The Smiling Ghost (Warner Bros.) (1941)

‘TALKING GHOST’ IN LOBBY Blow up one of the figures in still SG 509 (page 5) for a talking ghost lobby gag. Hook up p. a. system to the “‘ghost”’ and station theatre attendant to do the plugging for the picture. Use the ad copy for the usher’s spiels. Copy: ““The Smiling Ghost Has A Message for You!” ANIMATED LOBBY DISPLAY — Animated novelty create a tremendous stir in your lobby. Display is a smil ing ghost figure, 21” x 36”, done in green, blue and red on white satin. controlled by silent motor, the ghost figure moves and shakes. Space for theatre name at bottom of banner. Preserve the motor after your showing closes, you’ll find plenty of uses for it in new displays. Guaranteed to attract attention! Electrically should Order yours today from: Hollywood Advertising Co. 600 W. 45 St, N. Y. C. MAKE HIM SMILE Man, dressed in ghost garb, is stationed in lobby or walks the streets with this copy on back: “Can you make the Ghost smile? If you can, you will receive two tickets to see ‘The Smiling Ghost’ at the Strand Theatre.” Mat 103—15e¢ WAYNE MORRIS AND ALEXIS SMITH have prominent roles in Warner’ Bros.’ spine tingling laugh film, ‘‘The Smiling Ghost,”’ which is coming to the Strand. Film’s End A Surprise A mystery-comedy with a surprise ending that will make the most enterprising whodunit fan sit up and take notice is Warner Bros.’ “The Smiling Ghost” which is now playing at the Strand Theatre. The swiftly paced film stars Wayne Morris, Brenda Marshall and Alexis Smith and presents a supporting cast of such talented players. as Alan Hale, Lee Patrick and David Bruce. The scenario was written by Kenneth Gamet and Stuart Palmer’s from Palmer’s original story. Lewis Seiler directed the cheery mystery picture. Makeup Macabre David Bruce, who plays the title role in “The Smiling Ghost,” has a horrible makeup that is part mask, part grease paint. It looks very corpse-like and is the pride of the studio’s makeup department. Quipped Wayne Morris, star of the gay ghost story: “Bruce, you’ve got what I call a dead pan.” Price: $8.50 F.O.B. New York ye STITT TTTUULTTTLULTTTVUULTTUULUOUUULMOUUUULUeULCLOUVOCPLOOUOLAOWLOUUUCCOOUUUOCUDOCLOOUUUUNCUTUULOOTOUTOVOOOLSUOOUOCOGOUTOUTVOOUUUOUOOUUAOUTUKEIUUUUNVTUUOOQOUUUUQNOUUUUNOTUUUTOUUUUOTT UT The Ghost Talks Alan Hale devised a new gag to give colored comedian Willie Best goose-pimples while the two of them worked on dark and spooky scenes of Warner Bros.’ “The Smiling Ghost.” It’s a ghost noise, as Willie calls it, made with an ordinary carpenter’s saw. The sound had such a shivery' effectiveness that Director Lewis Seiler included it in the picture. As The Doctor Ordered When Brenda Marshall returned to work on “The Smiling Ghost” at Warner Bros. after her bout with a backfiring appendix, she was under doctor’s orders to avoid moving about too much. She obeyed, by necessity. She spent the day reclining on a pile of gunny sacks, bound so she couldn’t move— and most of the time, gagged! Lewis Seiler, who directed the comic mystery, claimed it was a most realistic performance. Mat 201—30c “YOU SEE, IT’S THIS WAY,” explains Wayne Morris to his two girl friends, Alexis Smith and Brenda Marshall, in Warner Bros.’ comic mystery film, “‘The Smiling Ghost,’’ which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre. In this scene Wayne is trying to talk himself out of one of those unexplainable situations! (Opening Day Story) ‘Smiling Ghost’ Comedy Thriller Opens at Strand A mystery film that packs both suspense and laughs from start to finish will make its local debut today at the Strand Theatre when Warner Bros.’ “The Smiling Ghost” opens. The film has a grand cast consisting of Wayne Morris, Brenda Marshall and Alexis Smith in the starring roles with Alan Hale, Lee Pattick and David Bruce supporting. Alexis plays the role of a girl whom the newspapers have branded the “kiss of death girl” because of the terrible fate. that has met all of her suitors but one. And he is in an iron lung. Her grandmother, played by Helen Westley, is anxious to dispel the jinx surrounding her grand-daughter and hires Wayne Morris, as a college graduate in low funds, to be Alexis’ suitor. On arriving at Alexis’ home he meets a newspaper girl, played by Brenda Marshall and they get along very well. Too well in fact to please Alexis, Wayne has brought along his right-hand man, played by comedian Willie Best. Brenda and Wayne decide to find out what all these mysterious goings-on are and their solution will prove a surprise even to the most ardent arm-chair sleuth. Lewis Seiler directed “The Smiling Ghost” from the screenplay by Kenneth Gamet and Stuart Palmer from Palmer’s original story. SMILING GHOST SETS NEW KISS RECORD The “kissingest picture” produced at Warner Bros. to date, gatherers of goofy statistics declare, is “The Smiling Ghost,” which opens Friday at the Strand Theatre. Wayne Morris, blonde Alexis Smith and brunette Brenda Marshall, exchange 28 _ kisses. Alexis’ share is twenty-one, Brenda’s_ only seven, but Brenda gets the hero, anyway. Another player in the cast, Lee Pat» rick, goes kiss less. FS Aside from mere number, kisses in “The Sam 1 leion-¢g Mat 102—15c Brenda Marshall Ghost” have other claims to distinction. There is, for example, one on a_ stairway, between Alexis and Morris. It breaks’ existing length records—82 seconds long by the script girl’s stop watch. That kiss, as a matter of fact, is part of a series in which Miss Smith runs up her remarkable score. While Morris is _ bashfully backing upstairs she demonstrates, several times, how he ought to treat her in the capacity of her hired suitor, to break the jinx that has caused her to become known as the “Kiss of Death Girl.” Then comes the long kiss, followed by a series of them with Miss Smith backing downstairs. EERIE WINDFALL LEFT BY ‘SMILING GHOST’ The next eerie mystery picture Warner Bros. films will be a lot easier to produce. It will inherit from the latest of its ilk a lot of brand new, improved or simply “bigger and better” effects, to add to the store the studio effects wizards already had to draw upon. The picture which donates these windfalls is “The Smiling Ghost,” now playing at the Strand Theatre. For example, there are the sound effects which, in the new comedy-mystery thriller, wrought such havoc on the nerves and nonchalance of Wayne Morris, Brenda Marshall, Alexis Smith and others in the picture. A new one, added to the sound effects laboratory by the picture, may be imagined by those who have heard a saw played as a musical instrument. It was, in fact, produced with a saw blade, but not by the usual violin-bow method. This super-shudder of sound was wrenched from the saw by the blow of a felt-padded hammer, the blade being held in a special sounding-board clamp. A better wind sound was produced for the film by sifting dustshot (tiny pellets of lead) through a screen of taut steel wires anchored at each end to a tin drum, Director Lewis Seiler thinks that “The Smiling Ghost” has hung up a record, in the mystery class, for contributing new ways of chilling film audiences, as well as making them laugh, iPUBL