The Keyhole (Warner Bros.) (1933)

FEATURE STORIES (Advance Feature) George Brent Through With Wild Adventures Niovie Star Who Has Led a Most Exciting Life Will Confine His Efforts To Serious Screen Work Fk OR most young actors in Hollywood, approaching stardom means the beginning of the big adventure. But for George Brent, who plays the leading masculine role opposite Kay PTARCIS ithe TP Weatre Ons. es , Stardom actually means the finish of his adventuring. Success in pictures in his case has meant the end of adventuring—a settling into a more or less routine life in Hollywood. The film capital can offer no excitement comparable to experiences George Brent has already been through. The wildest Hollywood party is a tame affair compared to a night ride through rural Ire land with dispatches which the whole British army is out to in tercept. George Brent Hollywood success has meant a certain amount of financial security, happiness in his riage. Brent, who lived on adventure for years, appears to be thor romance with Ruth Chatterton, sat-| oughly enjoying the extreme reisfaction in his meteoric success on | Spectability and calmness of his the sereen, but not mad adventure | present home. He has not—as has been rumored—gone “high hat.” Nor is it to be referred that either his work in pictures or his life with Ruth Chatterton is dull. They are one of the most popular couples in such as he had enjoyed all his previous life. Never again will he have to travel at night and hide by day to avoid the unwelcome attentions of Scot land Yard. Never again will he be| Hollywood. They entertain often found bumming his way on a cattle| and go about a great deal. Brent ~suip or working in diamond mines or herding sheep to avoid entanglements with an obstinate and indignant national government. Danger has gone out of Brent’s life, except the mild risks of traffic accidents himself is working seriously on his own career, trying, successfully to date, to make progress altogether independent of his famous wife. His life at present is probably more interesting if not as thrilling as it and polo mishaps. Fame has put the quietus on his recklessness. Hollywood has seriously, perhaps permanently, cramped his style! All of this has happened because Brent wanted it to happen. He deliberately bid for screen success. He was willing to give up excitement for success, adventure for romance, Irish politics for American polo. He didn’t want alw: to be a fugitive from the 3 ‘tional police. _ In fact he ga active part in tue +4 sit Gian VW aL eee Collins, his friend, was ambushed and killed, ten years or more ago. He was just nineteen. But even in America, working on the long slow climb to recognition in Hollywood by way of stock companies and road shows, Brent found adventure around every corner. Those early weeks under the Warner Bros. contract, the first important step he took toward fame and fortune in the movies, were filled with exciting moments—punching a drink crazed Indian into submission near a mountain resort being one of them. Loves a Fight His Irish aptitude with his fists, his quick temper and his delight in conflict of a personal nature got him into and out of a dozen scrapes. Success and marriage put an end to ail that. If a prowler appears around the Brent-Chatterton home now, he might even call the police. A year ago he would have sallied forth from his bachelor quarters on Tuluea Lake to do battle single handed with the trouble maker. His life and his neck were his own. Both are too valuable to other people new to be risked so carelessly. He is no longer a free agent. Brent knew his eareer of adven ture would have to end sometime. His serious interests were with the theatre and the screen. He gave freely of his youthful energy to any cause which claimed his loyalty. Under such a division of interest his career did not prosper. When the chance came in Hollywood a year ago he deliberately closed his book of adventure and turned to the literature of success. He has had neither the time nor the occasion, as yet, to regret his choice. Whether his joy in success will ever be dimmed by a yearning for more adventure can only be determined in the future. So far, he shows no signs of regretting the change. In fact, George Brent seems to be one of the few contented people in Hollywood. Many young actors who have only tasted adventure seem to chafe under the restraining influence of fame and position and mar Page Eight WitUil aa xcstwo= yp was ten years ago when the British Government set a price on his head. If he remembers his days in a Vermont lumber camp, or the summer he picked apples to earn enough money to return to Ireland, or the fight in a cab with a friendly priest which started out as a practical joke and ended with his expulsion from Dublin University, or the bleak winter when bankruptcy stared him in the face each pay day, he is glad they are a part of the past. — | Has Tried Everything | He still goes adventuring a plenty in pictures as he does in “The Keyhole,” in which as a private detective, he follows a beautiful woman from New York to Havana to make love to her at the instigation of her own husband. In the east besides Brent and Miss Francis are Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins, Monroe Owsley, Helen Ware and Henry Kolker. The screen play by Robert Presnell is based on the story “Adventuress” by Alice D. G. Miller. It was directed by Michael Curtiz. Scenes from “The Keyhole,” featured with Monroe Owsley, Glenda Cut No. 20 (Current Feature) Screen’s Latest Tough Guy Yearns for Gentler Roles From “Blessed Event” to ‘“The Keyhole’? Allen Jenkins Has Played Nothing But Hard Guy Roles LLEN Jenkins, who is responsible for much of the comedy in ‘‘The Keyhole,’’ the Warner Bros. picture featuring Kay Francis and George Brent, now showing at the ....................... Theatre, has two major ambitions in life. One of them is to find the kind of a boat he wants—but that’s another story, as Kipling would write. The other is to be cast for a nice, gentlemanly role some time before he’s ninety—-the kind of a chap who got through high school, anyhow, and knows something about the King’s English (or the President’s) and never hesitates over which fork to use, or how to take a lady in to dinner, and has a few lawful instincts and legitimate ambitions. ee Not that Allen has suddenly gone highbrow, and longs to play bankers, college professors, ambassadors or anything of that sort. He’s just a little bit fed up with being a chiseler and racketeer on the screen. Playing ‘‘thugs and muggs,’’ Allen calls it. Is there a chance for the kind of a guy he looks like to ‘‘go straight’’ in pictures, or is he inevitably ““typed’’3 mob that kidnapped Warren William’s kid. Same thing in ‘Lawyer Man,’ with Willidm Powell. I was down for a tough cannon-toter, one of the two sent to bump off Powell and Powell winds us both around his finger. In ‘Silk Express’ I’m one of the birds the big silk speculator plants on the train to cause trouble for the millowners. Mugg or Thug | Tough Being Tough ‘‘Tt looks to me as though thugs and muggs are going to be my specialty for the next fifty years,’’ sighed Allen on the steamship smoking-room set of ‘‘The Keyhole,’’ one morning while the electricians were shifting lights for a new set-up. ‘<T’ve been one or the other ever since I’m a roughneck operative for a private detective agency—a wise guy who’s only half as wise as he thinks he is. “I’m playing Glenda Farrell for a sucker, and she’s returning the compliment. She thinks I’m just a little ‘“In this picture, ‘The Keyhole,’ I hit this town called Hollywood. It’s tough being a tough guy all the time, too. After a while, you feel yourself repeating or going stale. “(YT don’t know whether like to have a erack at it.’’ At this taken between the two. A little lates returned to_ D3 (25 area ‘«That wasn’t a wise Craux J my playing nothing but thugs anu muggs,’’ he resumed. ‘‘It’s literally true. Starting with ‘‘ Blessed Event,’’ I’ve been one or the other every time my name is on a call sheet ‘¢Maybe you’re wondering what I mean by ‘‘thugs and muggs.’’ I’ tell you. A thug is a guy who has made the grade as a bad boy. A mugg is a bird who’d like to be a bad boy and as often as not isn’t smart enough. Half ‘the time he turns out to be a sap, a mark—get me? He’s a bush-leaguer trying to crash the big time. ‘(Tn ‘Blessed Event’ I was a gunman, a thug. Ditto in ‘Three On a Match,’ when I played one of the in which romance, adventure, drama and comedy abound aplenty. Kay Francis and George Brent are Farrell and Allen Jenkins, in the supporting cast, It’s at the Strand all this week. NOTE: If pen-and-ink sketch is preferred, see 4 col. cut on page 6. Cut 60c Mat 20c¢ I could get away with a ‘‘white collar’’ part or not,’’ he went on, ‘‘but I’d sure moment Glenda Farrell walked on the set, and Allen excused himself for the scene that was to be brother of the idle rich and I’ve got her tagged for a smart gold-digger running around loose with a lot of heavy alimony. But she gets wise to me first, and leaves me holding the bag for a lot of drinks, eats and good times all the way from New York to Havana—which makes me a mugg. “Don’t get me wrong,’’ added Ale len hastily, as he concluded. ‘‘T know I’m no matinee idol and I’m not Nursing any ot tonale onthe Ly “r* Only Every ONCE aaa I’d like to get out of the ‘‘dese and dose” class and see what I could do with a different kind of a part. I guess every actor feels that way, now and then. Maybe I’d be a flop. But 1’d like to. try, it.’? In the cast supporting Kay Francis and George Brent in ‘‘The Keyhole,’’ besides Allen Jenkins, are such experienced players as Glenda Farrell, Henry Kolker, Monroe Owsley, Helen Ware and Ferdinand Gottschalk. Michael. Curtiz directed the picture, which is an adaptation by Robert Presnell of a novel by Alice D. G. Miller. co PIRETS NEY