Mr Dodd Takes the Air(Warner Bros.) (1937)

ot Mice fr" oe es Reet ek ie Film Funnyman Frank Lost In Machine Age Leading Comic In “Mr. Dodd Takes The Air’ Is “Babe In The Woods” When It Comes To Automobiles Frank MeHugh, the movie comedian, says he’s a babe in the woods. He has been on the stage and the screen for a total: of 30 years — in the sticks, on Broadway, in Hollywood. But he still insists that he’s a babe in the woods. ‘*T wanted to take a week off after a ecar,’’ Frank admits. ‘*T ean’t drive I finished ‘Mr. Dodd Takes the Air’ for Producer Mervyn LeRoy, and it’s okay with Warner Bros.; but I can’t drive and the fellow I know who could teach me to drive just can’t get away from the studio. able to drive a car??? It’s the machine age that baf fles McHugh. He can’t handle all the new gadgets that crop up every day. The telephone is about the only machine he can handle without fear of messing up the works. . ‘*There’s an awful lot of hurryaround,’’ Frank says. ‘‘Everything is being made to speed things up. All kinds of machines, pretty things of stainless steel they are, too, but I don’t seem to be able to get mechanical. I’m all for the old-fashioned well in the backyard, and walking, and horse and buggy transportation.’’ Frank keeps up with things literary and dramatic and artistic, but he can’t keep pace with the other parts of modern life. He gets nervous, he admits, in face of a streamlined automobile which could be going or coming, **T don’t know much about that stuff,’? he says. ‘‘I don’t know much about other forms of sophistication either. We eat at home most of the time and when we do go out it’s for dinner or a movie. I don’t know how any of the night clubs look. If they’re something like cabarets of several years ago I have a fair idea about them. Not much, though, because I didn’t use to go to cabarets either. ““T guess I shed my last bit of worldliness when I went on the water-wagon. With a vengeance, I might add! I don’t even drink soft drinks now because I’m on the wagon and the others are drinking liquor. It’s just that I’m on the wagon and mean it. No use talking about it and bemoaning my sobriety. ‘*But I’m no sissy. I’m just getting naive as I grow older. I’m enjoying the simpler things. My idea of a vacation is hanging around outdoors several miles from the nearest telephone. I can get all the excitement I need out of playing a game of baseball or romping with the kids and their dog. ‘‘Fine thing, isn’t it, when a dener with his ments, reads and has himself taken over to visit with other acting ‘“You ean,’’ he concluded, ‘‘ put me down as a babe in the woods who doesn’t comprehend this machine age, the hurry and the excitement. I’ll take a glass of spring water and a campfire-broiled steak.’’ A typical McHugh day of work and rest includes early rising, breakfast with the children and Mrs. McHugh, a ten minute glance at the morning paper, being chauffeured to the studio by the gardener, work all day with time off for lunch, removal of make-up and return home for dinner and a few minutes with the children before they go to bed, a movie, a book or a visit with friends: for a couple of hours and then bed. On days off he helps the garputtering, takes : tak: friends who are having days off. **Tt’s exciting enough for me,’’ Frank says. ‘‘Mr. Dodd Takes the Air,’’ which opens at the Strand Theatre next week, stars Kenny Baker, the radio favorite, in the title role. Jane Wyman is the leading lady. KennyBaker Cashing In On Ranch ‘Crooner Sells Berries To The Movie Studio Kenny Baker, radio and movie singer had been living on his new California ranch only a week before he turned it to profit. Working in ‘‘Mr. Dodd Takes the Air’’ for Mervyn LeRoy at Warner Bros., Kenny’s first week as a movie star was spent on Stage 14 in attendance on a fictitious out-door fete — the ‘‘Pewamo Strawberry Festival.’’ The studio property department furnished the Japanese lanterns, the benches, cakes and other appurtenances of such affairs. Everything, in fact, was supplied except the strawberries. Kenny noticed the absence of the berries and made arrangements to furnish enough strawberries to make the festival authentic. The studio got the berries from the Baker ranch, which he bought as it stood, complete with berry bushes and trees. Kenny sold them for $4.35, at the rate of two baskets for a quarter. “‘Mr. Dodd Takes the Air,’’ comes to the Strand Theatre next week. Claude Dodd (Kenny Baker) makes his singing debut at a strawberry festival in Pewamo. His pal, ‘‘Sniffer” (Frank McHugh) thinks he’s colossal. Mr. Dodd is offered $22.50 a week to sing over the air. But there’s a catch — and it seems to be in Mr. Dodd’s throat. Mr. Dodd gets the air when his boss discovers he’s now a tenor. But someone else offers $1,000 a week. Mr. Dodd is an overnight sensation, and takes the country literally by storm. But he has woman-trouble. And Jane Wyman is it! But Mr. gets his girl and the U.S.A. gets its favorite crooner every night on the | air! Dodd is some fixer. He Mat No. 101B—10c “me | Sure,’’? said Arthur Edeson, (Adwance Story) Success Story | Kenny Baker Expert On Camera Lingo Screen and Radio Star Astounds Technicians on “Mr. Dodd Takes The Air” Set With His Knowledge By ALEX EVELOVE The young man with the curly hair and the wide grin walked up to the cameraman. ‘‘Do you have any trouble with chromatic aberration?’’ he asked. The cameraman turned around. A practiced hand of twenty years experience, he was a little startled. ‘*Say,’’ the lad pursued, ‘‘wouldn’t it be a 200d idea to use a quarter diffusion on this face of mine? I ain’t so hand some, you know.’’ The cameraman looked at the features before him. True, they weren’t classical. The nose wasn’t exactly the kind that Praxiteles might have carved. The mouth was generous. It was just a nice kid’s face with a grand grin on it. It was the kind of a face that was open and very likeable. ‘¢ And, furthermore,’’ the young fellow asked, ‘‘isn’t it true that an Aero-2 filter will give truer color rendition?’’ The cameraman, who has seen many people in front of his lens in the past twenty years, looked hard at this young man with the ‘‘trade talk.’’ ‘‘My name is Kenny Baker,’’ the cameraman, ‘‘but how do you know all this camera talk? I thought you were a singer. I thought you were an actor.’’ ‘<T’m a singer all right and Mr. LeRoy says I’m going to be all right as an actor, too,’’ he answered, ‘‘but I’ve got a box brownie and I like photography so I boned up on it. Read a lot.’’ ‘¢A brownie! Boy, you ought to have one of the most expensive cameras there is to go with those swell four-buck words,’’ Edeson told Keuny. ‘‘Boy! I can’t wait,’’ Kenny said. ‘‘I’ve got an order in for one with the fastest lens I can get. Then will I go to town! ’’ “ey wouln’t be surprised,’’ Edeson told him. Mervyn LeRoy wouldn’t be surprised, either, if this blond youngster with the curly hair and wide grin goes to town on the screen, too. Two years ago the producer, who was then a director, went to the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles one evening and heard the tenor sing. He immediately signed him to a personal contract. In the time since then Kenny has become one of the stars of—according to numerous polls—radio’s most popular program — the ‘‘Jell-O”’ show. Before the ‘‘ break,’’ Kenny had done numerous odd jobs of sing ing. He had entered national contests and lost them. He had polin a store one sum for Mickey Mouse. Another ‘me he was a member of a malechorus on the Warner Bros. lot to which he returned recently as a star in Mervyn LeRoy ’s musical comedy, ‘‘ Mr. Dodd Takes the Air.’’ Kenny will be seen and heard in‘ this when it opens next week at the Strand Theatre. Last November when LeRoy began his first production on _ his own, ‘‘The King and the Chorus Girl,’’ he sent for Baker. The lad sang a song, ‘‘For You,’’ and was seen only during that number. He didn’t even have a full close-. up. The idea was to give experience and a kind of national screen test to him. . Then LeRoy bought a book by Clarence Budington Kelland. It was called ‘‘The Great Crooner.’’ It was bought, according to LeRoy, because it was a good story and offered an ideal introduction, a full length portrait this time, of one Kenny Baker. Hence, said Kenny Baker at the age of 25 finds himself starring in the Kelland story, now ealled. ‘‘Mr. Dodd Takes the Air.’’ It was directed by Alfred E. Green, ‘‘This is my swellest break,’’ he says. Maybe that’s why he feels he can afford to replace the old box camera with one of those complex fine candid mechanisms he has wanted for years. Bakes ciaaen one |