Sh! the Octopus (Warner Bros.) (1937)

“Herbert And Jenkins Keep The Audience On The Edges Of Their Seats Throughout — DAILY VARIETY (Advance) Movie Set Ages 100 Years In Less Than Two Hours By ArrHour JANiscH It was a simple appearing affair. Resembled, in a way, a home-made electric hair dryer. But its very simplicity was a tribute to the ingenuity, the resourcefulness and efficiency of the motion picture technical expert. We stood and watched the prop man use it. Saw him stand intently before a closed door, holding the curious contrivance as its Three dozen bats were imported by Warner Bros. studio recently for use in “Sh! The Octopus,” the mystery farce featuring Hugh Herbert, Allen Jenkins, Marcia Ralston and John Eldredge. They were brought from South America because of their enormous size and unusually ferocious, eerie appearance. The flying mammals were turned loose in a huge lighthouse set used in the picture. Although the bats are perfectly harmless, they caused the feminine members of the cast several moments of uneasiness. They’d all heard the old tale about bats getting into your hair and pulling it out by the roots. So, to set everyone’s mind at rest, two men were hired to act as custodians of the bats. PRA OROOOOOOwvrwvlt™ electric motor whirred. Saw him jiggle it, move it in parabolas and aim it head on—and saw a maze of cobwebs enshroud the door. They are made of rubber cement. Then the finishing touches— (Fuller’s earth powdered on with a small hand bellows)—and the aging of a set for Warner Bros.’ new mystery screamer, “Sh! The Octopus,” featuring Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins, was completed. The picture comes to the Strand Theatre next week. Sinister deeds of darkness are to take place in this old lighthouse, unused for more than a score of years. Fifty feet high it towers, its massive heams, age worn and festooned with cobwebs, and a steady trickle of water seeping through from lashing seas. From the lofty peak feet first hangs a body and around it circle bats, grim harbingers of dastardly crime.” In the larger base below is a rickety table and chairs, covered with dust (more Fuller’s earth!). Around the walls hang lengths of great hawsers, ship’s wheels and the usual odds and ends discarded by men of the sea. The following photos register the facial contortions of a great author in the throes of creation. Hugh Herbert, first funny man of filmdom appearing in the world’s daffiest murder mystery, “Sh! The Octopus,’ at the Strand, shows you what sometimes happens to an idea after its first encounter with the human brain. (Art and type in this strip available in one mat from Campaign Plan Editor— Mat Oct 401-B—60c). Page Four On the table are a telescope and long-unused sextant. Adjoining this large room are other rooms; the living rooms of uncounted lighthouse keepers now passed into the limbo of the forgotten. Furnishings that would delight collectors of antiques, and more dust and cobwebs. Strange indeed are the adventures possible in this fascinating old place. Sliding panels and secret doors through which the octopus extends its tentacles to caress with gruesome affection the unwary. Secret stairways and a trapdoor in the floor, with stone steps leading to the underground passages in which lives the octopus. “My life is complete,” says Hugh Herbert with a flutter of his hands. “I’ve worked with alligators, lions, tigers, bears, goats— and I thought my experience was complete, but it wasn’t until this picture, when I was cast with an octopus. Woo—woo!” Curious happenings, here. A flashlight, flattened thin and bent in grotesque angles by the octopus, still works when Herbert uses it. Prop men continually throw buckets of water over Herbert, Jenkins, Marcia Ralston and John Eldredge, and spray their faces with water, for they have just come in from a terrific storm. Their clothing dries rapidly under the heat of the light and must be re-wet at frequent intervals. Not the least interesting of these fascinating sets are the caves and tunnels below the lighthouse. The lighthouse, according to the story, is three miles off-shore, and the caves are practical and the water deep and cold. Herbert wears three suits of underwear—cotton, silk and wool—at once when he dons a diving suit to go into the water in search of the octopus. He comes up minus the octopus but with his suit full of water and fish ! Director William McGann, happy over the acclaim his last picture, “Alcatraz Island,” has brought him, had a lot of fun filming this farce mystery and so did everybody else connected with the picture, with the possible exception of that ol’ debbil octopus, who, although he plays the title role, absolutely refused to commit himself on the subject. EUREKA, ’VE GOT IT! thor Herbert has just felt the first warm glow of inspiration radiating from the roots of his thought center. He seems to have hit on an idea that is bound to rock literature to its foundations. Au Mat 103—15c MARCIA RALSTON — pretty brunette newcomer to the screen provides the romantic interest in the new mystery farce “Sh! The Octopus,” which is now showing at the Strand Theatre. WE'RE ALL WET ACTORS CONFESS AFTER SOAKING Probably the only actors in Hollywood who ever admitted they were “all wet” were those engaged in filming Warner Bros.’ new mystery farce, “Sh! The Octopus”! This is the picture that opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. The action takes place in an abandoned lighthouse three miles off-shore, and Hugh Herbert, Allen Jenkins, John Eldredge, Marcia Ralston, Margaret Irving and others in the cast had to appear thoroughly drenched as they came in out of a severe electrical storm. As fast as their clothing dried under the heat of the huge studio lamps, the prop man gave them another drenching—and about the only dry person on the set was Director William McGann. And even he had to watch his step for the prop man had a mischievous habit of leaving his spray gun, which shoots out a fine spray of water under pressure, lying around—a perfect set-up for the practical joker. And there’s at least one on every movie set. The feminine members of the cast wore rubber suits under their clothes. THIS WILL SLAY THEM thinks Author Herbert. He lays the background for his epic in the little town of Bedlam, Pa., by the banks of an old steel mill stream where lived the fair maid, Anthracite, daughter of a miner. (Current ) STRENUOUS ROLE FOR MR. JENKINS IN ‘THE OCTOPUS’ Allen Jenkins, the film comedian, ate his meals standing up for several days recently because he had an accident that was so funny he had to repeat it innumerable times for a picture. With Hugh Herbert, he was having all manner of weird adventures in an ancient, abandoned lighthouse for Warner Bros.’ new mystery screamer, “Sh! The Octopus,” now showing at the Strand Theatre. The comedians outdid themselves in their efforts to be known as the world’s two dumbest detectives. One day, after an encounter with the sinister forces that inhabited the lighthouse, Jenkins hurried into the main room of the structure to rejoin Herbert, John Eldredge and Marcia Ralston. As Jenkins, covered with cobwebs, dashed into the room, he ran into a heavy hawser looped over the entrance. Catching his chin in the hawser, his feet were lifted high in the air and he came down heavily on the floor. Only a person running through a back yard on a dark night and colliding with a clothesline has ever had a similar experience, he says. While the action was entirely unpremeditated and unrehearsed, it was so funny that Director William McGann asked Jenkins to repeat it a dozen times for closeups and angle shots. Hence his standing up for meals. HUGH’S PUPPIES IMITATE MASTER Hugh Herbert gave two sixweeks-old puppies to Marcia Ralston and Margaret Irving who are appearing with him in the Warner Bros. new mystery screamer, “Sh! The Octopus,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. The puppies are half Great Dane and half Shepherd. But Miss Irving finally got both puppies because they were so devoted to each other that it seemed unkind to separate them. She claims that the puppies have already learned to sit up and that they wave their paws in a manner reminiscent of the expressive Herbert hands. NOW TO FIND A PLOT: Author Herbert feels that he can string this situation out into a full length novel beautifully lithographed in full color. Just give him a plot to play with and he'll go places, literally speaking. Mat 101—15c WOO-WOO! WHO ARE YOU? Hugh Herbert is up to his neck in mystifying circumstances in his latest picture “Sh! The Octopus,” now showing at the Strand. RUBBER COBWEBS USED AS A GAG T0 WELCOME BOSS The movie property man finished spinning rubber-cement cobwebs for the Warner Bros. mysteryfarce, “Sh! The Octopus,” which comes to the Strand Theatre next week. He began puffing dust on them to age them. Said he: “You know, in the movies cobwebs are not always used only for mystery pictures like this one. At another studio once the boys and I spun ’em all over desks and real live office workers in regular offices—the accounting department. Webs, and dust! When we got through those offices looked like a deserted wax works—for the bookkeepers and such all pretended to be asleep or dead.” After a halt for suspense, the prop man continued, “No, it wasn’t for a movie. The big boss of the studio had been gone for months in Europe and this was a gag to welcome him back. He always looked at the accounting office, where the shekels were handled, first of all—and you you should have seen his face when he saw the dust, cobwebs and his hired help all asleep with their feet on their desks!” Hugh Herbert has the leading role in “Sh! The Octopus.” STUCKO is the word for Hugh Herbert at this stage of the game. His train of thought seems to have jumped the track. He looks the picture of creative dejection and his initial velocity has slowed to a scrawl. Dear me, poor Hugh!