Smart Money (Warner Bros.) (1931)

_ — rASTER THAN “PUBLIC ENEMY” HOLLYWOOD INTERVIEWER PITTS TWO Paddy NOTED STARS AGAINST EACH OTHER IN DISCUSSION OF TALKIE STARS Edward G. Robinson, Star of ‘Smart Money” Now At Strand Theatre, Born In Roumania—Talks With Dick Barthelmess, Native of New York, On Influences That Mold Lives Of Players LO By Wilton Chalmers (Interesting Sunday Feature) Betetiocd, Calif—Do the states and the sections of the .Suntry in which screen stars are born, influence their speech, “atutudes, and bearing? : “ Up for discussion rose this question, following a certain 2 “shooting” National studio at Burbank. And © it fell out in this wise, ladies and gentlemen. I had planted myself what the older novelists delighted “to call “a coign of vantage,” near "gets. .One was for Richard @perthelmess’ new vehicle “Spent _ Bullets.” And the other for “Smart * Money” in which Edward G. Robinson has the part of a dice-and“blonde specialist. Well then, as these players, poles ’ apart in type you will agree, strolled away from the sets, making for their respective dressing rooms, it "occurred to me to beard these lions, ‘provide them with conversational ates see what would happen. Yd make ’em talk. But on what? /Crime? That outcrop was over‘worked. Robinson had acquitted himself well in. “Little Caesar” and "Barthelmess in “The F inger _ Points.” I was sure they wouldn’t _ talk on the subject. _ Ah, yes I had it! I remembered “that Robinson was born in Bucha“test, Roumania and that Barthel“mess had first seen the light of day “in what is sometime referred to as ‘Little Old New York. Thirty-five adréed miles apart, these spots, ‘two products of each metropoéeting in a Hollywood studio. : Cut 15c, Mat sc us who have been clamoring to see” Edward G. Robinson in another role hy bbiudzigis tlock. to see Sonatt Money” at the Strand Theatre. Robinson plays a big-shot gambler who knows too much = aE a & vow avcadliP=prodiice certain types that are ly recognizable? I mean, is "a Certain stamp of Bucharest your behavior patterns, Mr. Rob bn? And could a Southerner tell you, Mr. Barthelmess, hailed am New York City?” ' Each deferred to the other, but it was Barthelmess who was prevailed upon to air his views first. _ “Tccertainly do think that cities Produce certain types,” he said. “Of ‘Course, this must be taken in a liberalinterpretation. Within any city, With its multifarious racial influ€nces, there is every known diverSity of type. But by and large, there is such a thing as a New York type, just as there is a San Francisco or a New Orleans type. “One must be careful, though, in making generalizations. It is quite common for a person to spot another as hailing from Indiana, or Idaho, or Kentucky. It doesn’t take much cleverness to discern a West€rner or Easterner. Each has a different way of inflecting his sent€nceés, Or accentuating his r’s and 1’s. You can always tell a Middle Westermer by his burred r’s, or a Far Westerner b= his lazy drawl—a drawl differii.x from that of the South.” | _ “But you don’t mean,” I asked, “that a man from Cleveland could tell that a stranger hailed from New York City, and not Buffalo?” “No, that would be asking too much. But I think a Buffalo man could tell whether a stranger hailed irom New York. And the opposite © true. All this, provided person guessing had met S of New York State had analyzed the dif about cards and too little about blondes. all this is something different from mere rapidity of speech, or elision or stressing of r’s or I’s. In my opinion, America is such a melting pot that no one city has yet produced a definite and recognizable type. There’s too much flux here.” Barthelmess dissented. He feels that in a broad sense the metropolitan centers of the United States are producing each a special type. _“Now, take among the players right in this lot, those who hail from New York City, and compare them with those from other states. You'll see broad differences. From New York City come Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joan Blondell, Constance Bennett, Barbara Stanwyck and Winnie Lightner. They have the stamp of New York in their every gesture. Their attitude is subtly Newyorkese. And for a contrast, take Charles Butterworth and Louise Fazenda, who were born the first in South Bend and the second in Lafayette. Each has a humor, a way of looking at life, distinctly of that State.” Robinson, at this, declared that the point was a moot one and that if Butterworth had chanced to be born in New York City, he would without changing from what he is today, be considered as part and parcel of New York. He thinks there are types like Barthelmess at all points of the compass, both here and abroad; also, types like himself. Cities and localities merely impose a patine, so to speak, over the essential traits.” ® can spot-4 man from although the Easternner would be apt to _“flewest,’ and let} [his set_me thinking on the pro and con of this question. Something of the carefree South has surely entered the personality of Ben Lyon, one of whose latest pictures for Warner Bros. is “The Hot Heiress,” opposite Ona Munson. Ona has the breezy sweep of the one who hails from Oregon. Texas is the state that claims Bebe Daniels, who is now starring in “The Maltese Falcon.” She was born in Dallas. Evalyn Knapp (she is the juve o Mr. Robinson, such superficial. interesting question,” “is whether a given iven city, really proFor. instance, there as a Viennese type. man from that city Ldiates at’ sympathetic Pig the Germans call “gem uttlichett, Pan. schedule on two sets of the Warner Bros.-First from such differing sections of the country, and remoulds them to its heart’s desire—which is to say, desire of the struck Americans, north, south, east and west. Is Greek Joint In Grim “Smart Money” (Advance Story) When Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney stepped onto the street set built for a sequence in the making of “Smart Money” which comes to the Theatre Sea eee next, they found a busy thoroughfare in the Greek section of New York City. On the corner was the barber shop in which Robinson, as gambling Nick, the Greek barber from the small town, ekes out a living after having been tricked by some city sharps and a blonde. It looked quite authentic, despite the fact that it was built on the back of the studio lot. But this made the second time within a and outside of that selfsame shop, month that Cagney had emoted in Gambling Fool a 1 28 the only difference being that the SS tees ee first time it was Paddy Ryan’s saloon in “The Public Enemy.” The company started with this street intersection garbed in the spirit of 1909 and gradually worked it up to date until the saloon was bombed by a group of racketeers. With hair tonics and shaving soaps replacing beers and liquors, and importers of olive oil replacing other saloons, Cagney did not recognize the set he had worked so much on before until he had been on it a couple of hours. Studio set designers and carpenters had worked miracles. What made Cagney recognize it was a protruding nail in a doorway he had tripped over once before. If the studio decides to change it to Paris in 1950 for the next picture, Cagney will have no way of recognizing it. An enterprising carpenter removed the nail. Mr. Robinson is supported in “Smart Money,’ the Warner Bros. melodrama of a gambling fool who specializes.inblondes,-to»his»final undoing—by James Cagney, Evalyn Knapp, Noel Francis, Morgan Wallace, Paul Porcasi, Maurice Black, Margaret Livingston, Clark Burroughs, Billie House, Edwin Argus, Ralf Harolde, Boris Karloff, Mae ‘Madison, Walter Percival, Larrv Aw Sa vday Fortius Dar tii, COUY Wal ters, Spencer Bell and Allan Lane. Kubec Glasmon and John Bright did the story. Alfred E. Green directed. nile feminine lead in George Arliss’ picture, “The Millionaire,”) comes from Missouri, and was coached out of her broad r’s by Arliss during rehearsals for this picture. Both she and William Powell, who has become a Warner star, were born in Kansas City. Arliss of course was born in London, in the residential section of Bloomsbury. Marilyn Miller, according to reports from New York, is ready to depart from that heady town for Hollywood. The Hoosier state, and the city of Evansville, claim her though her family are Tennesseeans. John Barrymore, whose two latest pictures “Svengali” and “The Mad Genius” hails from Philadelphia. His wife, Dolores Costello, comes from Pittsburgh. Barrymore’s new leading woman, the seventeen-yearold Marian Marsh, saw the light of day in Trinidad, in the British West Indies. When she was very young, her family immigrated to America, and settled in Springfield, Mass., Boston, New York and then Hollywood. Doris Kenyon, who supports Arliss in his historical romance, “Alexander Hamilton” hails from Syracuse, New York. From Mt. Vernon, of the same state, comes Robert Allen, the twenty-four-year-old youth whom a Warner scout discovered acting in amateur theatrjcals. He is now being groomed for good cinema parts, under the tutelage of Ivan Simpson, the Englishman who has played in so many of the Arliss screen plays. The quaint old seaport of Halifax, Nova Scotia, is the birthplace of David Manners. He is the leading juvenile in “The Millionaire.” Dorothy Mackaill hails from Hull, in more or less merry England. Hollywood takes these players, LC] the millions of movie BABBEUaaae Ryan Saloon Conan Doyle Stories Bought By.Green, Who Directs ‘Smart Money’ (Advance Story) Alfred E. Green, voted by a national poll the finest talking picture director for 1929-30, and who is responsible for Edward G. Robinson’s latest starring vehicle, Warner Bros. “Smart Money,” which comes to the Theatre next recently made a valuable addition to his library, two original manuscripts of the late A. Conan Doyle. One is a Sherlock Holmes story and the other an essay on Spiritualism. Both are written in the fine, almost script-like hand of the late author, and show his corrections and re-editing Mr. Green declined to reveal what he had paid for the manuscripts, but said that they are very valuable. Green’s library has been collected over a long period of years, and is considered to be worth a fortune. Many of his most costly first editions are kept in a storage vault in a Hollywood bank. Mr. Robinson is supported in “Smart Money”—in which he plays the part of a small town Greek barber who makes himself notorious as a big town gambler with a fondness for blondes—by James Cagney, Evalyn Knapp, Noel Francis, Morgan Wallace, Paul Porcasi, Maurice Black, Margaret Livingston, Clark Burroughs, Billie House, Edwin Argus, Ralf Harolde, Boris Karloff, Mae Madison, Walter Percival, Larry McGrath, John Larkin, Polly Walters, Spencer Bell and Allan Lane. It is the work of Kubec Glasmon and John Bright who wrote “The Public Enemy.” ais Thisblonde # took his Thisblonde g Was sent by ithe police. JAMES NOW SHOWING PALACE Cut No. 20 BLONDES ARE SMART . MONEY WITH EDWARD G. ROBINSON Comes across with a greater role than Little Caesar’ PROGRAM PORTRAIT EDW. G. ROBINSON in “SMART MONEY” Cut No. 14 Cut 15c, Mat sc ee | Do You Know What “Breakaway Chairs” Are (Current Reader) The carpenter shop at Warner Bros. studio was kept busy for a couple of days constructing breakaway chairs to be used in filming a scene for “Smart Money,’ the Edward G. Robinson vehicle which is now playing at the Theatre. The scene shows a raid on a high class gambling casino in which croupiers and detectives hurl chairs at each other and crash them over each other’s heads. Breakaway chdirs are made of a soft light wood, loosely constructed so that they can be crashed over a man’s head without doing any hurt. After three takes of the scene were made, all that was left of the elaborate, gilt chairs was a neat pile of splinters. 10 to 1 you'll Slike it better than “Little B Caesar”! CAGNEY Better than he was in “The Public Enemy” EVALYN KNAPP MARGARET LIVINGSTON NOEL FRANCIS MAE MADISON _A WARNER BROS. & VITAPHONE PICTURE Cut 40c, Mat 10c Page Nine