Showman (1937)

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SHOWMAN Tartar chief in the third and the Grand Duke of Moscow in the last. Something had to be done to make the thing spectacular enough to compare with the original in the eyes of Portland, so we decided to shoot the works on supernumeraries— we fixed it up with the Emmet Guards, Oregon's crack militia corps of Irish, to take the parts of the Russian, Tartar, Chinese and Siberian populace in the mass scenes. In rehearsal they took to acting like veteran troupers. We didn't have time for a dress rehearsal of the supers, but the costumes were ready for them at the opening night. I was putting on the royal robes of the Czar when they arrived— there was a trampling on the stage, a shout of "Halt! Order arms!" and then sounds indicating disagreement between the captain and some member of the company. I scampered on stage to see what went on and here were the Emmet Guards decked out in full regimentalsgreen uniforms, cockaded shakos, emerald epaulets. Handsome, but inappropriate. "Good evening, captain," I said. "Let me congratulate you on the appearance of your men. Now tell them to go down in the supers' room and get into their costumes." 4 "Costumes?" he says. "What's wrong with the uniforms?" I tried to explain that, although the uniform of the Emmet Guards was the finest bit of military tailoring the world had seen since the beginning of time, it would 58