, when they produce comedies, endeavor to secure aS many important comedians as they can for their casts. That was the way Warner Bros. went about producing “Marry The Girl.” It was so full of the leading Hollywood laugh-getters that there was little chance for other producers to film an all-star comedy during that time. With a cast like the one in the picture, the scenes were like parties. Fifteen Comics In Single Film The use of fifteen of MHollywood’s leading comedy players— gathered from the home stulio roster, other studios and free lance ranks—gave Warner Bros. a virtual monopoly on _ that bracket of actors during the production of “Marry The Girl,” in which Mary Boland, Frank MceHugh and Hugh Herbert have the leading roles. Warners contributed their own Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert, Carol Hughes, Allen Jenkins, Teddy Hart and Louise Stanley. Other studios contributed Miss Boland, Mischa Auer and Alan Mowbray. The free lance representatives were Hugh O’Connell, Charles Judels, Olin Howland, Irving Baeon, Arthur Aylesworth and Louis Mason. O’Connell, however, is no longer a free lance, having been signed to a Warner Bros. contract at the completion of shooting on “Marry The Girl.” The picture comes to the Theatre on The fifteen featured players who participate in the new comedy comprise one of the largest easts of its kind in Hollywood history. The only “straight” actor in the film is William Davidson and even his role is tinged with comedy. “Straight Relief’’ Is Used In Comedy Everybody knows what comedy relief is. But when Director William McGann announced that for “Marry the Girl,’? now playing at the......... Si 2 eR, SEAR Theatre, he got to have a contrast.” He would need an actor for “straight relief,” he was greeted by a good many blank faces. “We've got to have somebody in the picture that doesn’t get any laughs—somebody who’s deadly serious,” he explained. With a cast like this one — Hugh Herbert, Mary Boland, Frank McHugh, and the rest of them, we’ve got to have a contrast. “He chose William Davidson, a veteran character actor, and poor Mr. Davidson had to be serious.” Mischa Auer Is Surrealist Now Mischa Auer, who has come into his own as a film comedian following his work in “Marry The Girl,’ now playing at the.. Ae eee Theatre, is also, it has just been revealed, no mean exponent of surrealism. As a slightly mad Russian artist, Auer is supposed to paint some extremely peculiar pictures. Mischa Auer Mat No. 104—10¢ Accordingly there were provided half a dozen “property” canvases for the garret. The paintings were supposed to be bad and very modernistic. Everybody in the cast wanted to know who painted the pictures. Auer confessed that he had asked permission of the art director to paint the pictures. Theyre on Strike for Bigger and Better Muzzles on Squirrels Joke Thetts Avoided In “Marry The Girl” To Insure Novelty of Film Gags No Vistors Allowed On Set While All-Star Comedy Was Made There is no such thing as ‘‘gag insurance,’’ but it is a very simple thing for movie studios to hang out a ‘‘No Visitors’’ sign. That is what happened at Warner Bros. on certain sequences of ‘‘Marry The Girl,’’ the all-star comedy with Frank McHugh, Mary Boland, Hugh Herbert, Allen Jenkins, Carol Hughes, Mischa Auer, Alan Mowbray and still others of the comedy personnel of Hollywood. Frank Startled By Star Roles Frank McHugh, star of the Warner Bros. farce-comedy, “Marry The Girl,” says that stardom for him was unsought and a big surprise. “After playing around New York, in the sticks, in stock, in just about every form of show business and keeping busy as an actor instead of a star, I held on to the same principle when I came to Hollywood. I decided, after seeing them rise and fall, that the rank of a featured player who keeps busy is much more satisfactory than stardom which doesn’t take for long. “Plattering as it would. have been at any time to be hailed as a star, I disciplined myself not. to think of such things. It would be a lot better, I thought to myself, if time brought stardom. “Even so I didn’t really expect to be a star. So I was plenty surprised when they told me I was a star from ‘Three Men on a Horse’ on, and cast me as a star of ‘Marry The Girl’.” “Marry The Girl,” opens at the Mischa Auer and others. ee YOU’D BETTER ‘MARRY THE GIRL’—(Left to Right) Alan Mowbray, Hugh Herbert, Mary Boland, dvVias INO. gUI——5U6 and Mischa Auer tell Frank McHugh, while Carol Hughes looks as though she likes the idea very much. The six comedians are starred in “Marry the Girl,” which comes to the OMB vucscccccserscscccvereseescovesenascesereceeceesees . Theatre Producers have discovered that too many times in the past comedy situations especially written for specific films had been broadeast on the air, used in vaudeville, used in newspaper columns and generally given wide currency long in advance of general release of the picture. As a result, when. the movie in which the “gags” originated was shown it wasn’t funny any more and the laughs didn’t come because it was “old stuff.” To prevent gag piracy on “Marry The Girl,” which comes to they"2..0, oe eatneon: ak! ; and which is full of gag lines and comedy situations, visitors were barred from the set during the making of the “key” scenes. The cast and the production crew Mary Boland Mat No. 105—10¢ were asked not to “give away” the “punch lines” and there wus no retailing of laughs from the picture over Brown Derby tables. “We don’t mean to be inhospitable,” said Director William MeGann, “but we thought it’s better business to save the laughs for the theatre when the picture is released. Audiences will enjoy the film more if the edge of the humor hasn’t been taken off by constant repetition of the jokes ny its “So we had to hang out the ‘No Visitors’ sign.” Although hardly regarded as such, “gags” from a movie are like the plans of any industrial or manufacturing company. “Marry The Girl’ is a rollicking farce-comedy presented by an outstanding cast of talented and famed fun-makers. Heading the list of laugh-getters are Frank McHugh, the star of that recent laugh hit, “Three Men On A Horse,” Carol Hughes who played his weepy wife in the same production; Hugh Herbert who scored such a comedy triumph as himself and his three brothers in “Sing Me a Love Song”; Mary Boland, recently seen in “College Holiday”; Mischa Auer who played the drunken count in “Three Smart Girls.” And you remember Allen Jenkins -and Teddy Hart who each played a third of the title role in “Three Men On a Horse.” Then there are Alan Mowbray, Hugh O’Connell ‘and a host of others. 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