The Great Garrick (Warner Bros.) (1937)

Page Six (Advance) Noted Director Gives Formula For Dramatics There is a discernible difference between good actors and bad actors, on stage or screen. James Whale, who produced and directed “The Great Garrick” for Mervyn LeRoy at Warner Bros., can put his finger on the difference without any trouble. “The difference,” says Whale, “is the way a player delivers his lines: the good actor says them as though he just thought of them himself; the bad actor delivers them as though he had just learned them.” Whale, who has directed innumerable stage hits in London and New York and half a dozen notable Hollywood films, including “Journey’s End’ and “The Invisible Man,” believes that spontaneity is the secret of acting and particularly the secret of acting in such a comedy as “The Great Garrick,” in which Brian Aherne, Olivia de Havilland and Edward Everett Horton have the leading roles. The picture opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. An experience beginning as an actor in the London production of “Abraham Lincoln,” progressing through stage management to direction on both stage and screen, has given Whale large opportunities for observation of actors and acting. The business of spontaneity, he has come to believe, is most important in the ee eneaeneenre evened ULB L. result... me, pratt eS si “Especially,” says Whale, “does comedy require intelligence. Slapstick, farce or romantic comedy requires sufficient intelligence to make it all seem spontaneous. Every line and situation would be flatter than the laugh of someone who has just heard the same joke for the twelfth time, if it weren’t for spontaneity.” LEROY IS MOVIE FAN Mervyn LeRoy is Hollywood’s most ardent movie fan, seeing more films in a year than the busiest critic. In addition to seeing every feature film made in Hollywood, and a large number of foreign pictures, the Warner Bros. producer-director of ‘‘The King and the Chorus Girl,’’ ‘‘They Won’t Forget’’ and ‘‘The Great Garrick,’’ screens dozens of ‘‘tests’’ and short subjects. (Photo Featurette) FANCIES oF tHe | NN \@)'/1 =n 1 @) 44S BRIAN AHERNE, SKY-RIDING STAR. AFTER CLICKING OFF HIS 2OOTH $00 HOUR. IN THE AIR, THE GFT Z4IN. ACTOR FROM KING'S NORTON, WORCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND, MaKes AN ENTRY INTHE LOG, DURING THE FUAING OF THE MERVYN LERDY pnoDUCTION Fon WARNER BOS, “THE GREAT GARRICK” OF WHICH HE If Saha Mat 103-B—10¢ ee [to Mat 204—20c LOVER BY CHOICE, actor by profession is Brian Aherne as ‘‘ The Great Garrick.’’ Lovely Olivia de Havilland is the object of his affections (and what effective affections!) in ‘‘The Great Garrick,’’ which comes to the Strand Theatre next week. (Advance) PROP MAN PASSES MANY MIRACLES FOR SCENES IN “THE GREAT GARRICK” If ‘‘a miracle is something that someone does that cannot be done,’’ as a schoolboy’s examination paper had it, then Eddie Edwards, Mervyn LeRoy’s ‘‘prop’’ man, is a passer of miracles. ‘‘De Lawd’’ in ‘‘Green Pastures’’ ‘‘r’ared back’? and passed many miracles. There was the one of making plenty of “firmament” for the “b’iled custard.” The ‘Burnin’ Bush” was no mean achievement in the miracle line. When Warner Bros. made the picture from Mare Connelly’s play, it was the prop men and the technicians who did the “yarin’ back” and passing of miracles. Eddie Edwards is one of the gents who makes his living out of miracles. He has been Mervyn LeRoy’s prop man for seven years now. Some of the time was spent calmly enough. A good deal of it was spent in concocting miracles which had to be shown on the screen because the fevered imagination of a scenarist had put them in the script. Ernst Vajda, who wrote the screen play of “The Great Garrick,” which James Whale produced for LeRoy at Warner’s, wrote a direction into the script about drinking out of a mug of flaming punch which had to be taken from a bowl of the flaming liquid. That’s where Eddie came in. It was up to him to pass the miracle. A good deal of thought produced the desired effect. In essence it is one of those simple things that prop men always do to conjure up their wonder. The flaming bowl of punch had no liquid in it. It did have gas jets in it. The gas jets were fitted around the inside and connected to a rubber tube which passed through a hole bored in the bowl. The tube then went through the bottom of the bowl, through the table on which it rested and along the underside of the table and one of the legs to a gas tank off-stage. A man worked the valve on the tube and when a “take” had to be made he turned the valve, the gas poured through and Eddie lighted a match inside the bowl. That gave him flaming punch and the camera angle was such that the illusion was perfect. It was a little trickier to make the mugs out of which Brian Aherne and Edward Everett Horton were to drink their flaming punch in “The Great Garrick,” a Mervyn LeRoy production. First of all, if alcohol were used it would blow all over everything when Horton blew out his flames to “drink.” That would be bad and would have little spots of flame jumping all over the table and the rug. So Eddie made a mug with a false bottom. He then placed some alcohol in the upper part of the mug. It was lighted and When Horton went to blow out the flames he pressed an innocuous looking knob on the handle which lifted the false bottom and let the flaming alcohol down to the bottom. Quick release of the false bottom put out the flames. Then Eddie faced the problem of carrying the punch in a ladle from the bowl to the mugs. Due thought solved that problem, too. He ran over to the cutting rooms and got some film cement, highly inflamable substance. He put a little of it in the ladle, dipped the ladle into the bowl of flames. The cement caught fire very quickly and as it should. Eddie then poured the flames, as it were, into the mug of alcohol. The alcohol caught, the ladle was returned and the scene made. “The Great Garrick,” starring Brian Aherne and Olivia de Havilland comes to the Strand Theatre next week. (Advance) Two Leading Theatres Built For Garrick’ The two leading theatres of Europe during the 18th century are among the famous institutions of England and France reproduced for ‘‘The Great Garrick,’’ a romantic comedy produced by James Whale for Mervyn LeRoy at Warner Bros.’ studio. Brian Aherne, Olivia de Havilland and Edward Everett Horton have the leading roles in the picture, which comes to the Strand Theatre next week. The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, scene of the greatest triumphs of David Garrick, in the 1750’s was re-created faithfully under the art direction of Anton Grot, from existing prints and descriptions of the period. For the picture’s climax, the world famous Comedie Francaise in Paris, where for centuries France’s foremost actors have won recognition, was reproduced by similar methods. In each ease the reproductions occupied an entire sound stage, the dimensions of which are 150 by 300 feet. Each theatre was built to accommodate 750 spectators and the stages were large enough to accommodate 200 players. Many of the prints which served Grot as pattern for the construction of the two historic theatres came from museums and valued collections in private hands. ACTOR IS AIR-MINDED Brian Aherne, who plays tk——~ title role in ‘‘The Great Garrick,’’ is a mystery man even to Mortimer, his secretary. When the actor takes his own plane out of the hangar Mortimer doesn’t know where he goes or when he will return. Frequently Aherne ‘« disappears’’ for a week of flying here and there about the country. ‘‘ The Great Garrick’? is a Mervyn LeRoy-Warner Bros. comedy, directed by James Whale. WILL WRITE FILM BOOK Ernest Haller, A.S.C., director of photography on Mervyn LeRoy’s production of ‘‘The Great Garrick’? at Warner Bros., has made arrangements to write a book on photographic technique for professionals and amateurs entitled ‘‘Sereen Lighting and Modeling.’’ Haller is one of the foremost authorities on the subject. (Photo Featurette) FANCIES oF tHe \@)'7| =a @)4'4S ea OUVIA DE HAVILLAND MAKES FRIENDS WITH A PENGUING ON ARECENT Whit To THE CATAUWA ISLAND BIRD FARM SHE WON THE APPROVAL OF ELMER, THE PENGUIN WHO BRUSHED UP HIS WHITE VEST AND TAUS AND WADOLED AFTER. SHE'S IN “THE GREAT Garrick’ THE MERVYN LEROY PRopuction FOR. WARNER. Cos. STARRING BRAN ABENNE. Mat 101-B—10c