One Foot in Heaven (Warner Bros.) (1941)

CURRENT PUBLICITY —’ONE FOOT IN HEAVEN” Was Just Too Eager The Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, pastor of New York Fifth Avenue’s Marble Collegiate Church, was deeply interested in the movie scene Fredric March and Martha Scott were playing for “One Foot in Heaven.” He had every right to be, as he was brought all the way out from Manhattan to serve as technical advisor for the Warner Bros. production which is currently showing at the Strand Theatre. The pastor’s interest, however, carried him a bit too far forward. “Pardon me, Dr. Peale,” Director Irving Rapper said, “you’re in the camera range.” “Well,” smiled the minister, as he hastily moved back, “that’s one time I almost got both feet in the movies.” Pounds Mounted Up! Martha Scott weighs just 110 pounds. Fredric March is a six footer and husky. Yet March was exhausted after carrying Miss Scott across a parsonage threshhold eight times for long, medium and close shots of an early scene for their current Strand picture “One Foot in Heaven.” It wasn’t the original weight but the excess that wore the actor down. Dressed in the picturesque but cumbersome costume of a girl of the early nineteen hundreds, Miss Scott carried an extra weight impost of 20 pounds of wardrobe. Top Screen Team Fredric March is just 40 pictures ahead of Martha Scott, his co-star in Warner Bros.’ “One Foot in Heaven,’ now showing at the Strand. That film is March’s 45th, Miss Scott’s fifth, yet they make an ideal screen team. Ministers of the gospel may be interested, incidentally, to know that March really considers his role of a preacher in “One Foot in Heaven” as the most interesting one of the 45 he has played for the screen. He said so emphatically in an “off the record” conversation with Miss Scott. Famed Film Parents Elisabeth Fraser, blonde screen newcomer, says if acting talent only could be inherited from film and stage parents, she’d have no worries about her career. She’s currently making her picture debut as a Warner Bros. contract actress by playing the daughter of Fredric March and Martha Scott in “One Foot in Heaven.” She made a hit stage debut as the daughter-in-law of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontainne in the Broadway success, “There Shall Be No Night.” Title Is Very Apt “One Foot In MHeaven”, the Strand’s current hit film is one picture which has good claim to its title. It is taken directly from a line of dialogue which appears in book on which the picture is based, and is spoken by Fredric March in the film. Explaining to his screen son why a parson’s family must be better-bekaved than any other in the community, he says, “It is though we walked a tight-rope, balanced precariously, with one foot already in Heaven.” BRIEF and CURRENT Pre-War Waistline Being the possessor of a corset proof waistline is a decided asset to blonde Martha Scott. In three of the four pictures she has done to date, Miss Scott has worn period costumes and_ she’s back in tight laced 1904 vintage gowns for the early sequences of her current vehicle, “One Foot In Heaven.” She does not, however, have to wear a corset, and the fact she portrays a minister’s wife doesn’t figure in the reason. It’s her trim 2114-inch waistline that brings the immunity from stays. In fact, when she’s “poured into” the 1904 gowns, her waistline is a good inch smaller than the circumference of her shapely head. Liked The Theatre Frederic March got plenty of valuable pointers about the late Rev. William H. Spence, the real life character he’s portraying in Warner Bros.’ “One Foot in Heaven,” from that pastor’s widow. Mrs. Spence, a resident of Ames, Iowa, is currently vacationing in Hollywood and was a frequent visitor on the film sets while the picture was in production at the Warner Bros. studios. “One Foot In Heaven’ is currently showing on the Strand screen. One of the things March wanted to know was whether or not Rev. Spence liked the theater. “Well, TIl tell you, Mr. March,” the widow said, “the most wicked thing my husband ever did was to persuade a layman to take over his prayer meeting so he could go to see ‘Abie’s Irish Rose’.” When Oldsters Meet Two famous actors stepped on a Hollywood motion picture set to meet for the first time in 55 years and renew an_ association that started, and ended, away back in 1886 when both were stock players at the old Alcazar Theatre in San Francisco. Hobart Bosworth, 74, and Harry Davenport, 75, were the actors. Their reunion occurred on a Warner Bros. sound stage, where the same strange fate that had kept them apart for 55 years brought them together as featured players in the picture “One Foot in Heaven,” which is now playing at the Strand Theatre. March Gets His Wish In playing the role of the Rev. William Spence in Warner Bros. film adaptation of Hartzell Spence’s best seller, “One Foot in Heaven,” Fredric March is realizing an ambition he has cherished since he read the book in galley proof form. The film version of Hartzell Spence’s book is currently showing at the Strand Theatre, with Martha Scott and March in the co-starring roles. Also featured are Beulah Bondi, Gene Lockhart, Laura Hope Crews and many other well-known players. Not So Motherly Beulah Bondi, who Martha Scott’s mother in “Our Town,” is currently portraying that star’s spiteful enemy in Warner Bros.’ “One Foot in Heaven.” One case when a girl’s best friend is not her ex-mother. played Both movie and women’s page editors will want to see this human interest feature on this important new dramatic star. (Michigan papers, please note.) School Kids Lost Out When Martha Scott Went In For Acting In these days when it is the fashion for young thespians to claim to have been born with a consuming ambition to serve the theater, it’s refreshing to hear an actress admit that no more divine a flame than puppy love kindled her stage and screen ambitions. Martha Scott, who has progressed sufficiently in the realization of her ambitions to need no apologies for their inspiration, is the young lady who makes that interesting confession. Miss Scott didn’t “always just know I wanted to be an actress.” Until a few semesters of practice teaching at the University of Michigan had convinced her ske didn’t want to be a school marm, she entertained no ideas along the acting line. Memories of a thwarted case of puppy love came to her aid when she was casting about for a new career idea. A boy on whom she had, to use her own words, “had an awful crush” during their high school days, had gone into acting. Some of his notices had reached Miss Scott’s attention.” “Tll_ show that young man a thing or two,” the Michigan co-ed mentally vowed. “I’ll become an actress and a darn good one.” The records reveal how handsomely Miss Scott has kept that vow. She’s been starred on Broadway, the goal of all stage players, and her current co-starring role with Frederic March in Warner Bros.’ “One Foot in Heaven” is evidence of the progress she’s made in Hollywood. That film, in which she plays the wife of a country minister is only the fifth she has done. It is at least the third, however, in which she’s been recognized as a star. “One Foot In Heaven” is currently at the Strand, and Miss Scott’s performance in it has won her wide praise. Even the girls who’ve always known they wanted to be actresses seldom make that sort of progress. Miss Scott is not one to decry the advantages of an early choice of a life objective, however. She believes it is better to plan for a career than be jilted into one, as, in a manner of speaking, she was. When she put aside her text books and left the classrooms at Ann Arbor, she found theatrical jobs were hard to get. Strangely enough, producers wanted experienced, or at least trained, actresses. The best claim to acting experience she had was her enactment of a role for benefit of a class of high school students. To maintain discipline and discourage romantic advances from the older boys, she’d worn plain gowns, eyeglasses and a severe coiffure, playing the role of a staid school teacher. Stage producers weren’t interested in that type of character portrayal. The only work Miss Scott could get in Chicago was in a department store, where she sold everything from candy to lawn mowers. A few months of that, and she took the bus to Detroit, where she had better success. She got a place with a winter stock company, and in bit and walkon parts, began receiving that training she might have gotten earlier in little thea Mat 212 — 30c MARTHA SCOTT — lovely star of stage and screen who is co-starred opposite Fredric March in the Strand's new film, "One Foot In Heaven". ters or dramatic school had she always known she wanted to be an actress. More stock work, and a two year whirl in Shakespeare with a company that headquartered in Chicago and toured the country, completed what Miss Scott considered her training course. She was now ready to really start showing that young man, whom she’d practically forgotten, something. She arrived in New York with fifty dollars in cash and a million dollars worth of enthusiasm. The cash was almost gone when she got a job in summer stock. Her real break came when Jed Harris cast her for the role of Emily in “Our Town.” The play was a Broadway hit, and so was Miss Scott. When the play was produced as a motion picture, Miss Scott was Beulah Bondi Beulah Bondi is definitely not a glamour girl, but she is more of a success in the cinema city than many a_ beautiful babe. She has proved herself to be a great (even in the Hollywood sense of the word) actress time and again. No one can forget her performance in “Our Town” and “Make Way for Tomorrow.” praise-winning per Mat 107 — 15c Beulah Bondi That formances are continuing in full her selected to play the feminine lead. She’s remained in Hollywood, and prior to her co-starring role with March in “One Foot in Heaven,” did “They Dare Not Love,” “Cheers for Miss Bishop” and “The Howards of Virginia.” Miss Scott was born in Jamestown, Missouri. It was in Kansas City that she attended high school and experienced the adolescent heart throbs that were to inspire an important stage and_ screen career. It would be a romantic way to end this account by recording that Miss Scott and the young man she was going to show a thing or two are to do a picture together. The facts of the matter, however, are that Miss Scott long ago completely lost track of the young man. She couldn’t even send him a note of thanks if she wanted to. Scores Again! stride is quite evident from the reviews of her latest picture, Warner Bros.’ excellent film, “One Foot In Heaven”, the current Strand hit. She plays the role of an extremely wealthy woman who thinks her wealth entitles her to rule other people’s lives. All critics agree that she plays the part convincingly, making one hate her but at the same time realizing that he is seeing a grand bit of acting. Starring in the film are Fredric March and Martha Scott (who appeared with her in “Our Town”). and a great number of fine performers in the supporting roles. “One Foot !n Heaven” is based on the recent bestseller by Hartzell Spence, and was adapted for the screen by Casey Robinson.