The Cowboy Quarterback (Warner Bros.) (1939)

Current Feature STAR ONLY ACTOR STUDIO MADE RUSH HOME FROM JAVA A vacation-seeking actor has a pretty poor chance of getting anywhere without being halted mid-flight by his studio and being summoned back to make a new picture or do added scenes for that latest one. So says Bert Wheeler. Bert thinks he is a supreme authority on that, for he is the only actor now living who was located by a film company in such a remote place as Bandonong, Java. Located there, he was ordered to return immediately, if not sooner. Wheeler was discussing the subject just after he had finished ‘‘The Cowboy Quarterback,’’ the Warner Bros. comedy playing at the Strand Theatre, in which he is costarred with Marie Wilson. “Cowboy Quarterback” marks the return of Wheeler to the screen and to the comedy parts for which he is famous after an absence of almost two years following the death of his teammate, the late Robert Woolsey. “This guy, Errol Flynn, has the only method,” Wheeler remarked. “He goes out somewhere on a yacht, and gets lost. Of course, they send the army, the navy, the Pinkertons, Scotland Yard and the GPU looking for him, but by the time they locate him he’s had a vacation. I understand now they make him take a short-wave radio with him, and have him listen in on that at stated times. But the thing is bound to get out of order if he’s in the jungle somewhere, or stranded on an island after a hurricane. “They caught up with me and Bob because we found that even in the Malay Archipelago we couldn’t get by incognito. They have movies there, and we were recognized. So when the company, following our trail via half a dozen boats of various lines from Tokyo to Shanghai to Singapore to Batavia, Java, lost track of us there, they picked up the trail again in no time. Found we’d gone to the hill town of Bandonong to escape the heat. “We had to climb aboard a plane at Batavia, and fly 9000 miles to Amsterdam, via Siam, Burma, Calcutta, Bagdad, across the Dead Sea, over to Cairo. Well, Bob and his missus had to give up there, the journey was too much for them. But I kept on via Athens, Naples, Paris. I hopped across the English Channel on another plane. The only reason I didn’t fly on from there was because the trans-Atlantic planes weren’t functioning at the time. I had to be satisfied with the Berengaria.” In the picture, Wheeler is a broken-field runner of almost legendary prowess. Mat 107 BERT WHEELER People Were Paid to See U. S. C., Pro Gridders Meet People were paid to watch a good football game one day — maybe because June is a bit out of season. University of Southern California gridders and some professionals clashed in the Rose Bowl at Pasadena for cameras filming Warner Bros.’ “The Cowboy Quarterback,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. The paid spectators were film extras, Mat 206 — 30c On the screen Marie Wilson plays dumb, blonde parts but this is how exotic she looks in real life. Miss Wilson’s current picture, “Cowboy Quarterback,” is now showing at the Strand Theatre. Review Bert Wheeler and Marie Wilson Set Laugh Pace in Football Film With such a team as Bert Wheeler and Marie Wilson setting the pace, any motion picture would have more than its fair share of laughs, and “The Cowboy Quarterback,” the Warner Bros. comedy which opened yesterday at the Strand Theatre, bears out that axiom perfectly. This fiesta of fun, however, does not depend entirely upon its two leading comedians to be, as it is, continuously amusing from start to finish. It has other accomplished fun-makers in its cast, which includes the generally serious Gloria Dickson — who is, in this case, the not too sinister menace—and comedians as William Demarest, Eddie Foy, Jr., and DeWolf Hopper. It’s about football, as the title promises, but there is little of that “do or die” spirit about it, for it isn’t about college football. Its background is the profes Wilson ‘Trains’ for Film Marie Wilson is another Maxie Rosenbloom when it comes to training. She went into training, said she, for strenuous scenes in Warner Bros.’ pro-football picture, “The Cowboy Quarterback,” which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre. Asked how she trained, Marie replied, “Went to bed every night at 10, and drank a glass of hot milk.” Wheeler Must Keep Busy Bert Wheeler, back on the screen in Warner Bros.’ ‘The Cowboy Quarterback,” which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre, after a year and a half away, thought so little of having a short vacation between films that as soon as the picture was over, he started to work on a scenario and a song. Wilson Too Reckless Marie Wilson stepped on the running board of Bert Wheeler’s car for a brief lift from stage to stage — and was ordered inside the car by a studio policeman, who said this practice is prohibited by studio rules as unsafe. Marie and Bert are in “The Cowboy Quarterback,” the Warner Bros. comedy coming to the Strand Theatre next Friday. sional game, and the alma mater for which the gridders give their all is whatever bank each of them deposits his pay checks in. For Wheeler, who returns to the screen after an absence of almost two years, the new picture is a particularly fine vehicle. A spry and alert little fellow as well as a very funny one, he fairly revels in the role of the little quarterback from the cow country whose shifty open-field running makes monkeys out of the burly gents on the opposing teams. Marie Wilson, his girl friend, insists on master-minding every action of her boy friend, even to his playing on the football field, and in thus making herself an obnoxious pest to all his professional associates, particularly the manager of his team, she makes herself hilariously amusing to the audience. The manager, played by Demarest, is responsible for her being with the team, for he had to consent to her coming along to get his quarterback’s signature to a contract. He soon regrets the promise and the picture is concerned with the stratagems he employs to get rid of Marie and yet keep Bert happy enough to play good ball and lead the team to the championship. The action is fast and exciting, as would be expected from a picture directed by Noel Smith, for his Hollywood reputation is that of an action director. Synopsis (Not for publication): Rusty Walker (William Demarest), scout for the Chicago Packers pro football team, signs Harry Lynn (Bert Wheeler), a broken-field runner of legendary prowess. Harry won’t leave his home town without Maizie William (Marie Wilson), with whom he’s in love. Rusty persuades her to accompany Harry to Chicago. Harry plays great football but they are obliged to send Maizie home because she continually interferes with club routine. To cheer Harry, Rusty’s _ girl, Evelyn Corey (Gloria Dickson), makes a play for him. He falls in love with her. He gets tangled up with gamblers who make him promise to throw the championship game and from there on_ events move to an exciting end. Opening Day Story NEW COMEDY TEAM IN FOOTBALL FILM Bert Wheeler and Marie Wilson make up the very promising new laugh team which heads the cast of “The Cowboy Quarterback,” the Warner Bros. comedy opening today at the Strand Theatre. Everybody else in the picture, which is hilarious comedy from start to finish, also serves as a contributor to the fun, even the usually serious Gloria Dickson, who is co-featured with the Wheeler Wilson team. Others prominent in the cast include William Demarest, DeWolf Hopper and Eddie Foy, Jr. As the title indicates, the new funfilm is about football, but it is not about college football. It concerns the professional game, and all of its heroics are on a strictly cash basis. Wheeler plays a marvellous open-field runner whose fame has spread even from his little town in the cow country to the headquarters of the Chicago Packers, a pro team managed by Demarest. Marie is not only Bert’s girl friend, but she is also a sort of female Svengali, who supervises his every action, including his actions on the football field. So when Demarest signs Bert to play quarterback for the Packers, it is only after he has agreed to take Marie along. This is a decision he soon regrets, for Marie proves to be a Grade-Z pest. The rest of the fast-moving tale concerns Demarest’s efforts to get good football out of Bert without Marie around, his eventual realization that this can’t be done, and the final triumph of Bert not only as a football hero but also as a lover. The screen play, written by Fred Niblo, Jr., was based on a stage play by Ring Lardner and George M. Cohan. The production was directed by Noel Smith, assisted by Les Guthrie. Cast Harry Lynn... BERT WHEELER Maizie Williams MARIE WILSON Evelyn Corey GLORIA DICKSON Handsome Sam DeWOLF HOPPER Rusty Walker WILLIAM DEMAREST Steve Adams.EDDIE FOY, JR. Col. Moffett. WILLIAM GOULD Hap Farrell. CHARLES WILSON Mr, Slater... FREDRIC TOZERE Mr. Gray...... JOHN HARRON, Mr. Walters... JOHN RIDGELY Airplane Pilot. EDDIE ACUFF Wome ve. CLEM BEVANS Cozy Walsh...... SOL GORSS Joe Wade....... DON TURNER Lon Ring.MAX HOFFMAN, JR. Gyp Galbraith. DICK WESSELL Berries O’Leary DUTCH HENDRIAN Production Staff Directed by..... NOEL SMITH Screen Play by FRED NIBLO, JR. From a Play by RING LARDNER GEORGE M. COHAN Photography by TED McCORD, A.S.C. Art Director.. CHARLES NOVI Dialogue Director HARRY SEYMOUR Film Editor.... DOUG GOULD Gowns by MILO ANDERSON Sound by FRANCIS J. SCHEID Music by HOWARD JACKSON Comedy Construction by LOU SARECKY Running Time..... 56 minutes EE=Y ¢ Xo fds VRB tte ato at Sem 5063 feet Advance Feature DICKSON OFFERS WAY TO DEVELOP TALENTED ACTING Gloria Dickson, blonde star on the Warner Bros. studio roster, and a product of the Federal Theatre originally, hopes some day to start or help promote ‘a jury system method” of locating, selecting and fostering acting talent. The term is her own but the system she advocates is based on one used very successfully now in Scandinavian countries and Russia. It’s a nation-wide tournament method of advancing the fittest in the acting line from the smallest of village theatricals to the “big time,” which in this country means Broadway and Hollywood. The tournament is continuous, so a loser in the competition gets a chance to strive for improvement and come back for other trials. In this country, as elsewhere, Miss Dickson thinks, the movement could be selfsupporting. The acting tournaments would be open to the public, for a price. That would attract patronage_ to theatres, even in high school auditoriums, because of the competitive element as well as the entertainment. The chief distinction claimed by Miss Dickson’s plans is the use of small but competent juries from outside towns to select the local tourney winners. The tourneys would be progressive, of course, selection in one small district moving the winners up to face more severe competition in a larger theatrical center, and so on, right to Broadway or Hollywood. In the Scandinavian countries, acting tourney winners are decided by volume of audience applause, in Russia by a committee of three, two of whom represent local factions and one the community in which the winner’s next try-out will come. A jury of at least six, Miss Dickson thinks, would provide fairer selection of winners, provided it was composed of people entirely unconnected with any contestant. Miss Dickson herself is a small town girl who has won her way upward from dramatic supremacy in her high school to her present position in films, by a_ step-at-a-time process. She played in tent shows for her first professional experience, then clicked in Federal theatres and in competitive screen _ tests. Known as a powerful dramatic actress because of her first screen part, the wife in “They Won’t Forget,” Miss Dickson has recently been playing comedy. Her latest comedy role is in “The Cowboy Quarterback,” a Warner Bros. funfilm of professional football opening next Friday at the Strand Theatre, in which Bert Wheeler and Marie Wilson are also featured. Mat 109 GLORIA DICKSON Gloria Dickson Reports Potato Named After Her Gloria Dickson reports she’s had a new variety of potato named after her by its originator in its (and her) native town, Pocatello, Idaho. The blonde glamour girl, Hollywood socialite and wife of Perc Westmore, make-up expert, declares she is sincerely honored. Gloria’s latest Warner Bros. picture, “The Cowboy Quarterback,’’ a football comedy, opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. Page Five