Sweet Adeline (Warner Bros.) (1934)

AD SWEET ELINE CSSESD ON THIS PAGE: Casting Notes Personal Star Bits Production Briefs AS SUGGESTED BY FILM DAILY’S POLL OF EDITORS PAW UIRE STORES Junior Stars Play In “Sweet Adeline” Many of Warner Bros. Junior Stars worked on the Irene Dunne starring picture, ‘‘Sweet Adeline,’’ now showing at the ............ Theatre. The girls are all done up in bustles and wigs and elaborate hats for their gay nineties roles in the picture. They include Rosalie Roy, Mary Russell, Ethelreda Leopold, Martha Merrill and Katharine Mauk. Actors Sing Bar Ballad So Badly It’s Perfect Director Orders Players To Do Their Worst With “Sweet Adeline’ OT once in a thousand times does a director ask an actor to do his worst. The actor’s best is usually what is needed for any scene in any picture. But when Mervyn LeRoy asked Hugh Herbert and Donald Woods to sing that old barroom ballad, ‘‘Sweet Adeline,’’ in the worst possible way under Irene Dunne’s window, he meant exactly what he said. Irene Dunne Was Trained to Teach In Public School There’s a little school in the town of East Chicago, state of Indiana, that just missed having the most beautiful school teacher in the state. Irene Dunne, star of the Warner Bros. musical, “Sweet Adeline,” which comes to the .............. ht eae eetian es A HOBO OD eisieisneicessing soon after she graduated from Loretta Academy in Louisville, was visiting relatives in, Indiana. She decided to take the state examinations for a teacher’s job. She passed with flying colors and was assigned to the little school in East Chicago. She never got there. Through an aunt, she heard of a scholarship to be awarded by a Chicago conservatory of music and saw an opportunity to find out whether her voice was as good as she hoped. She made up her mind that if she failed to win, she would be reconciled to a teacher’s career. She went to Chicago, sang the famous “Swallow Song” before a committee of musicians and won a year’s tuition and expenses. At the end of the year, she won a second scholarship awarded by a wealthy Chicagoan. Which is why Irene Dunne did not become a school teacher. “There has never been a day since I left school, unless I was traveling where a piano was not available, that I have not practiced vocal exercises. Miss Dunne, one of the most popular stars of stage or screen, heads the all star cast in “Sweet Adeline,’ which is the ultimate in musicals, for which Warner Bros. are famous. The production is taken from the famous Broadway musical comedy hit by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern. Supporting Miss Dunne are Donald Woods, Hugh Herbert, Ned Sparks, Joseph Cawthorn, Louis Calhern, Winifred Shaw, Dorothy Dare and many others. Mervyn LeRoy directed the picture, with ensembles staged by Bobby Connolly. The musie and lyrics are by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. Page Ten The occasion is one of the comedy highlights in the famous operetta of that title, which Comes_to the 28: a Gea.. TheaEO. OU... cncigatrrensis » with Irene Dunne in the stellar role. Hugh Herbert, as Rupert Rockingham, and Donald Woods, as Sid Barnett, pause to serenade Oscar Schmidt’s beautiful daughter, after a convivial evening in her father’s Hoboken beer garden. “Let’s rehearse it,’ said Director LeRoy, “to be sure we’ve got the right feeling into the scene.” The rehearsal began. The voices of Herbert and Woods were as unsteady as their gait while they were weaving tipsily down the sidewalk toward Irene Dunne’s window. Discordant as were their notes in the opening bars of the song, once they came to a halt under Adeline’s bedroom, the two singers let loose a perfect barrag» of blue notes and barbershop chords. When they finished, LeRoy rubbed his hands in gleeful satisfaction. “That’s exactly what I want! It couldn’t have been worse—I mean, better,” he exclaimed. “Let’s take it!” They took the scene once, but it didn’t satisfy LeRoy. “You boys can do worse than that, I know,’ he said. “The Scene was too good. Keep off the key—as far as possible. Try not to hit the right note if you can possibly help it. “Let’s do it once more, and let’s have a really bad scene this time.” “Was that bad enough?” asked Hugh Herbert when the director finally called “Cut!” Mervyn managed to stop laughing long enough to reply: “It was terrific! Your singing was so lousy that it was absolutely perfect. Print that one,” he called to the sound crew “I couldn’t stand another take like that, anyway.” “Sweet Adeline” is Warner Bros.’ latest musical spectacle, filmed from the sensational Broadway hit by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II with catchy musie and lyrics by the authors. Irene Dunne has the stellar role with Donald Woods playing the masculine lead opposite her. Others in the cast include Hugh Herbert, Ned Sparks, Joseph Cawthorn, Louis Calhern and Dorothy Dare. Bobby Connolly staged the spectacular ensembles. Study In Contrast White frills and furbelows glittering against a back ground of velvety black make this scene from “Sweet Adeline” one of the features of the picture. “Sweet Adeline,” you know, is the Warner Bros. musical, starring Irene Dunne, and adapted from the stage drama of the same name which ran on Broadway for 63 weeks. Mat No. 23—20¢ Dance Director Picks His Girls Solely For Ability But Bobby Connolly Girls In “Sweet Adeline’ Are All American Beauties N judging the various groups of girls that grace Hollywood musicals such attributes as beauty of face and figure are matters of opinion, but dancing ability is subject to fixed standards of judgment. At least one dance director in Hollywood, Bobby Connolly, picked his girls entirely on the basis of their dancing ability. That many of them are beautiful is a sort of lagnappe; they were chosen solely because they are good dancers. His dancing group of 85 girls in “Sweet Adeline,” Warner Bros.’ latest musical spectacle now showing at the ...................... Theatre, may be considered as the 85 best dancers in Hollywood, since they were chosen from all the available talent in the film capital. They are predominantly Middle West girls, 61% to be exact. 28% are from the Far West and 11% from the East. Their biographies show that most of them are from moderately well-to-do families, a few from: wealthy homes and more than half from families that are socially prominent in their respective communities. The good dancers from the East are nearly all trained from the beginning for professional work, so that their dancing instruction was commercial rather than social. The Western girls, in nearly every instance, had to fight for their instruction; their familjes feeling that dancing was a waste of money and effort. The Connolly girls are a bevy of artistes, actual or potential. They take their work seriously, practice assiduously and are far above the average in intelligence. Sonya Kowalski, in spite of her foreign sounding name is typical of the Middle Western group. Her father is the District Manager of the Texas Oil Company for the lower Rio Grande Valley. Sonya was born in Brownsville, Texas, educated at the Incarnate Word Academy there and later in San Antonio. She learned dancing as a social accomplishment and loved the work so much that she decided upon it as a career. She was featured in “Ravel’s Bolero” under Theodore Kosloff. She is a great, great granddaughter of the famous composer, Henri Kowalski. Sonya, speaking of her work said: “I dance because I love it. My people do not object to it, because they realize that I am fortunate to have a career that allows me time for my other interests.” That does not sound much like a traditional chorus girl. Louise Allen, one of the finest dancers in New York before coming to Hollywood, was with Zeigfeld for several seasons and with Earl Carroll’s Vanities. Her comment on her work was brief. “I always wanted to be a dancer — and I am.” Ruth Rinehart, whose real name is Ruth Rinehart Benson, was born in St. Paul. She attended school there and later in St. Louis. She is a member of the Junior Society of DAR. Her people are well to do and prominently connected. Ruth was given every advantage and her unusual talent for dancing showed itself when she was quite young. She says: “I suspect that some of my relatives still cannot understand my being a professional dancer, “but they don’t realize how much I love it.” “Sweet Adeline” is a mammoth musical spectacle based on the sensational Broadway hit by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, who also wrote the music and lyrics. Irene Dunne has the stellar role with Donald Woods playing opposite her. Others in the cast include Hugh Herbert, Louis Calhern, Ned Sparks and Joseph Cawthorn.