Wednesday, March 18, 2009

March 20, 1932



GLORIA MAY AWAIT BABY IN ENGLAND

London, March 19 (US)
Indication that Gloria Swanson may await the birth of her baby in England was given today when the American film actress and her husband, Michael Farmer, leased a house on Farm street, Mayfair.




RENEE ADOREE WINS FIGHT FOR HEALTH

Prescott, Ariz. March 19 (INS)
Renee Adoree, dynamic screen actress, has won her uphill fight for health, it was revealed to-day. For more than a year the one-time popular movie star has battled for her life in a sanitarium here. She will leave the institution before April 1, but will remain here for an indefinite period of recuperation.




TOM MIX REMARRIES IN FRONT OF 3000

Yuma, Ariz. March 19 (UP)
While more than 3,000 persons looked on, Tom Mix, cowboy screen star, remarried Miss Mabel Hubbard, aerial performer, tonight.

Mix and Miss Hubbell said they wanted to have an American marriage to dispel any doubt of the validity of their recent marriage in Mexicali.




MARY NOLAN APPEALS

Nine Errors of Judgment Charged in Conviction

Los Angeles, March 18
Mary Nolan and her husband, Wallace T. Macrery, who were convicted on March 9 of failing to pay the wages of employees, filed an appeal in Superior Court today setting forth nine asserted errors of judgment by the lower court and sex sections of the State Labor Law that are allegedly unconstitutional.

A copy of an agreement between Miss Nolan and her husband whereby she lent him the use of her name for the gown shop which he operated, was attached to the statement.

The actress and her husband, at liberty under $200 bond each, are under sentence to thirty days in jail.




FILM YEAR BOOK OFFERS SURPRISES

New York, March 19 (Special)
Hollywood, prideful of its status as film capital of the world, will get a few surprises when the new issue of the Film Year Book drifts out there.

For instance, I have just learned from this chronicle that Japan turned out 900 features last year and thus beats the production records of this land.

And what do you think broke all the long run records? None other than that tuneful little German piece, “Two Hearts in Waltz Time,” which went along for 50 weeks without stopping. Nothing quite like that has been known in film history. While the largest amount of coin to be collected in any one box office went to the Roxy when “Delicious” was playing there. The “draw” was more than $130,000.

A few more interesting statistics from this annual show that: The attendance of children has dropped to but five per cent of the audience totals; that seventy-five millions attended the movies each week; that 60 per cent of American schools now use some form of educational films, and that nearly 30,000 miles of film are handled daily in the United States and Canada.




JOAN CRAWFORD PICTURE

Joan Crawford has begun work on “’Letty Lynton,” her new picture. Robert Montgomery, who has just completed a role in “The Truth Game,” will be co-starred with her, and Nils Asther will play in the same film. Clarence Brown is directing.




JACKIE COOPER BUSY

Production began on “Limpy,” Jackie Cooper’s new picture under direction of Harry Pollard. In the supporting cast are Charles “Chic’ Sales, Dorothy Peterson, Helen Parrish, Andy Shuford, and Gus Leonard. “Limpy” was adapted to the screen from the novel by William Johnson.




SIGN IRENE DUNNE

The tests that Irene Dunne made for Fannie Hurst’s “Back Street” were so successful that John Stahl asked Carl Laemmle, Jr. by long-distance telephone, to sign her up immediately. Irene Dunne will be the Ray Schmidt in “Back Street” which starts this week at Universal City.




CAST ANNOUNCED

Phillips Holmes and Anita Page will have the leading roles in “Night Court,” the story by Mark Hellinger and Charles Beahan. Other members of the cast so far selected include Walter Huston and Lewis Stone. W. S. Van Dyke is directing. Holmes has appeared in such films as “The Broken Lullaby,” “Two Kinds of Women” and “An American Tragedy.”




RETURNS TO PICTURES

Polly Walker, former Broadway musical comedy favorite, has returned to RKO-Radio Pictures studios where she made her film debut in “Hit the Deck.” Her contract was purchased from Warner Brothers.




ADDED TO CAST

Nils Asther has been added to the cast of “The Truth Game.” Robert Montgomery is the star of this adaptation of Ivor Novello’s stage play and in the supporting cast are Nora Gregor, C. Aubrey Smith, Heather Thatcher and Edward Everett Horton.




THEY GET THAT WAY

Debuting as a relator of funny stories this week is Fredric March, with one about a fellow trying to sleep while through the walls of his apartment came the sounds of a party next door. At 2 a.m. he registered a hint by pounding on the wall. “Heavens,” came a feminine voice, “what at terrible hour to be hanging pictures.”




CHARACTER ACTOR BUSY

Russell Hopton, the young character actor who appears with Ben Lyon and Constance Bennett in “The Challenger” (temporary title) is one of the busiest actors in Hollywood. He has appeared recently in six important productions.




HOT NEWS

Universal has decided to use the original title of Emile Gauvreau’s book, “Hot News,” for the picture referred to in the Universal studios as “Ambition.” “Hot News” as a book ran into many editions in this country and has been reproduced in 14 foreign languages. Three million copies were printed in Russia alone. “Hot News” features Charles Bickford, Rose Hobart and Pat O’Brien.




NEW FERBER FILM

Edna Ferber, whose value to moving pictures was so materially increased by “Show Boat” and “Cimarron,” will have another 10-strike when Universal produces her story, “Glamour.” Contracts for this story, now in Cosmopolitan Magazine, were signed last week and already Dwight Taylor, son of Laurette Taylor, is adapting it to the screen as one of Universal’s pictures for next year.

HEADACHES

Deciding on a film title brings more headaches than exultations. Each studio has a title-searching department. The reason, according to B. P. Schulberg, Paramount executive, is that a title needs to meet many requirements; it must fit the story, intrigue, allure, arouse curiosity, indicate story type, and still be concise.

3 comments:

Lolita of the Classics said...

I adore your blog! This is so entertaining. Small pieces of history that you can put into historical context for yourself. Facinating!

Cliff Aliperti said...

I just want to echo Lolita and saying how fantastic this is! I found your blog through another classic film site and have been putting your links out on Twitter since doing so, you deserve all the traffic you can get!

Looking forward to tomorrow...from yesterday!

Thanks,Cliff

GAH1965 said...

Thanks very much for the compliments. I really enjoy researching and creating it and find the information fascinating as well.

I've been particularly interested to see how much the silent stars were still present in the news at this time, when today we tend to think of the "silent era" as one thing and the "golden age of Hollywood" as another. Yet here's Betty Bronson and Joan Bennett running into each other on their honeymoons. Today it seems like two separate eras collided, but of course their careers peaked only about a decade apart so of course they would have overlapped and traveled in the same circles.