The Silk Express (Warner Bros.) (1933)

Sheila charm and histrionic ability are asserted in Warner Bros.’ thrilling “The Silk Express.” Beautiful Terry, whose Cat Ne. & Cut 30¢ Mat (2nd Day of Run} Guy Kibbee Couldn’t Speak Dialogue Lines With Hands Bound If you tie Guy Kibbee’s he can still talk with his hands, but if you put a rope around his hands, he becomes tongue tied. This seeming paradox came out during the taking of a scene for “The Silk Express,” Warner Bros. mystery picture which is now showing at the 10¢ + £ » Con gue Theatre. An entire morning up with a speech on which Kibbee continually stumbled. That's not like Guy. He’s one actor who can usually be depended on to through a scene without a hitch. Everybody's patience, including Kibbee’s, was tried to the utmost. Tony Gaudio, the cameraman, had was taken vo been watching Kibbee closely. The scene is one in which Kibbee has to talk while lying on his side in a train drawing room, tied hand and foot. “Why don’t you try untying his hands,” suggested Tony. “I know people who can’t talk ‘without their hands.” “We can’t do that,” said Director Ray Enright. “The script calls for his hands being tied.” “But he’s facing you and his hands are tied behind his back,” insisted | the cameraman. “He has the posi| tion of a man with his hands tied, but you can’t see the rope.” The director finally consented to} try the feat, and Kibbee spoke his lines perfectly. | “And that,” said Enright, “is just another mystery added to those already in the picture.” The screen play by Houston Branch | and Ben Markson, based on a story by Branch, is a murder mystery on wheels, the strange killings taking place on a silk express speeding across the continent, and which a band of crooked silk speculators are trying to wreck in order to corner | the silk market. Neil Hamilton and have the leading roles. Sheila Terry Others in the cast include Arthur Byron, Dudley Digges, Allen Jenkins and Harold Huber from Warne leading parts in perhay jin Hollywood, and who est leading role o; | Houston i“The Silk Express,” ' | odd (Brd Day of Run) Neil Hamilton Proves Sheila Terry’s Prayer _ Claim to Checkered Came True Year Later Career Championship Neil Hamilton, who has 8 AS INany } tion picture productions as iny act his lat te Sheila Terry of storv, rently at the heatre, began his stage and screen career with an of imagined. in Warner Brox. Branch’s prod iction mvstery plaving as assortment jobs as Can be Evidently his good looks were no SSE td ndi irly his e: for an actor, for he 4 machine gun slide filler jr ition in vouth that he was cut out was turn munitions factorv, a « rew opera‘or in a toy factory, a “hurry” clerk in hardware store, an usher, a property man backstage in a theatre—and finally motion picture extra, stock extra, then stock leading man and motion picture leading man. He has heen broke in more ways and places than anvone else on earth, ve once said. He has travelled with theatre companies which went broke on the road, and left him a thousand miles from nowhere and with nothing 0 get there on. And he has seen, in t long career in pictures, the vicissitudes which have marked the various idvances of that industry. In the cast with Hamilton and Miss Terry in “The Silk Express” are Arthur Byron, Guy Kibbee, Dudles Digges, Allen Jenkins, Harold Huher. Robert Barrat, Ivan Simpson, Arthur Hohl, George Pat Collins, Tom Wi] son, Edw. Van Sloan and Doug Dum brile. It was directed by Rav Er right. ‘ ; a . Advanee Box Few People Are Aware of Silk Express Trains The story of “The Silk Express,” a Warner Bros. picture, which comes to the .... Theatre . Ke with Neil Hamilton and Sheila Terry playing the leading roles, is based on actual facts as far as the running of the transcontinental train is concerned, although the murder mystery is pure fiction. Few people know of the existence of such a train. It runs from Seattle to New York once or twice a year laden with millions of dollar’s worth of raw silk from Japan and China. Silk is the most precious cargo carried by express, with the exception of gold bullion. Insurance is so heavy that every moment’s delay means a loss of thousands of dollars. Consequently the train is given right of way over every other train on the line, not excepting the U. S. mail trains. The train is comprised entirely of express cars to carry the bales of silk and one Pullman for the cuards, It is on this train that the ser‘es of murders occur which makes for a thrilling mystery story. Neil Hamilton and Sheila Terry have (4th Day of Run) in “The Silk Express” When Sheila Terr Hollywood about a vea cast in very munor she had had stage showed considerable promise as a screen actress, she was being tried out, as Warner Bros., to whom she was under contract, expressed jt. At about this time Cor stance Bennett was plaving at Warner Bros. i; “Two Against the World.” with Nei! Hamilton leading man. “ rt in picture, a part so small that as she expresses it, = _ . as her Sheila is assigned a pa the “It was just that at:nosphere, and scarcely enough of that to breathe” But * Sheil 4 d her eves on the stars “Oh,” she Sighed ~~ ecstat + “wouldn't it be heavenly to be important enough to have a leading mar like Constance Bennett does.” “Yeah!” replied the other bit of atmosphere she had addressed. “Yeah, “The Silk but what a chance.” Cut No. 3 Sheila never forgot. Sheila was ambitious. She got down and dug She studied her parts at home. She rehearsed them over and over off stage, even though they were bits. And she was rewarded with increasingly important roles. Then, not quite a vear later, she told that to have the leading role in “The Silk Express,” a picture which is now showing at the Was she Was Cut 30c¢ A Talk with Sheila Terry As She Dons Her Make-up Sheila Terry and Dudley Digges in one of the exciting scenes from Express.” Mat 10¢ Huber. . . Theatre. “Who plays opposite me” she had isked ¢ isually. “Neil Hamilton,” was the answer. Constance Bennett’s leading man' Sheila nearly swooned. Her dream had come true. “The Silk Express” is a thrilling murder mystery drama by Houston Branch, adapted by Branch and Ben | Others in the cast include Guy khibbee, Arthur Byron, Dudley Harold | Markson. Allen Jenkins and Ray Enright directed. Digges, Sheila Terry (A Brief Biography) Sheila Terry, who has an important role in the Warner Bros. picture, “The Silk Express,” has made a tremendous success in pictures in a few short months, Warner Bros. having engaged her for picture work only a year ago, after making a screen test. She was born in Waroad, Minn., and educated for the stage at the Toronto branch of the Royal Academy of London. She played in stock in many Canadian cities, then went to New York, where she appeared in several plays, one of the most successful of which was “The Little Racketeer.” Her first picture for Warner Bros. was “Week End Marriage.’ She was then cast in “Big City Blues,” “Crooner,” “Scarlet Dawn,” “I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang,” “Lawyer Man,” “20,000 Years in Sing Sing,” “Parachute Jumper” and “Haunted Gold.” Youthful Actress Plays Her First Leading Role Opposite 13 Men in “The Silk Express” By FRANK DAUGHERTY HEILA TERRY was making up her face. The interviewer, however, was pretty well inside the door, in answer to her cheerful “Come in,’ before this fact became apparent. T’o his credit, it may be said that he started to back out again, but her laugh stopped him. “Oh, come on in,” she said. He took time, as he was crossing to a chair at her side. to notice | the dressing table. It was one of those motion picture affairs, with i ; all « i é a sort) z : : lights all about the mirror, and a sort years before, of course. Mr. Gallant of half-moon carved in the table top, asked her into his office and pointing into which the actress Graws her to a piano, asked her what she’d like knees, for she vind her dressing to sing. She was pretty well frightroom at the Warner Bros. Studios. ened by then, but the thing had to be The table itself was covered with a! done. “So she had leaped upon the iniscellaneous array of pencils, pastes, | piano—the lady of “Showboat” was tubes, brushes, bottles, little cans, the rage just then—and sang a nunlittle boxes, jars, powder puffs, | ber. combs, brushes—the tools the artists | of the stage and screen use for their work, It seemed incumbent to be interested, but really we were still watching her at work on her face with our best eye. She was filling in the lips with that little water-color brush. “It didn’t go. He thanked me very An Orange Mass Miss Terry, dressed in a smock, was tracing one perfect evebrow with | ; : I : : : .;much and said good bye.” in eyebrow pencil. She had evidently ; : , ; just sineared makeup paste all over ‘And then you walked right out of her face, for it was one indeterminate | the theatre and ran right into the orange You couldn't distin| @rms of the producer of an uptown t=] aA E . ” suish eyes from mouth or nose from, Show and got a job. chin. The eyebrows gave you your “What was the job?” only hint. “"The Little Racketeer.’ She is the feminine lead—the only | did you know?” mass. But how FE EE 6 Neil Hamilton, Guy Kibbee, Sheila Terry and Dudle y Digges as they are seen in the leading roles. one of the high spots *r Bros.’ absorbing mystery, “The Silk Express.” P Cut No. 4 Cut 30c Mat 10c girl, in fact—in “The Silk Express,” a But we countered with another Warner a picture, which — to question. the Theatre on , and in * : : : ; ae > How come you went into the which she plays opposite Neil Hamilegg : = movies: ton. F : She had been seen, she said, about Her call, she said, was for ten| . : : : a year before, by Max Arnow, the thirty. It was then nine-thirty. : y She had finished with the evebrows now, and was brushing down the orange powder on her face with a | soft white brush. Then, with the lipsticked brush she | outlined with just a fine, narrow line, the contour of her lips. Mouth Droops “My mouth naturally has a sort of droop,” she said, and _ illustrated by letting it be natural and droopy. “But I've learned to make it look a little more cheerful,” she went on. Watching her calmly painting her. | face was so interesting that we forgot | idea of an | not, /broke in New York. we had come there for an interview. But if we had sort of given up the | interview, Miss Terry had She had had a bust done, she | said, by Wheeler Williams, one of the most famous sculptors in the country. | Or, if that wasn’t exactly the sort | of thing wanted, there had been the | time, two years ago, when she was She had spent her last dollar for a taxi to take her | to Washington Square. Someone had ' the door to speculate | She decided, finally, that England was | told her that Barney Gallant wanted a night club singer for his Village = She intended to apply for the job. moment outside on what sort of give. She had night club_ singing. | She had stopped a references she could never done any a long Way off, and that she might as well be from there. So she sounded a couple of broad “a's,” just to see if she had them right, and went in. _She was, she told him, from the Kit Kat Club in London—a couple of A. casting director of Warner Bros. contract had followed. She was using the comb now, loosening up a rather thick head of vellow hair. The curls were stiff, and looked real enough. But, of course, we thought we knew better than that. We discovered they were real. A heavy knock door. sounded on— the “On the set, Miss Terry,” called a prop boy. “Right away,” she said. She stood up now and threw off the smock. Underneath, she was dressed in grey tweed skirt and sweater. “If you’re here when I come back or if there’s anything else I can tell you some other time,” she shouted back from the open doorway. The Only Girl We followed her to the stage, arriv I. . . . | ng Just in time to see a well turned /ankle as she boarded the “Silk Ex press” and disappeared into the car. She’s the only girl in the cast. “The Silk Express” is a melodramatic story of an attempt by. silk | financiers to prevent the arrival of a trainload of silk in New York in their effort to corner the silk market. More exciting incidents happen aboard the train in its battle against time to cross the continent from Seattle to New York than is contained in half a dozen average pictures. In the cast, besides Neil Hamilton and Miss Terry, are Arthur Byron, Guy Kibbee, Allen Jenkins, Hirold Huber, Dudley Digges and others. Ray Enright directed, Page Six