The Adventures of Mark Twain (Warner Bros.) (1944)

Sell MT 14; Mat 208—30c Bill Henry and Fredric March as America‘s famous author are shown in a scene from “The Adventures of Mark Twain,” the Warner Bros. picture which opens at the Theatre. Alexis Smith Discovers Movie Work Is No Picnic So you think that motion picture players have all the fun, do you? That their lives are made up of beer and skittles, so to speak, and a continuous round of work that is fun and fun that is fantastic? Anyone who works with motion pictures in Hollywood knows this isn’t so. It wasn’t so even in the “old days’ when silent picture companies were amused and entertained on the sets with orchestras playing soft music and when income taxes were low or even nonexistent and a player could keep most of the salary he earned each week. It is even less true today, thanks to the increasing earnestness with which producers tackle their assignments and the almost overwhelming seriousness of such directors as Michael Curtiz who tries to make every picture he directs another “Casablanca.” Any player who works through a picture for Mike— which is the name all players quickly learn to call Mr. Curtiz —knows, before he or she has finished the job that picture making is hard work. But Mike shares this reputation with other directors as well because, especially since the war has sobered and made serious all workers in Hollywood, picture making has become a vital part of American life and those responsible for them feel totally new obligations to producers and public alike. Take Alexis Smith as an example. She preceded the Awardwinning Jennifer Jones on studio star lists and was the first to stick to one of the three or four most common American names as her screen handle. Her full stardom came about at Warner Bros. through her work opposite Fredric March in “The Adventures of Mark Twain.” She found out then, as she had suspected before, that Hollywood stardom involves a lot of work, some discomforts and innumerable sacrifices on the part of the player who is winning, or has won, the right to be listed as a motion picture star. Miss Smith was_ guided through the multiple problems of “Mark Twain” by Director Irving Rapper, who had himself come up the “hard way” by acting as dialogue director for the same above-mentioned Mike Curtiz. Regular studio employes reported at their desks, offices or work rooms at nine o’clock on the mornings when this picture was being filmed. But Alexis, particularly in the later scenes when she had to be aged to match’ the white-thatched March as the famous humorist, reported to the studio gate at 6:30 each morning and spent the next two hours in the makeup department having her face wrinkled, her hair grayed and her features etched with age. On other days, while she and March were playing the Mark Twain real-life love story through which she became his wife, Miss Smith was required to sit for long, tedious hours in the studio-made rainstorm, appearing beautiful and desirable even though thoroughly wet and miserable. Very gently she suggests that any young woman who thinks it is easy might try it some rainy night on her own front porch. Still later in the story of Mark Twain, Alexis fades away with a serious illness and dies. This required more early morning visits to the makeup department and more late nights studying her lines. All of this interfered greatly with her own romance with Craig Stevens which was, at the moment, very imvortant indeed. “The Adventures of Mark Twain” opens Friday at the Strand. Empty House Familiar, Admits Fredric March Donald Crisp and Alan Hale were ribbing Fredric March about the humorous lecture he was delivering for a scene of Warner Bros.’ “The Adventures of Mark Twain.” In the long shots, March addressed a large audience. When the closeups were made, he spoke to vacant seats. The audience didn’t show and the atmosphere players were dismissed. “Even with Mark Twain’s 28 lines,” cracked Hale, “he can’t hold his crowd.” “Too bad,” sympathized Crisp, “for an-actor like you to play to an empty house.” “Well,” said March, “it isn’t like I’d never done it before. There was a play called ‘Yr. Obediant Husband.’ ” It was after the flop of “Yr. Obediant Husband” that March ran his now famous advertisement: ‘Oops—sorry!” Snob Was Butt Of Twain's Wit Mark Twain, whose life is depicted in Warner Bros.’ ‘The Adventures of Mark Twain,” which co-stars Fredric March and Alexis Smith and opens at the Strand tonight, liked to take pokes, directly or indirectly, at any ostentatious person. Nothing is a_ better example of this than his action when he registered at an English countryside inn. Looking at the register, he saw that a new arrival signed himself, “John Dane and Valet.” Twain chuckled to himself, picked up a pen and then registered himself. When the new guest handed him the pen, the clerk turned the register around, glanced at the latest entry and read: “Mark Twain—and vyalise.” Fredric March Watches Own Birth It isn’t every man who can witness his own birth, so Fredric March hurried over from another Warner Bros. sound stage to take advantage of that unique opportunity when scenes showing the infant Mark Twain making his worldly debut were filmed. With other spectators on “The Adventures of Mark Twain” set, March, the adult Samuel Clemens of the Jesse L. Lasky production, saw his old friend and former stage associate, Kay Johnson, proudly caress a mite of humanity and heard her say to Frank Wilcox, her movie husband: “It’s another boy!” Seventeen -days-old Dennis Donnelly, a grandson of Pat O’Malley, silent screen star, acted the role of the infant Sam Clemens with complete unconcern. He yawned drowsily, finally became bored with the proceedings and fell asleep. 432 Mark Twain Hotels in U.S.A. Returns of a survey conducted for Jesse L. Lasky revealed there are four hundred and thirty-two Mark Twain hotels in the United States. Not a one of the Union’s forty-eight states is without its quota of hostelries named after the great American humorist. But to the producer's surprise, the survey conductors failed to list a single Mark Twain motion picture theatre. Lasky asks: “How about it, exhibitors?”’ The Warner Bros.’ producer’s most recent film effort, ““The Adventures of Mark Twain,” co-starring Fredric March and Alexis Smith, is currently at the Strand. Saffron Mule All In Day’s Work For Him Mention of a “research man” invariably conjures up a scholarly and imposing image. He wears a_ beard, preferably a Van Dyke. His pince nez is clamped precisely on the high bridge of his nose. His right thumb is earefully calloused from turning the pages of weighty, yellowed, authoritative tomes. He is a mine of information. As sworn and attested to by one of Warner Bros. researchers, Francis Andrew, this mental image is far from correct. It is not authentic. Francis, himself, is a rangy man of sixfoot-two. He has a cowlick. He is smooth-shaven. He does not wear any manner of spectacles. He rifles through pages expertly, without callousing or cutting any part of his hands. He flips carelessly through card files to put his expert finger on any bit of information, no matter how trivial, about the clothing, habits, and mannerisms of any man, woman, or child, either living, dead, or fictional. Donkeys stop him, however. Saffron-colored donkeys, anyhow. The search for a saffron-colored donkey came about because Warner Bros. was doing a picture about Samuel Clemens entitled “The Adventures of Mark Twain.” Co-starring Fredric March and Alexis Smith, it is opening Friday at the Strand. Once, in Hannibal, Missouri, Sam Clemens rode in a cart drawn bv a vivid saffron-colored donkey. Being sticklers for authenticity, Warner Bros. insisted that Fredric March, who portrays Mr. Clemens, ride in such a cart pulled by such an animal, and so commissioned Francis Andrew, who had supplied the fact, to run down his beast with the yellow hide. It took Francis Andrew exactly six weeks, four hundred and thirty-two miles of travel, and eighty-seven telephone calls before that donkey was found. To be perfectly frank, Mr. Andrew found his _ 5-year-old daughter riding this particular donkey around the tanbark of a pony ring in the vicinity of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega. It was a_ decided shock. But Mr. Andrew signed the donkey up then and there. That is the way research men do research, and that is why film audiences will see Mr. Fredric March driving a real saffron-colored' burro through the streets of Hannibal, just as Mark Twain did it a good many years ago. The pity of it all, of course, is that the film is not in Technicolor. Still MT 60; Mat 203—30c Alan Hale struggles valiantly but in vain as his gold prospecting companion, Mark Twain (played by Fredric March), looks on. Scene from Warner Bros.’ picture, “The Adventures of Mark Twain,” coming RR et Bats to the .......... Theatre. Alexis Smith On Screen For Next 12 Months Alexis Smith will establish a new record for herself when Warner’s “The Adventures of Mark Twain,” in which she costars with Fredric March, opens Friday at the Strand Theatre. It’s a record few film stars, if any, have achieved. Begnining with the general release of the film, and for the following 12 months there will not be a single day when Alexis’ blond beauty won’t be projected on some theatre screen because— Already completed and ready for release are four other films which she serves in varied but stellar capacities. These are: The Humphrey Bogart starrer, ‘“Conflict;” “Rhapsody In Blue,” based on the life of the late composer, George Gershwin, and co-starring Robert Alda and Joan Leslie; ‘Animal Kingdom,” in which she appears with Ann Sheridan, Dennis Morgan, Jane Wyman and Jack Carson; and “The Horn Blows At Midnight,” which finds her co-starred with Jack Benny. In establishing this record she appears on a total of 20,000 feet of film, or on 320,000 separate frames of film, each frame representing an individual photographic shot. That is a pretty heavy program for any young sar, but is not heavy enough to prompt Alexis to rest. She’s not the sort to rest on her laurels. That’s why she currently is before the camera, doing “The Doughgirls” with Ann Sheridan, Jane Wyman, Eve Arden, Irene Manning and Jack Carson. Alexis is her happiest when she is busy. It’s always been that way with her—at least since she was 10 and hailed as an exceptionally talented pianist. At 11 she added dancing and singing to her repertoire, and within two years was dancing in the Hollywood Bowl—a spot where only the great in talent are booked. At 16. she had won a statewide declamation contest, doing a scene from “Elizabeth the Queen;” at 17 she was a co-ed at Los Angeles City College where her performance in “The Nivht of January 16th,” resulted in a screen test. She passed that test—at Warrer Bros. Studio—but insisted on finishing her second vear of eolleve before embarkiro on an actress’ course. At 19, she was a film actress— end Jaunched on a busv vrogram of picture-making, beginning with an important assionment in “Dive Bomber,” which starred Errol Flynn. From then on, it’s been one nicture on the heels of another for this 20-veav-old. blue-eyed daughter of Canada _ (birthplace: Penticton, B. C.). But she thrives on work— even at home. where no servants are employed. Now she’s trying to figure a wav to break some other kind ef record—and. being what she is. she’ll probablv do it. Besides Fredric March and Alexis Smith. the cast of “The Adventures of Mark Twain’ includes Donald Crisp, Alan Hale, C. Aubrey Smith, John Carradine, William Henry, Robert Barrat, Walter Hampden, Joyce Reynolds and others. Mat 108—15c Fredric March