Silver Screen (May-Oct 1939)

Pictures on the Fire [Continued from page 53] sore — not if you're any kind of a sport. I'm grateful that I'm working steadily. If I'm not doing the sort of parts I'd like to do I tell myself that every picture can't be a 'Cavalcade.' Perhaps my next will be a big picture. But even if I never get another big part at least I've had one and that's more than the average player gets." . . And that, I suppose, is just another reason why everyone in Hollywood loves Maggie. She doesn't gripe. The last picture on this lot is "The Battle of City Hall" with Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan and the "Dead End Kids," plus Frankie Thomas, Bonita Granville, Berton Churchill and the inimitable Franklyn Pangborn. When her brother (Frankie Thomas) is released from reform school, Ann Sheridan moves to a new neighborhood in the tenement district to keep him away from his old gang. The furniture is on the sidewalk ready to be moved into the apartment. But the Dead End Kids, a gang of "rough, but not bad" youngsters live here. They move a table, some chairs and other stuff around on the sidewalk and are pretending to have tea. Mr. Gabriel Dell is curled up on the sofa, asleep. Mr. Bernie Punsley is pouring from an imaginary teapot into an equally imaginary cup. "Tea, Mr. Finnegan?" he inquires of Mr. Leo Gorcey. "Quite, my deah Schwartz, quite," replies Mr. Gorcey in what he fondly believes to be a British accent. "Quite what?" responds Mr. Punsley, setting down the imaginary teapot. "Quite right," snaps Mr. Gorcey. "Wanna make something of it?" Frankie, to whom the furniture belongs, and who is being ribbed, is trying to keep his temper. He tries to get past Leo and steps around him to the right. Leo takes a step to the right, blocking him. Frankie steps to the left but Leo is still there. "Move along," Frankie orders. "I ain't goin' nowhere," Leo counters. "I'm just moving in here," Frankie begins. "I don't want trouble, but — " "Aw, have some on me," Leo replies belligerently. "I was going to say, T don't want trouble, but if you keep asking for it, I've got some I can spare you,' " Frankie retorts and the fight is on, with Bonita Granville (Leo's kid sister) vainly trying to stop it. I would like to ask Mr. Gorcey whatever happened to his marriage but Mr. G is keeping right in character, even between scenes, so I just think my own thoughts and leave. It's only a stone's throw (provided you have a good arm) from Warner Brothers toUniversal SO I leave and then run like hell to be there to catch the stone. But, alackaday. "The Sun Never Sets" is on location so that will have to wait until next month. Ditto "Ex-Champ" and "They Asked For It" which are just starting. That leaves "The House of Fear" and' "For Love or Money." The first is a "Who-dunnit" — a murder mystery — and trying to give you the plot of one of those things is like trying to unravel a Chinese puzzle. But it has a sparkling cast — Irene Hervey (who is another in the legion that has never had a chance to show what it can do), 'William Gargan (a member of the same outfit), Walter Woolf King, Harvey Stephens, Alan Dinehart, El Brendel, Tom Dugan and last, but by no means least, Jan Duggan (the Texas Nightingale) who is not well enough known to picture audiences but who has kept audiences at the Los Angeles production of "The Drunkard" convulsed for six long years. You may have seen her with W. C. Fields and Joe Morrison in the never-to-be-forgotten "Old Fashioned Way." You may have seen her more recently in a bit with the former in "You Can't Cheat An Honest Man"' — as the lady at the party, with a cigarette holder a foot long, who kept blowing smoke into Mr. Fields' face. If you like murder mysteries — and who doesn't? — be sure to take this one in. So next we come to — R-K-O OF COURSE, the highlight of the month over here and the thing that has the studio agog, is the start of Ginger Rogers' solo starring picture, "Little Mother." She starred once before (not too happily) in a film with George Brent as her vis-a-vis. It was a good picture but it just didn't take. She starred another time, in "Stage Door," but that had an all-star cast. This time Ginger is on her own, and there's no Astaire to fall back on because he's left the studio. It's sink or swim. This, as you may have guessed, is about babies, too. It seems to be "Have a baby" month for our glamour girls. First Bette Davis has one she doesn't want, then there's "Maternity Ward" where they're having babies in carload lots (some want 'em and some don't), and now here we have Ginger who is saddled with a baby that isn't even hers! It's New Year's Eve and Ginger is preparing to spend a quiet evening at home with the baby. There is a knock at the door and none other than young David Niven (scion of the gang which owns the department store where Ging works) stands there in full evening dress. "I certainly didn't expect you tonight," Ginger greets him cordially. "I didn't expect to come here," he parries. "I was taking my shower (he was going home to take a shower the last time we met — on "Wuthering Heights") when it suddenly occurred to me you must be having a kind of shabby evening (and that to the play girl of Hollywood!). Get dressed — we're going to a swell party." "Stood up, eh?" surmises Ginger, The Our Gang kids using, with difficulty, the biggest fountain pen in captivity during a lull in work on their comedy, "Gang Insurance." never moving. She plays second fiddle in no man's orchestra. David catches the inference and for a moment he toys with the idea of keeping up the pretense. But "they have a peculiar code of honor in common." "I told her I'd call back and I forgot to do it," he says softly, as though divulging a secret. Ginger smiles and hesitates. "I'd like to go — but I can't leave the baby alone." "Oh, the baby. The baby!" Dave spute ters in annoyance. "You don't have to devote your whole life to the baby." "That's what you told me to do," she reminds him. "Why, it's New Year's eve!" he screams. "Get somebody to take care of it. Get the landlady to take care of it.'' "There's something else," she objects, looking him up and down. "Me — with a sweater and skirt. We'd make half of a lovely couple." "I'll take care of the clothes," he offers magnanimously. "You go fix it with the landlady." "I'm going," she laughs, but gladly. And while she's gone David goes to the closet and looks at a dress and a shoe for the size. I think his store is about to be robbed. "Just think," exclaims Ginger when the scene is finished, "not a dance in a carload of these pictures." "Worse luck," I gloom. "Kill-joy," says Ginger. I suppose it's a natural thing to want to prove your versatility but when any 56 Silver Screen