Over the Wall (Warner Bros.) (1938)

CURRENT PUBLICITY — “OVER THE WALL” Dick Foran Now Leading Man, No More ‘Hoss’-Operas The New Jersey cowboy has been unhorsed, and from now on Dick Foran, western star, will do his emoting in white tie and tails in drawing rooms instead of in high-heeled boots and chaps in a corral. Warner Bros. decision to move red-haired, brawny Dick from the deck of his trusty steed to the parlor was not made lightly. But increasing demand on the part of movie goers to see the former Princeton football husky in more Class A_ productions made his promotion a matter that couldn’t be avoided regardless of Dick’s feeling in the matter. Foran’s “downfall,” from his own point of view, was caused by outstanding performances he gave in “The Perfect Speci Mat 108—15c Interesting study of Dick Foran, starring in “Over The Wall.” men” and “Black Legion.” Although he’d played small parts in several other pictures, his roles in these two productions attracted so much attention that fan mail started pouring in at such a rate the studio bosses had to take cognizance of it. Dick, while appreciating the opportunity to become a screen star, would a lot rather stick to his buckaroo roles. Liked Westerns “Doggone it,” he says, “I was just going good in the horse operas, building up an organization of my own and having a barrel of fun and suddenly I find myself on the ground. Why I spent weeks learning how to fan a six-gun out of a holster and I don’t know how many tumbles I took before I got so I could hold my own with the regular cowboys who worked with me. “Now, I suppose if I ever ride in a picture again, I’ll have to wear swanky breeches and a derby hat and sit on one of those postage stamp saddles.” Is Princeton Grad Dick wasn’t always a cowboy. In fact, he was born and reared in the effete East, attended Mercersberg Academy and Princeton and was completely at home in select society. His father, Colonel Foran, is an industrialist and a political power in New Jersey and the last thing he ever imagined his husky son, John Nicholas, would become, was 2 cowboy. Young Foran landed in Hollywood as the representative of a transcontinental railway, was invited to the home of a movie mogul who knew his father very well, and awoke with a screen contract in his pocket. As Nick Foran he didn’t do so well, and then Warner Bros. signed him up, changed his front name to Dick and made a singing cowboy out of him. In a little more than a year, he climbed the ladder of western popularity until he was number six on the list, being topped only by long established favorites in this field. Right now he’s playing the lead in “Over The Wall,” at the Strand, and the studio has many more prominent roles in store for him, reports say. “WANT THRILLS” JUNE TRAVIS June Travis of the movies knows that she’s going to be married some time, although as yet she hasn’t chosen or been chosen by the lucky lad. Travel, Thrills For June Travis Before Marriage Mat 107—I15c However, the leading lady of Warner Bros.’ “Over the Wall,” which is the current film at the Strand, insists on realizing ten childhood ambitions before she takes the fatal step. “These are the things I’ve always wanted to do,” says the personable Miss Travis, “which I really will do before I leave the state of single blessedness. “I want to make my mark on the screen. That comes first. Then I must ride madly through town on a fire engine. I want to see the dawn come up like thunder in Mandalay. And moonlight on the Ganges. “I want to bicycle through rural England. I want to sit at a sidewalk cafe in Paris and wait until someone I know passes. I want to drive in a car at 100 miles an hour.” Daughter of the vice-president of the Chicago White Sox, June Travis is on Warner Bros.’ imposing list of up-andcoming starlets. Defendant Bitter at Stiff Sentence Mat 301—45c FRAMED and sentenced to five years, an embittered Dick Foran creates a disturbance in court. The scene is from “Over The Wall,” a Warner Bros.-Cosmopolitan film now playing at the Strand. 10 Mat 203—30c DICK FORAN, framed and sentenced to prison, finds solace in the visit of his sweetheart, June Travis. The scene is from the picture, “Over The Wall,”? now showing at the Strand. RAYMOND HATTON MAKES COMEBACK IN TOUGH ROLES Raymond Hatton, one of the outstanding stars of silent films, twelve years ago, plays a featured character bit in “Over The Wall,” Dick Foran’s current featured picture for Warner Bros.-Cosmopolitan. In the film story Hatton is a fellow convict in the state prison to which Foran is railroaded on a framed charge of murder. He is the recipient of Foran’s confidence when the latter, known as a “trouble maker” among the inmates, schemes to make the prison chaplain and the warden look silly in front of all the convicts, at the Sunday morning chapel services. Foran had been invited to sing a special religious solo, but talked it over with Hatton, and decided he would sing a slightly broad song title, “Have You Met My Lulu?” But the prison priest, played by John Litel, good naturedly outwits Foran, taking advantage of the big fellow’s sentimental Irish nature, and Foran sings Schubert’s “Ave Maria” instead. Even the crusty fellow played by Hatton, develops a moistening of the eyes. So did all the preview audiences who saw the advance showing of “Over The Wall” in Hollywood. Long Career Raymond Hatton, now 44, holds one of the long and distinguished careers in motion pictures. Generally a villain or a character lead who boded ill to the hero, he played with Lon Chaney in the original ‘“Hunchback of Notre Dame,” was a star in “Three Bad Men” and had his starring heyday as a partner of Wallace Beery in a series of comedy thrillers with such titles as “Behind the Front,” “Fireman Save My Child,” ‘“We’re in the Navy Now” and “Now We’re in the Air.” After the advent of sound films Hatton returned again to sinister characters, and has been making a good living making bad things happen ever since the good old days. LONG ON STAGE LITEL PREFERS PRESENT ROLES John Litel, in his twenty-six years on the stage and screen, has played virtually every variety of character playwright or scenarist ever conceived but he’s never liked one any better than that of a prison chaplain he plays in “Over The Wall.” This dramatic picture, a Warner Bros.-Cosmoplitan production, deals with a pugnacious young man who without guilt on his part finds himself confined to prison and who becomes an incorrigible as a result of self-pity for his plight. Plays Priest Working through his sweetheart, the prison chaplain manages finally to get under the convict’s skin and the exciting story is as much a tale of the young man’s regeneration through love, kindness and humane treatment as it is one establishing the fallacy of circumstantial evidence. Dick Foran enacts the role of the young convict and June Travis is his girl friend. Litel, who was on the stage for twenty-five years before going to Hollywood, started his career in a minor role of “Captain Brassbound’s Conversion” in which Gladys George had the leading feminine role. He played a whole series of long stock engagements and then for considerable time on Broadway before his work at last won him his chance before the cameras.