Screenland (Nov 1931-Mar 1932)

116 SCREENLAND COMEDIES 'Tommy, play your mandolin!" And Patricola plays and dances himself into and out of enough comedy tough spots to keep you laughing for a week. "But, dearie, the rent is three weeks overdue!" And those Hollywood Girls are off on another wild escapade setting the studios into an uproar. No wonder Ideal Comedies are makingso many new friends this season. They are bringing you some of the most delightful laugh hits of the season. Whether it is those Three Hollywood Girls in a frolic like "QUEEINIE of HOLLYWOOD", or one of the alternating pictures with famous stars y°Uho»°mak, such as Tom Patri in "THE TAMALE VENDOR" or his coming comedy "MOONLIGHT AND CACTUS" there is always a half hour of hilarious fun in an Ideal Comedy. • • • Don't miss any of these IDEAL fun fests . . . and watch, too, for MACK SENN ETT'S great comedies, the ANDY CLYDE COMEDIES, for the TORCHY COMEDIES, the TERRY-TOONS and Educational* s other amusing short subjects. They always make any show more enjoyable. EDUCATIONAL FILM EXCHANGES, inc. E. W. HAMMONS, President Executive Offices, 1501 Broadway, New York Speaking of New Men Continued from page 34 Woollcott. In it he spoke of Warren William as having ". . a Barrymore accent in his speech and a Barrymore tone in his voice, and he looks the very image of the young John Drew who played Petruchio to the Katharine of Ada Rehan long ago." "So you see," Warren William remarked calmly, "you are not telling me anything new." Just as in the case of Fredric March, Warren William's Barrymore label will wear off quickly for the simple reason that he is doing nothing about it. Following "Expensive Women" he was cast opposite Bebe Daniels in "Honor of the Family," and then took a vacation from his new found movie career to finish up his stage tour of "The Vinegar Tree." Warren William's savoire faire, or whatever you want to call it, might be laid to a mixture of true worldly sophistication and a touch of fatalism. It was rather impossible for him to avoid the latter quality. "The whole trend of my life," he said, "has been not so much a matter of choice as a matter of fatalistic opportunity into which I slipped. "I am an actor because I wanted to become a marine engineer. I wanted to be a marine engineer because my father wanted me to be a newspaper man. And so it goes. I have quit trying to order my life to the letter according to my own preconceived ideas. I tried to avoid being anything like John Barrymore after I started my stage career mostly because of a remark my father made which I strongly suspect of being heavy sarcasm. "I had disappointed him by going on the stage, and when Alexander Woollcott came out with his remark about the Barrymore resemblance my father wrote and told me to stick to the stage with the rest of the Drews and Barrymores. That was enough to make me try to appear as individual as possible ; but still the villain pursues me." To get back to the beginning, Warren William was born in Aitken, Minnesota, where his father owned a newspaper. The only touch of the theatre which entered his early life was his father's enthusiasm for Gilbert and Sullivan which Warren also cultivated. He did not even bother to see Broadway productions when they came to the local theatre. He was too busy building boats and rafts and experimenting withanything that would float. He found no kindred spirit in Shakespeare or Ibsen, but his nose was generally buried in Bowditch's "Epitome of the American Practical Navigator." The bug of marine engineering was hard at work, and when papa broached the subject of a newspaper career after he had finished college, the result was a deadlock. William's sister was the one with theatrical aspirations. She had gone to New York and entered a dramatic school. Thinking that Warren's ideas were far removed from the stage — (and they most certainly were) — Papa William sent the boy to New York to coax sister back to a normal way of thinking and also to clarify his own ideas. What actually happened was that Warren and his sister indulged in a veritable orgy of playgoing. They saw everything current on Broadway, and then some. They might have gone on at that rate interminably if America had not entered the war at that point. Warren, full of enthusiasm, joined up and went to France as a sergeant. He soon learned that Sherman was not only right but quite conservative in his estimation of warfare. As a means of escape from army routine and drudgery, William managed to join an army troupe of actors and made the rounds of the camps entertaining the soldiers. As an actor he became a favorite with the men, quite to his own surprise. But as all wars have a habit of ending sooner or later, William once more found himself back in America in civilian clothes with the burning question of "what to do." He tried the path of least resistance and landed a job in a one-night-stand company touring with William Le Baron's play, "I Love You." Despite the fact that the show folded up in Flint, Michigan, the embryonic actor was soon at work again, touring "the sticks" for the next two years. He was on the point of returning to Minnesota more than once to iron out the matter of a career with his father, but before arrangements for the trip could be made another Una Merkel's angelic little smile is one of the attractions in "She Wanted a Millionaire," in which Joan Bennett is starred. theatrical job would pop up and he would lay his plans aside. Shortly after this the newspaper passed out of the hands of the family, so Warren had nothing more to worry about in that direction. He had never considered the stage as his ultimate career. To him, it was just a matter of marking time until he could get himself straightened out. "Thai is why I have grown to be a fatalist," he confided. "Even when I was shining brightly on Broadway I was working hard at marine engineering. ' While using my stage work to make a living, I worked on the side as assistant to Maurice Holland, director of the engineering division of the National Research Council. And this, too, when I was in 'The Vinegar