The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (Warner Bros.) (1938)

GEORGE McCALL on Columbia Network Says: “Clitterhouse Will Leave You Breathless.” Mat 203—30c A VERY DANGEROUS TRIANGLE — Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor and Humphrey Bogart are the dynamic threesome who head the cast of “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,’” Warner Bros.’ unique comedy drama with Robinson in the title role. It comes to the Strand Friday. (Advance Feature) Bogart and Robinson Clash Again!—Tie Score With the score a tie at their third meeting, those two eminently fatal gentleman, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, went to bat again one day recently. Robinson, who had shot Humphrey to death in “Bullets or Ballots’’ and then shot him to death all over again in “‘Kid Gallahad,’” started the flareup anew. Eddie was playing the name role in ““The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,” the Warner Bros. melodrama which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre, and was doing his customary polished but menacing job, this time as the physician turned gangster so that he could plumb his own and the other criminals’ reactions to the thrill of major crime. Eddie and Humphrey were lifting the final pelts off the racks in a New York fur warehouse, preparatory to decamping with $500,000 in furs. While Eddie stuffed a batch of delicate red flying squirrel skins into a big canvas bag, he uttered some order to Bogart in a silky voice. Bogart, having been former head of the gang until the doctor ‘“‘took it over,’’ resented the silky tone and the order too. ‘Don’t tell me what to do,” he snarled as he stepped ahead of the doctor and out of the vault with his own bag — this one full of white ermines — over his shoulder. He hesitated a moment at the opened door of the heavy steel fur vault, and then whirled and slammed the big door shut. As the clang was re-echoing from the high rafters of the sound stage, Bogart twirled the dial on the vault door, and you knew a ol ae Mat 104—1ic HUMPHREY BOGART—rises to new heights of villainy in “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse” which comes to the Strand Theatre Friday. Page Twelve that, this time, he had Robinson just where he wanted him. Bogart walked jauntily to his canvas chair on the set. “I fixed Robinson in that scene,” he said happily. “It seems to make you feel good to get even, someone remarked. **Yes,"’ said Humphrey bitterly. “‘He shot me to death twice. Once in ‘Bullets or Ballots’ and once again in ‘Kid Galahad.’ But I fixed him too. With my last shot, I plugged him, too, each time. “But the. scenario writers double-crossed me. I had to die right where I fell. But not Eddie. He just slumped down dramatically, and the writers gave him enough breath to say a long, dramatic farewell speech. I was just a corpse. Eddie was a man dying gallantly and courageously.” “But I silenced him in this scene,” Bogart said happily. **He’s supposed to be pounding his fists raw against the inside of that metal door, but you don’t even hear him. “Yes, that was pretty good,” Bogart mused. “But you know how it is in this business. Nothing that’s good lasts very long. Those confounded scenario writers have fixed it so that the woman in the gang (Claire Trevor) and one of the safe blowers (Maxie Rosenbloom) have followed the doctor to the fur vault, and they blow open the door of the safe and release him. Then there’s a big scene where he confronts me later, and gives me poison. Bogart is a corpse again. “But I don’t think about those depressing things. I am enjoying myself today, while | can, and while I’ve got Mr. Edward G. Robinson at my mercy.” He’s A Prize Milliner Humphrey Bogart, Warner Bros. star, featured in “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,”” coming to the Strand Theatre, has revealed a new accomplishment — he can design women’s hats. He proved it at a party given by Gloria Stuart. One of the features of the party was a hat designing contest for the men. Among the contestants were Groucho Marx, Mel Baker, Norman Krasna, Dr. Eugene Frenke and Bogart. Each man was given cloth, wire, artificial flowers and needle and thread. The one who made the best hat in half an hour got a magnum of champagne. Bogart won with a creation which Mayo Methot is now wearing — and very proudly too. Maxie Confused His Professions A big fur robbery was in progress on a roof top, a gang of thieves carrying bags o valuable furs and tossing them to their companions in crime on a lower level in a scene for “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,” the Warner Bros. picture, starring Edward G. Robinson and opening Friday at the Strand Theatre. Maxie Rosenbloom, prize fighter and newly-fledged screen actor, was pitching bags in the midst of the scene when he ran out of furs and couldn’t figure out what to do next. Hey!” he shouted to Director Anatole Litvak. “What do I do now — shadow box?” Starlet Learns By Watching Robinson Act When Gale Page, lately of “Today's Children,” ‘‘Fibber McGee’’ and other hit radio programs, came west from Chicago in January to enter motion pictures, she brought with her “an enlarged case of fan interest’’ in Edward G. Robinson. Miss Page clicked in her screen tests for Warner Bros., then clicked again in her first film role, in ‘‘Crime School,’’ and on the strength of these two clicks, was assigned to the feature picture, “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,"’ which will open Friday at the Strand Theatre with Robinson in the title role. “I got the thrill of a year out of playing in the same picture Mat 103—15c GALE PAGE — radio’s newest contribution to the screen is this dark-eyed lovely who plays a featured role in “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse” coming to the Strand. with Edward G. Robinson,’ Miss Page says. ‘I came to Hollywood absolutely unskilled in the methods of the movies, and | learned a lot merely by watching Mr. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart when I was not in the scenes with them.” Miss Page, who was given a Warner Bros. contract because of her combination of blues singing voice and radio acting personality, has had no opportunity in her screen career to date to do any singing. She’s rather glad about that, as a matter of record, because she is really ambitious to be a dramatic actress, and she feels that if she started off her screen career as a crooner, she might never have gotten the kind of opportunity she’s getting now. Her first night in Hollywood was spent by Miss Page in going to see “A Slight Case of Murder,” of which Edward G. Robinson was the star, but unless he reads this, he will not know that the slim film newcomer with the glowing brown eyes, is his No. One Fan among the film players, for she was too shy to tell him while she was working with him. (Advance Feature) ‘Nice To Be Naughty Says Claire Trevor “It’s nice to be naughty,” is the way Claire Trevor sums up her role, in “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,”” the Warner Bros. melodrama opening Friday at the Strand Theatre, in which she is leading lady to Edward G. Robin son, the star. “T’ve done so many sweet roles,” she says, “that it’s a lot of fun to play a girl who, in the picture, is a notorious ‘fence,’ a receiver of stolen property. I like Jo Keller a lot. She has real personality. Nothing lah-de-da about her, and she proves she can step out in a tough racket and hold her own with the toughest of gangsters and the smartest of crooks.” Miss Trevor's struggle for recognition has been an uphill one, although she’s never played anything but leading roles with two exceptions in the three years since she came to Hollywood. Strangely enough, the two exceptions, when she played “bits,” won her more critical applause and more acclaim from fans than the two dozen leading lady roles ever got. First, was a rather small part in ‘‘To Mary, With Love,” which she begged for a chance to do. She made it stand out like a jewel in a setting that already sparkled with fine performances. Again she asked for a chance to do a small part in ‘Dead End,’ and made it so important that she all but dwarfed the stars of the piece. ‘It was because the girls both had definite character,’’ she says. “Not necessarily good characters, either, but they at least were something besides milk and water. I get so sick of heroines who never do anything wrong, who are the acme of perfection in deportment and manners and morals, that it does me good to kick over the traces once in a while — on the screen.” The part of Jo Keller in “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse” gives her the best opportunity she ever has had in pictures and those who saw the preview of the picture predict that it will elevate her to stardom. Miss Trevor never gave a thought to a theatrical career until she finished high school at Larchmont, N. Y. Then she became interested only because a friend planned to attend a dramatic school. She went to the Jenkins Won’t Dive Under Sea Again Allen Jenkins’ wife has forbidden him to do any more deepsea diving. The comedian, whose latest Warner Bros. picture is “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,” which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre, had kept from his wife until a few days ago the fact that he had been doing some deep-sea diving in connection with his 16 mm. motion picture film on ‘‘Abalone.”’ The truth became known when Allen inadvertantly told an interviewer about his adventures under the sea off Morro Bay along the California Coast. Allen forgot to tell the interviewer not to mention his own deep-sea work and the story came out accordingly. Mrs. Jenkins saw it and immediately forbade her husband the doubtful privilege of chasing abalone across the ocean floor. **Abalone,’’ a short subject on which Allen has worked for several months, is almost completed, only a few more deep-sea scenes remaining to be filmed. The actor-producer said he would hire a professional diver to make the necessary finale sequences. school two seasons, and then instead of finishing, decided to go out and get herself a job. She played stock for some time, and while with a summer company touring the Long Island resort cities, attracted the attention of Alexander McKaig, the New York producer. He gave her the lead with Ernest Truex in the Broadway production of “Whistling in the Dark,’’ which ran a year in New York and another year on the road. The tour ended in Hollywood but Miss Trevor refused tempting film offers. Instead, she returned to Broadway for one season in “The Party's Over,”’ and then accepted a Hollywood contract. Now besides her crowded movie schedule, she co-stars with Robinson on the popular weekly radio program, “Big Town.” ‘Gang’ Upholds Tradition In New Movie When better gangs are organized, Warner Bros. Studio will do the recruiting. The studio which started the cycle of gangster pictures that has endured for many years rightly takes precedence for getting together the most authentic looking groups of underworld types ever seen on the screen, and the gang which figures in ‘The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,"’ which comes to the screen of the Strand on Friday, upholds that tradition. While this unusual picture, based on the London stage success of the same name, is not actually a gangster film in the true sense, mobsters come into it as a result of the research of Dr. Clitterhouse into the causes of criminality. The ‘‘mob”’ is headed by that most deadly of all film gangsters, Humphrey Bogart. No Hollywood gang is complete without Allen Jenkins, the frozen faced comedian, and so he’s one of Bogart’s right hand men. Maxie Rosenbloom, the prize fighter, is another member. But the most artistic touch of all to this “‘gang,”” is the addition of two such players as Vladimir Sokoloff and Curt Bois, two of Europe’s foremost stage and screen favorites. Sokoloff, schooled in the Moscow Art Theatre, has the role of jewel expert who Passes on all the loot stolen by the gang, while Bois is a meek-looking little gangster, who is really the most vicious of the truly remarkable collection of thug types. Mat 101—15c EDWARD G. ROBINSON — the ace portrayer of master criminals, stars in “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,’ coming to the Strand.