The Dawn Patrol (Warner Bros.) (1938)

CURRENT PUBLICITY —'THE DAWN PATROL' Basil Rathbone’s Son Makes Film Debut John Rodion started his film career by walking into the set of * “The . Dawn... Patrol,” the Warner Bros. picture running at the Strand Theatre, and being introduced by Errol Flynn to Basil Rathbone. After the scene was completed, Rathbone smiled at the tall, darkhaired young man. “How’s it going, son?” Rathbone asked. “Were you nervous?” “Sure,” Rodion replied. “How about you, father?” Rodion, you see, is Rathbone’s 23-year-old son. His name is really Rodion Rathbone but he has taken the name John Rodion rather than trade on his father’s reputation. For the past six months, young Rathbone had been working in the sound department at the Warner Bros. Studio. Director Edmund Goulding gave him his first screen chance — the part of a young replacement flyer in “The Dawn Patrol.” That wasn’t, however, young Rathbone’s first try at acting. A year before he had spent six months with English stock companies. And he made his stage debut as a page boy at the age of seven in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” in London. Gets Job Hour After Arrival Hollywood is far from being a hardhearted, almost impene: trable fort' ress of studios trying to keep young actors out of jobs, as far as young Ore Morton Lowed EE? TON = MORTON LOWRY corned. He thinks that Hollywood is a pushover; easiest thing he ever tackled. Within an hour after he stepped off of an incoming train at 8 o’clock one morning, he had a job. When that job ended (it was a temporary thing) he had another within eight hours. This second job may well mean the beginning of a very successful career, for it was a featured part with Errol Flynn in the Warner Bros. picture, “The Dawn Patrol,” which is now showing at the Strand Theatre. Lowry came to America, and to Hollywood, only a couple of months before filming of ‘The Dawn Patrol” was started. His immediate purpose was to rejoin his fiancee and get married. She, Virginia Barnato, an actress, was in Los Angeles with the late Pauline Frederick in “Suspect.” Miss Barnato met Lowry at the train and hurried him to the theatre, where she had a rehearsal that morning. The lad stepped in at the precise right time. Someone had left the cast. Miss Frederick frantically was searching for a young English actor. Morton Lowry, with considerable stage experience, got the part and carried through with the show until the end of its San Francisco run, halted because of the star’s illness. Through friendships made while in Los Angeles Lowry got his chance in “The Dawn Patrol” when he returned. Twig Taller Than Tree Basil Rathbone’s son, Rodion, is an inch and a half taller than his six-foot, two-inch father. Both father and son played in Warner Bros.’ “The Dawn Patrol,” which is now showing at the Strand Theatre. (Current Feature) Mat 204—30c LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON—Basil Rathbone talks over the script with his son John Rodion, who starts a film career after three years on the English stage. Here he is with his father in ''The Dawn Patrol,"’ now at the Strand. WAR SCARE NEARLY HALTS "DAWN PATROL’ “The Dawn Patrol,” spectacular drama of the Royal Flying Corps during the World War, which is now showing at the Strand Theatre was put on forced-draft production schedule recently as the European war scare was at its height. If, by any chance, England should have been drawn into conflagration there another would be no alternative but to discontinue the _ production, since five of the principals are British reserve officers and unquestionably would be summoned to the colors immediately. The five are Basil Rathbone, David Niven, Donald Crisp, Michael Brooke, who in private life is the Earl of Warwick, and Melville Cooper. Noise Of Planes INNo Nuisance Now For one of the few times in the studio’s history, the sound of airplane motors _ overhead didn’t interfere ‘ with production at the Warner Bros. Studio one day last September. Mat 102-Il5c_ The only two BASIL RATHBONE pictures being filmed that day on the lot were aviation dramas—“The Dawn Patrol” a story of British wartime aviation, which comes to the Strand Friday, and “Wings of the Navy’—and the drone of muted airplane engines was quite in order as a background sound effect. Ordinarily when a plane passes low over the studio it means that anywhere from one to ten scenes are spoiled. With the only two pictures working on the lot both aviation dramas, however, the welcome sign was out for low-flying planes. Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, David Niven and Donald Crisp are the stars of “The Dawn Patrol.” Edmund Goulding directed. Donald Crisp 44-Year Vet. Donald Crisp, who plays a featured role in “The Dawn Patrol,’’ now showing at the Strand, was a veteran in motion pictures when a lot of so-called ‘‘old timers” were still children. He has spent thirty years in the cinema business and before that he was fourteen years in show business. There are not many things about the film industry Crisp doesn’t know. He has been the friend of every great and neargreat that flashed across the motion picture heavens. He knows everybody and everybody knows him. Consequently, when Donald, in a reminiscent mood begins: “I remember when. . .” a lot of people gather round to listen and be well entertained by a masterful story teller. Donald, who is still young in body and spirit in spite of his fifty-odd years, came to Hollywood immediately after the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. He has been a pretty permanent resident of the movie colony ever since. Of course, he has made occasional visits to his homeland — Scotland — and elsewhere, but he never stays away long from Hollywood. He has been a director, writer and actor. It was as a director, in fact, that he earned his greatest fame. He directed many of the battle sequences and played one of the principal role in D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation.” Crisp has had several recent offers to return to directing but he has held them all in: abeyance for the very simple. reason : that next March, when ‘he’ firiishes his two-year Warner Bros. contract, he intends to take a ° leisurely voyage to Sumatra, Bali, Java and Borneo. If he seems indifferent toward the future, Crisp can well afford to be. He is one of the wealthiest men in pictures. [9] Mat 103—I15¢ DONALD CRISP