Sunday, March 8, 2009

March 19, 1932



MOVIE STAR BRIDES MEET AT DEL MONTE HONEYMOON

Del Monte, March 19 (AP)
Joan Bennett and Betty Bronson, both recent brides, exchanged confidences about their husbands here yesterday, but declined to discuss their conversations except to say that they were both very happy.



Miss Bronson, now Mrs. Ludwig Lauerhaus, and Miss Bennett, now Mrs. Gene Markey, arrived with their husbands for a short honeymoon visit.

Lauerhaus, who registered from Asheville, N. C., said: “We’re just going to keep driving for awhile.”

Markey, a playwright, said he and his bride would spend the weekend here.




MIX PLANS REMARRIAGE
Yuma, Ariz. March 18 (AP)

Tom Mix, western screen star, and Mabel Hubbell, circus aerialist, married recently in Mexicali, Lower California, announced their intention today of being re-wed here to-morrow night. They explained they were going through the second ceremony to dispel any legal technicalities over their first ceremony.

Mix is filming a picture here. Earl A. Freeman, Yuma’s marrying justice, will officiate.




CHEVALIER RETURNS TO HOLLYWOOD HOME

Maurice Chevalier, who left Hollywood some weeks ago on a concert tour across the continent terminating in an engagement at the Fulton theater in New York, has returned to California to resume his work before the cameras.

He began his starring role in “Love Me Tonight” upon arriving in Hollywood. The film is directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Jeanette MacDonald has the feminine lead.




ROBINSON QUITS GANGSTER ROLES

It’s strange what pictures will do to an actor. Before coming to Hollywood, Edward G. Robinson was known as an actor with a high artistic sense and gentle nature, best emphasized by his roles in “The Kibitzer,” “The Goat Song” and other similar productions of the Theater Guild in New York. Then he entered pictures and made “Little Caesar” and immediately became known as a ruthless racketeer.

So successfully did Eddie submerge his own personality in his hard-boiled screen roles that he found himself being regarded as this type of person in real life. Needless to say, that legend which became attached to him has caused him no slight embarrassment.

“To further the impression that I actually am a racketeer with racketeering principles, I even have been reported as criticizing my associates on the screen,” Robinson said. “I actually have been quoted as making derogatory remarks about the work of my friends. Naturally, such remarks are wholly untrue.”

John Barrymore, George Arliss and Walter Huston are among my closest friends and I have respect for them as artists. I still regard Barrymore’s ‘Hamlet’ as the most magnificent performance I ever have seen. No, I will not play ‘Caesar’ with my friends no matter how much good acts might do my screen career,” he says.




MIRIAM HOPKINS TO PLAY DANCER

Miriam Hopkins, petite blonde and blue eyed girl from Savannah, Ga., who in a multiplicity of film roles last year established herself as one of the most versatile actresses of the screen, has signed a new long term contract as a Paramount picture player. Miss Hopkins will next be seen as a taxi dancer and singer in a public dance hall.




ARLEN WEARS OLD BOOTS

Richard Arlen is not a sentimentalist, nor is he superstitious, but even though they pinch a little – he is wearing the same boots in “Sky Bride” that he wore in “Wings,” the flying epic in which he scored his first film success.


From Luella O. Parsons:



Los Angeles, Mar. 19
We all felt instinctively, some way or other, that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer would sign Jean Harlow for “The Red-Headed Woman.” I talked with Irving Thalberg a few days ago and at that time he expressed himself as unable to find the right actress with the right kind of hair. He is sure of Miss Harlow’s popularity and sure she can play the part and, well, he figures it’s better to have platinum locks with a good performance than titian locks with a bad performance. Perhaps he is right. He usually is. But we still confess to disappointments, and we know that our readers are going to ask about the red hair. Miss Harlow will be under contract to M-G-M and this will only be one of other pictures she will make. She has been out there off and on so that M-G-M feels it is no experiment.



Ann Harding objected, and perhaps rightly, to my article that Mrs. Brock Pemberton is changing her personality. I don’t think, however, she can object to my saying that the photographs I saw on Mrs. Pemberton’s desk make her look more stunning than at any time in her career.

Her next story is “Just A Woman,” by Eugene Walters. David Selznick purchased it with Miss Harding in mind. He hopes she will like it. Ann is rarely enthusiastic about movie stories, but perhaps it is better to reserve all opinions until after a story reaches the screen.

Gregory La Cava, and I haven’t heard from him in ages, directs Miss Harding.




Most people make hay while the sun shines. Will Rogers is playing polo while his days of leisure continue. He starts work in two weeks on “Down to Earth.” And that means just what the title says – he gets down to earth.

The story, by Homer Croy, is a sequel to “They Had To See Paris,” with Pike Peters of Claremore, Oklahoma, still doing business at the old stand. Being the old-fashioned type, Pike won’t change his wife. So it is more than likely Irene Rich will be called home from vaudeville. In fact, I might add, negotiations are now on to engage her for the same role she played in the other picture.



Miss Rich has been doing very well in vaudeville. Reports keep coming in from towns where she has appeared.




Heard and overheard: One of our scouts in New York writes to say that Ona Munson and Ernst Lubitsch have made up again. Gossip separated them, says our informant. But Ernst must be pretty keen about her for he called her up and gave her a big dinner party at the Mayfair.

From the same source comes the word that Lupe Velez has ceased being the wild hoyden. She is at the Warwick and is controlling her emotions. Up to now she hasn’t even rumored her engagement to any New Yorker. Gary Cooper sails from England on the Europa on March 25. Wagers are on that there will be a big reconciliation scene for, no matter what has been said, they both still like each other. And, after all, that is the big thing.




If you’d really like to know where Greta Garbo is, find out where the “As You Desire Me” company is on location. Greta leaves tomorrow on her first location trip in three years. Not since she made “The Single Standard” has a scene been made away from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in which she figured. All I can tell you is that the “As You Desire Me” scenes will be made at some beach.




Snapshots of Hollywood: James Cagney was getting a rousing reception at the opening of The Frolics, Hollywood’s newest night club. Edward Robinson and Victor McLaglen, two other bad boys of the screen, received an equally big hand. Marilyn Miller, in white, was dancing to the tune of Ted Fiorito’s music with Don Alvarado. George Raft, as easy a dancer as we have seen in many a day, was doing an impromptu number with Bobby Arnst. He has just signed a Paramount contract. Miss Arnst, a headliner at the cafĂ©, dedicated one of her songs to Johnny Weissmuller. Fuzzy Knight and Jimmy Durante kept the appreciative crowd in good humor with their nonsense. Jimmy came from the opening of The Wet Parade with others of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer folk. Madge Evans, one of the prettiest girls at the opening, was with Tom Gallery.




DOUBLE BILL AT SENATOR

Robert Montgomery, gay young sophisticate of the screen, will come to the Fox-Senator theater tomorrow in “Lovers Courageous” with Madge Evans as his co-star.

The picture will share the bill with “Stepping Sisters,” the hilarious account of three ex-burlesque queens, Louise Dresser and Minna Gombel have the featured roles, for three days.

“Lovers Courageous” accounts in whimsical and captivating manner the story of a young man who never can make up his mind. He doesn’t know what he want to do or who he wants to love. Miss Evans is charming as the young woman who tries to think for him. Other roles are taken by Roland Young, Frederick Kerr, Reginald Owen and Beryl Mercer.

Tonight, for the final time, the Fox-Senator will present Marilyn Miller in “Her Majesty Love” and Ricardo Cortez in “Men of Chance.”




LUKAS STARS IN STATE FILM

On the State screen Sunday and Monday in “The Beloved Bachelor,” Paul Lukas will be seen in his first starring vehicle.

The story finishes romantically.

Lukas takes pity on an orphaned little girl. He adopts her, but by so doing he loses the love of a beautiful actress. Romance comes when a decade later, the child he had adopted, grown to a beautiful woman, falls deeply in love with her bachelor “daddy.”

It is a picture designed for family trade.

Dorothy Jordan, Charlie Ruggles and Vivienne Osborne head the supporting cast.

“Touchdown” with Richard Arlen, Jack Oakie and Peggy Shannon ends tonight.




SUICIDE FLEET AT LYRIC ON SUNDAY

Hand-to-hand fighting on the deck of a burning vessel provides one of the scenes of “Suicide Fleet,” the RKO-Pathe naval production of the World War which comes to the Lyric Theater Sunday and Monday.

In these battle scenes, a boarding party from a United States destroyer overpowers the crew of an enemy sailing vessel.

Bill Boyd and Robert Armstrong head the boarding party. Flames were raging aboard the sailing ship when this action was taken at sea in Mexican waters off Los Coronados Islands. Lew Lipton wrote the screenplay from a story by Commander Herbert A. Jones, U.S.N.

The feature attraction for to-day is Marie Dressler and Polly Moran in “Reducing,” a comedy.




BUCK JONES STARS IN RIALTO FILM

Buck Jones is the star in “Branded,” now showing at the Rialto Theater.

He impersonates an entirely new type of hero – one who possesses all the sterling qualities of the sheriff, and displays as well a touch of the bandit’s carefree spirit and the tenderfoot’s engaging human qualities.

Cuthbert Chauncey Dale is the gentleman’s name, and the mere fact that he manages to storm and conquer the primitive village of Falls City, handicapped by this fancy cognomen, is proof that he is a man to reckon with.

Buck Jones has a new leading lady in “Branded.” She is Ethel Kenyon, wife of Eddie Sutherland, well-known director. Others in the cast include Al Smith, who interprets the “heavy” role, John Oscar in a comedy part, Bob Kortman, Wallac MacDonald, Fred Burns, Philo McCullough and Harry Todd.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

About the bit that says Gary Cooper was sailing back from England and might reconcile with Lupe Velez; that never happened. They broke up quite a bit before he left for Europe and Africa on a long vacation where he was recovering from being seriously overworked by Paramount. He dropped down to 150 lbs. which was dangerously thin for his 6’3” frame. He came back healthy and with a new “friend” (i.e. sugarmama) the Countess Dorothy DiFrasso whom he had met in Europe.

Great stuff, keep it coming!!

Angie

GAH1965 said...

Interesting comment. Thanks for sharing the info.

I often wonder how much of what I'm posting here was just studio-generated nonsense, but even if it is, it's pretty fascinating to see what info they tried to "put across" to the public via the AP and UP press releases.