Sit Tight (Warner Bros.) (1931)

a 6 “SIT TIGHT’—A Warner Bros. and Vitaphone Production WINNIE LIGHTNER, NOW HERE IN “SIT TIGHT,” SEES ANTIDOTE FOR STRENUOUS WORK IN HOME QUIET| Of “Sit Tight” Here Redhead Tomboy of the Talkies Spends Off-Hours in Entertaining Guests And Playing With Small Son > (Plant This Interesting Feature.) Winnie Lightner, tom-boy of the talkies threatens to become a quiet home-body. Putting the life in the party, being a gold-digger, holding everything, and sitting tight have taken some of the pep out of her off-stage hours. No human being ean keep up the pace required of Miss Lightner in her pictures, and Winnie has gone in for the simple life with her customary whole-heartedness. She can be primmer than the most prim of maidens, just as she can be the wildest of cutups. She confesses to having gone the limit of rowdyishness in her latest Warner Bros. picture, “Sit Tight,” now at the SARA Seay ere arene Theatre. “They put me through my paces all right,” she says. “They made me ride a horse, though the fortune teller had warned me against horses and everybody knew I wasn’t saddle broke. I lost twenty pounds in preparation for the picture and almost as much again making it. If Lloyd Bacon had made me do just one more stunt there would have been a new name in the roster of Warner Bros. directors the next day. But L. B. who knows enough is as good as a feast, saved two lives when he said ‘O. K.’ after that last swat!” No one would ask you to believe that Winnie sits at home nights and Sundays with her hands folded and a faraway look in her eyes. There’s a two-year-old baby boy in that home who occupies much of her time. Winnie is apt to be found in polka-dot lounging pajamas, building block ‘ouses or lying on her stomach, heels i air, reading rhymes to-her appre ciative youngster. The parties for which Winnie was famous when she first came to Hollywood, at which the comedienne kept open house for all who knew her and many who didn’t, have been replaced by smaller gatherings of congenial souls who meet in her lovely but unpretentious Beverly Hills home. Her flare for the bizarre, her noisy greetings, her rough and ready smal talk seem to disappear as she enters her home. It is not that they are effected, for Winnie has been a playgirl on the stage, in private life, and on the screen for years. The quiet home life is a new phase in her interesting personality, and there is a story behind it. It is an old gag to say that a famous comedian is a serious artist at heart, or that a clowning exterior necessarily hides a tragic life. This was not originally true with Winnie Lightner, who only had to act natural to make screen history, as she did in “Gold Diggers of Broadway.” “I was a play girl for years,” Winnie explains. “In London and Paris I guess I was fairly wild. Whatever that is. I partied a good deal. I never took time off to think. I was like that when I first came to Hollywood. And then a lot of things happened. Some of them are of no interest and the most important was that I found it required more energy to make pictures than it ever did to play on the stage, even the two and three a day. “Say, they’ve made me do things in pictures that qualify me as a con tortionist, an acrobat or a magician. Between scenes I just have to store up some extra energy. Peace and quiet at home is the only way I have found to do it. I’d like to burn the candle at both ends as well as anyone but you can’t cheat the camera. “Anyway, there’s a touch of seriousness in me. I made my first stage appearance singing a serious song on an amateur night in my home town of Buffalo. I was late, my taxi broke down and it was raining. When I arrived at the stage door I was WARNER BROS. Present Sit Tight LIGHTNER AND JOE E.BROWN Cut No. 8 Cut 20¢ Mat sc 68 Lines WINNIE ROOTS FOR HER WHITE HOPE (Advance Short) The world’s funniest wrestling match is staged by Joe E. Brown and an unknown with Winnie Lightner acting as chief rooter, in “Sit Tight,” Warner Brothers feature comedy which opens at the Ce | She a ae a Theatre next. It took two weeks of steady work to complete the filming of these comedy sequences. shoved out before an audience, muddy, wet and wind-blown. I started to sing a very serious song, with gestures intended to tear their hearts out. I had practised it all for weeks and had pictured the results. “But they rolled in the aisles. Pretty soon I knew they were laughing at me so I determined to get them laughing with me and began clowning the song. It went over and it’s been going over ever since. But I still think I could get away with murder as Lady Macbeth. “I’m saving my energies now for my pictures. I hope some day to have enough money to retire and grow as fat as nature intended me to. There are some worthwhile things I hope to be able to do, too, but the public isn’t interested in that. If they'll just laugh with me or at me for a few years more Winona can dare to be happy. “Somehow I’ve never really been happy yet. But being determined to ‘Sit Tight’? uses up my time and strength, and keeps me busy. Perhaps that’s ths biggest part of happiness, after all.” Curious Patients Get The Works In Scenes (Current Story) The fact that they were unathletic in build and lacking in vigor won thirty Hollywood bit players lucrative roles in “Sit Tight,” the Warner Brothers comedy, starring Winnie Lightner and Joe E. Brown. They appear in early sequences of the picture, which is the current attraction at the Theatre, as the trusting patients frequent the gymnasium run by Dr. Winnie Harper and the clumsy Jojo, hoping to improve their appearance under their more or less expert guidance. Hollywood is one of the few places in the world where a peculiar appearance is sometimes an asset. When the call went out for men with odd shapes almost four hundred applicants were available. From these the thirty chosen as the most representative of the queer assortment. Miss Lightner and Joe E. Brown have another laugh carnival in “Sit Tight” with Claudia Dell and Paul Gregory playing the romantic leads. Lloyd Bacon directed. “Sit Tight” Star Says Hollywood Midgets Put Ban on Swimming Pool (Current Story) Winnie Lightner has lived in Holly wood, off and on for two years, and she says that it has taught her “puhlenty!” The red-headed star of “Sit Tight,” Warner Brothers Vitaphone production now playing at the Theatre, was quizzed not long ago by an imaginative reporter on the subject, “Lessons Hollywood Has to Teach.” Winnie expounded at length—but if the reporter expected a soliloquy on love, morals, or education, he must have been surprised. “Baby,” grinned the tomboy of the talkies, with no hesitation at all, “The one thing I’ve learned best in this man’s town is not to buy swimming pools!” As may be suspected, a tale lies behind this heart-felt dictum. Here it is. Hollywood is full of midgets, tiny, perfectly-formed folk who are often in demand by motion pictures. Winnie did buy a swimming pool, and one of her first parties was made up of several dozen of these midgets, whom the generous actress wished to present with a little treat. Only, the hostess herself did not enjoy the party as much as she had expected, for she spent the whole afternoon diving into the pool saving the adventurous little people from death by drowning. “Sit Tight,” directed by Lloyd Bacon, also includes Joe E. Brown, Claudia Dell and Paul Gregory in| Hit! support of Miss Lightner. “Sit Tight” Co-Stars Wild Winnie and Jojo (Advance Story) Winnie Lightner, whose battle to lose surplus weight was signally suecessful, had no chance of gaining back any excess weight during the filming of “Sit Tight,” her latest feature comedy for Warner Bros., whieh:-opens .. 2 253%; ,-at the ..... Theatre next. As Dr. Harper, health specialist, Winnie puts in several very strenuous weeks in her role in “Sit Tight.” For that matter so did Joe E. Brown, her partner in comedy Miss Lightner and Joe E. Brown earry the burden of comedy in “Sit Tight” and Claudia Dell and Paul Gregory are the romantic leads. Lloyd Bacon directed. NEAT ADAIR RRA, Cut No. 15 Cut 30¢ Mat roc Joe E. Brown and Claudia Dell in an amusing moment from “Sit Tight,” the current Strand laugh-getter. Winnie Lightner is costarred with Joe. It’s a Warner Bros. picture. Claudia Dell Plays In “Sit Tight” (Biography as of Jan. 1, 1930) Claudia Dell who plays the romantic role in the Warner Bros. comedy “Sit Tight,” co-starring Winnie Lightner and Joe E. Brown, now at the .... Theatre, was born in San Antonio, Texas, received her early schooling in an English school in Mexico City. At fourteen she visited New York —danced and played the violin for the soldiers at Kelly Field—and many medals for swimming. EEE against her will went back home to finish her schooling. Returning to New York several years later she was engaged by Ziegfeld for the “Follies” and sent to London to play the lead in “Marry Mary.” On returning to New York she was offered several important dngagements—but being homesick to see her parents who had gone to California, she went there and was engaged by Warner Bros. for the lead in “Sweet Kitty Bellairs.” She has since appeared in “Big Boy,” “Fifty Million Frenchmen” and “Sit Tight.” Two Big Stars In One Big WARNER BROS. _ aiied resent iT For The Laugh Of Your Lifetime! WINNIE hes JOE E. LIGHTNER BROWN Queen of Comedy and the Clown Prince of Joy unite for bigger and better laughs. Double strength comedy in double doses. Funniest picture in YEARS! A WARNER BROS. & VITAPHONE PICTURE 200 Cut No. 6 Cut goc Mat roc Miss Dell is athletic and has won _