March 3, 1932

ROGERS WEEPS DESCRIBING VISIT WITH BABY LINDBERGH



Man Who Keeps America Happy Sheds Tears As He Recalls Bouncing Kidnapped Child On His Knee Recently

Santa Monica, Cal. Mar. 3 (Universal Service)
There were tears to-day in the eyes of the man who keeps America happy.
Just two weeks ago Sunday, Will Rogers bounced Colonel Lindbergh’s baby boy on his knee.
With Mrs. Rogers, the cowboy philosopher had passed the day with the Lindberghs in their Hopewell, N. J. home. “He is the cutest little feller you ever saw. His hair is just like Lindy’s except more so because he’s got hundreds of golden ringlets all over his little head.”
Rogers walked back and forth on the lawn in front of his white ranch house perched high into the Santa Monica hills. His eyes were on the ground, his arms behind him.
“His face is just like his mother’s and he’s got her real blue eyes too. He was talking away all the time and saying the usual things that a baby that age does, “Mamma” and “Daddy” and that that sort of thing.”
“We were all down in a kind of big sunroom and Mrs. Morrow was there and the nurse brought the baby in all dressed up with blue knee pants and a blue blouse with a white tie. A kind of blue serge suit that sorta matched his eyes.”



BLOCK BUILDING

“Mrs. Lindbergh sat on the floor and built blocks for him for a long time, and he would knock them down and laugh and she would build them up again just like any other happy mother and her baby.
Lindy would toss a sofa pillow at the little feller and it was a game the child seemed to like a whole lot.“
Rogers removed his horn-rimmed glasses and nervously bumped them against the palm of his hand.
“I watched the baby trying to get up and down the steps that led into the sunroom and I looked at Mrs. Rogers and she was looking at me and we were both thinking away back when our big youngsters were toddling up and down steps and it made us both happy to be watching that baby because we’re so crazy about the little fellers.
I asked Lindy if he had taken the baby airplane riding and he said he hadn’t. You know Lindy don’t say a whole lot but he sure is wrapped up in that real boy of his.”



WIPES AWAY MIST

Rogers wiped from his glasses a mist – a mist that had not been caused by an atmospheric condition – and put them on again. A moment later he removed them again and nervously beat them against the palm of his hand.
“Generally speaking, I’m not in favor of lynchings and mob law and that sort of thing, but I’d gladly be a one-man lynching party in this case.
When Mrs. Rogers and me got ready to leave after one of the most pleasant days we ever had we went out to the car and there was little Lindy, Jr. climbing all over the back seat. We told him goodbye and started away and as we were driving along Mrs. Rogers and I both spoke what was on our minds and that was we need a little feller around the house with our two boys so grown now. “
With a gesture Rogers seemed to encircle his big ranch.



WANTS LITTLE COMPANION

“We got all this space and a lotta gentle ponies for little ones to ride and all we need are some little ones up here to make us mighty happy. Mrs. Rogers called me up from Claremore, Oklahoma early this morning about the Lindbergh baby and she was so choked up she couldn’t talk. It was like it was happening to our own.”
Rogers paused in his walking back and forth and there was a big gulp in his throat.
“Looking back on it all with little Lindy right in our car, God, why didn’t we drive away with him?”
The man who has made millions laugh turned his eyes to the sun to dry away the tears.


HOLDEN, STAGE AND SCREEN ACTOR, DIES

Hollywood, Cal. Mar. 3 (UP)
A long stage and screen career came to an end to-day when William Holden, 59, died at his home here after a year’s illness.
The immediate cause of his death was a paralytic stroke, the indirect result of an automobile accident a year ago.
Holden, after thirty years on the stage in New York and “the East,” came to Hollywood in 1928, appearing in such pictures as Three Week Ends, The First Kiss, Weary River, Holiday, The Trespasser, What a Widow, and The Man Who Came Back. His last film appearance was in Six Cylinder Love.




FILM ACTRESS SEEKS DIVORCE

Hollywood, Cal. Mar. 3 (AP)
If Aileen Pringle, former motion picture actress, has her way, she soon will have a Mexican “mail order” divorce from Charles Pringle, husband she has not seen since 1924.
Pringle, son of Sir John Pringle, chief privy counselor of Jamaica, is now on his plantation in Jamaica. The former actress said she would write him immediately to obtain his permission to the Mexican divorce.
The couple was married shortly before the start of the World war. Pringle entered military service and she began a career in motion pictures. His dislike for her profession resulted in the separation, the former actress said.

From Luella O. Parsons:



Los Angeles, Mar. 3
Only a few months ago Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was classified as a chip off the old block. To-day he is not shining in the reflected glory of anyone. He has his own following and he is building up a clientele that any trouper would be proud to claim.
Union Depot did it by breaking box office records all over the country. The public, it seems, likes young Doug.
Yesterday Darryl Zanuck told me he has bought Revolt, a story by Mary McCall, as the next Fairbanks vehicle. Miss McCall also authored It’s Tough To Be Famous, Doug’s very latest picture. “And,” says Zanuck, “wait until you see the boy in that one.”
All of which means that Warner Brothers are going to do a little concentrating on Doug, Jr. He has proved to be worthy of their interest. William Dieterle, German director, will do the directional honors on Revolt.



The teacher, Laura Hope Crewes, is again becoming the actress. She has signed for one of the most important roles in John Van Druten’s play, After All. Miss Crewes, one of our most distinguished stage actresses, has devoted her entire time to voice culture since she came to Hollywood. To her has been given much credit for Gloria Swanson’s success in the talkies. She trained Gloria for The Trespesser, the first Swanson talkie. Charles Brabin will direct the Van Druten play, which has had such a run in New York. This, as we announced a week or so ago, will feature Margaret Perry in the same role she played on stage.



Constance Bennett is planning to do over her drawing room in white, rose, brown and green.

Bessie Love Hawks and Patricia are moving home either to-morrow or Friday from the hospital.

Greta Garbo, in white dress, white shoes, and white hat gave even the gateman at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer a surprise.

Vivienne Osborne lost ten pounds in a week.

Helen Twelvetrees, in another fetching spring outfit, was lunching with her husband at the Brown Derby.

March 2, 1932

U.S. TALKIE EVILS DRAW STAR’S FIRE

Clive Brook Decries the Practices of Hollywood

Clive Brook is returning to his native England following the completion of Shanghai Express. Paramount-bound is more candid than diplomatic in his remarks to the London Daily Mail.
Mr. Brook, who came to the stage by accident but with a hereditary right (his mother was a well-known English actress), told the interviewer that he would like to appear in a British talkie because of his admiration for production methods employed in England.
“British producers,” observes Mr. Brook, “certainly get hold of the best stories and they do not alter them as they do in the United States. Also, there are not so many people to say ‘cut that out’ and ‘put that in’ or to insist on something being cut out to insert a lot of girls’ legs. “
The first impulse is to pen a heated 100 per cent American retort to Mr. Brook, and to remind him that there’s no reason why he should not jolly well stay in England where production methods are so admirable that even English cinemagoers won’t patronize the resulting pictures.
On second thought, however, Mr. Brook actually has said very little in criticism of Hollywood that has not been said by citizens of the Republic. American producers do manhandle stories, and frequently it's a toss up as to whom does the most damage – supervisors who say ‘put that in’ or censors who cry ‘cut that out.’
As for the Hollywood penchant for legs, I’m afraid that here again Mr. Brook has us. Isn’t it quite true that not a little of the success won on this side by Frau Marlene Dietrich is attributable to the matchless pair which, alas, are carefully hidden in “Shanghai Express.”
Be that as it may, one wonders what Frau Dietrich will have to say to Mr. Brook upon his return from England. It should be interesting.


From Luella O. Parsons



Los Angeles, Mar. 2
Contrary to the general belief in Hollywood, the Fox Company will not maintain a waiting stock company of expensive players. Also, there will be no unknowns lifted to lofty heights. Players will be chosen as they are needed with more careful casting than heretofore and no strangers in any important roles.
In the opinion of Al Rockett, the best picture in the world is a loss with an unknown star. “We are more convinced than ever,” he says, “that the star is the thing and that the public goes shopping for pictures with their favorites.”
The players on the Fox lot who will be exploited carefully in selected stories with good supporting casts are Elissa Landi, Charles Farrell, Janet Gaynor, Joan Bennett, Spencer Tracy, Sally Eilers, James Dunn, Warner Baxter, already under contract, and Marian Nixon and Peggy Shannon, new Fox players. Victor McLaglen has finished his contract which will not be renewed. El Brendel, it is expected, will also say adieu.

I call February a very good month for Harry Hervey, writer. If March is as good, we will have money in the bank. He sold “Burnt Offering” to the Fox Film Company for Elissa Landi, and on the very same day he convinced Walter Wanger “Destroyer” was a good cinema story for Columbia. “Destroyer” is another Japanese-Chinese war number. Oh dear, oh dear. I hope they won’t all be making Japanese-Chinese war pictures. We always have so much of everything in the movies; gangster pictures, horror thrillers, sex dramas.

LAST MINUTE RIALTO NEWS

Barbara Stanwyck looms for the lead in Columbia’s production of “Brief Moment,” Frank Capra directing.



George Bancroft will star in “The Challenger,” prize ring drama.



Frances Dee, Allison Skipworth and Richard Bennett will be in “The Countess Auburn” for Paramount.



Corinne Griffith is the season’s social lioness in old London.



Lowell Sherman will direct Ricardo Cortez in “Is My Face Red?” for Radio.



Helen Twelvetrees’ next is dubbed “Young Bride”

“Ambition” is back to the original title “Hot News”

Ralph Bellamy, Neil Hamilton and Gilbert Roland will bein in Elissa Landi’s “Woman in Room 13.”




Three years ago Sidney Fox, now a successful screen actress, was giving stage advice to the lovelorn, when she was in charge of this department for a newspaper syndicate, her readers never realizing that she “was only sweet 16.” Miss Fox continues her experiments in love in the principal feminine role of “Strictly Dishonorable,” at the Regent.



Dickie Moore and George Ernest, two Warner Brothers-First National featured children players, take parts in “Fireman, Save My Child,” in which Joe E. Brown is Strand-bound.
They, with Junior Coughlan, are the leaders of a group of boys who chase the fire engine to every fire and follow Joe Brown about as the local hero.



It was as a dancer that Mae Clarke began her theatrical career appearing in the chorus of “In Gay Paree” and on the Strand Roof in New York, and also in various night clubs of the same city, including the Everglades and the Vanity Club. Miss Clarke makes her latest screen appearance in “The Impatient Maiden,” playing opposite Lew Ayres in the comedy.



BAD SISTER ON SCREEN AT NATIONAL

Which is the “bad sister”?
The answer to this question will be found on the screen at the National Theater, where the Booth Tarkington story, “Bad Sister,” with a cast including Conrad Nagel, Sidney Fox, Slim Summerville and Zasu Pitts is the feature film.
The picture tells the story of an inconstant girl who trifles with the affections of many men, and who finally comes face to face with a bitter disillusionment.
The usual program of shorts will also be shown.



“Law and Order,” Universal’s picturization of “Saint Johnson” at the Warners’ Strand, is a rip-snorting melodrama. Not since the halcyon days of Broncho Billy Anderson has there been as much shooting in a horse op’ry. Walter Huston spills lead with two hands, and there’s able assistance too, from Ralph Ince, Harry Carey, Raymond Hatton and Russell Simpson among others.

March 1, 1932

From Luella O. Parsons

Los Angeles, March 1

Brief Moment has been sought by several film companies. The bidding has ceased, we are told, and Columbia now finds itself in possession of the Sam Behrman play which has been a hit in New York. I surely thought another company would buy it from all that I heard Saturday, but what a difference a few hours make in this business.
In purchasing Brief Moment, Columbia had Barbara Stanwyck in mind. What an actress this little Stanwyck gal is! They say in So Big she will be a sensation. I only saw the stills, but they look interesting.
Frank Capra will probably direct and discussions on Brief Moment will be in order now that Walter Wanger is here and Harry Cohn has returned from week-ending at Palm Springs.



I am laughing. Eddie Quillan and Jimmy Durante in one picture. You will be laughing too, if the two of them are as funny as they are expected to be in It’s Got to Be Good, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Hollywood picture. Eddie Quillan is under contract to Harold Lloyd, but Harold is going to be so busy on his own picture that he won’t have time to give his attention to a Quillan comedy for some time. A loan was therefore arranged between Harold and M-G-M. Someone was talking about Harold Lloyd the other day, someone who knows him well. He said how discouraged Harold gets just before he starts a picture. Harold has no conceit and he is always afraid that the story may be all wrong. Comedy is the most difficult thing in the world because there is nothing so bad as an un-funny picture.



RUDY SERVED IN $1,000,000 DAMAGE SUIT

Crooner Alleged to Have Pirated Song Written by Roberta Hudson McKay

Santa Monica, March 1 (AP)
Two years’ waiting and recent strategy which involved making process servers of bathing girls on the beach here finally placed a complaint in a $1,000,000 damage suit in the hands of Rudy Vallee, radio entertainer, late yesterday.
The suit was filed in Los Angeles by Roberta Hudson McKay, who claimed Vallee pirated her song “Vagabond Lover,” and published it as “I’m Just a Vagabond Lover.”
When the crooner arrived from New York recently to be with his wife, the former Fay Webb, efforts began to serve him with the complaint. Four girls were furnished with copies of the complaint and instructed to frequent the beach as bathers on the chance he might appear there.
Late today he was met by a male process server as he drove an automobile into the driveway of his father-in-law, Chief of Police C.E. Webb of Santa Monica.
Chief Webb explained that Vallee was not hiding from the law.



SUIT SETTLED BY STAR’S SMILE
Beverly Hills, March 1 (UP)

Leon Cunningham, motorist, accepted a smile and a handshake in settlement of an $850 damage action against Carmelita Geraghty, motion picture actress, the records of Justice of the Peace H. E. Billings indicated today.
He brought suit against as the result of an accident. The principals appeared in court, Miss Geraghty smiled. Cunningham smiled. They shook hands.
“We want to dismiss , your honor,” said Cunningham.

PROJECTION JOTTINGS:

Now that Ernest B. Schoedsack is back from India, Paramount is thinking about its production of “The Lives of a Bengal Lancer,” for which Mr. Schoedsack made the native outdoor scenes on his recent expedition. John Cromwell has been assigned to direct the film version of Francis Yeats-Brown’s adventure biography, in collaboration with Mr. Schoedsack. The script for the story, which will feature Clive Brook and Phillips Holmes, is being prepared at the moment, with Samuel Hoffenstein writing the dialogue.



Tala Birell, Universal’s new Viennese star, is to be featured in “Nana,” a production based on Emile Zola’s celebrated novel. It seems likely to begin work when Miss Birell completes here role in “Mountains in Flame,” which will be her first American film appearance. The plan to present Miss Birell in “Nana” is one way of taking time by the forelock, inasmuch as Pola Negri had an idea on her recent New York trip that she would like to play this role.

The death of Edgar Wallace will not delay production of three screen plays written for RKO Radio pictures during the few weeks the British author worked in Hollywood. Initial technical scenes were photographed last week for “The Beast” on a secluded set. It is the first of the Wallace shows scheduled to be made. Production will go ahead under supervision of Merian C. Cooper, who worked with the author in the technical writing of these special cinema stories. The other Wallace picture stories have been tentatively titled “the Soul Hunter,” and “The Man Without a Face.”



“State’s Attorney,” featuring John Barrymore, is in production at the RKO Radio studios with Irving Pichel directing. The opening scenes were filmed in a metropolitan political club setting with 150 players participating and a six-piece Hawaiian orchestra providing music. With the inauguration of production, numerous additions were made to the cast. Lee Phelps, Robert Wayne, Harry Stafford, R.H. Mitchell, Bernie Lamont and Nicholas Koblinsky were given parts. Leilani Sherwood, a native Hawaiian dancer from the island of Maui, was assigned to do a hula specialty. Featured support for Mr. Barrymore is provided by Helen Twelvetrees, Harry Bannister, Jill Esmond and Mary Duncan. The story is by Louis Stevens, and the screen play by Gene Fowler and Roland Brown.

The Spring production schedule at Paramount’s Hollywood studios swung into its full stride last week with cameras turning on seven features, almost maximum capacity for the plant. The films are:



This Is the Night,” with Lily Damita, Charles Ruggles and Roland Young; “The World and the Flesh,” with George Bancroft and Miriam Hopkins; “Sky Bride,” with Richard Arlen and Jack Oakie; “Sinners in the Sun,” with Chester Morris and Carole Lombard; “Thunder Below,” with Tallulah Bankhead, Charles Bickford and Paul Lukas; “Clara Deane,” with Wynne Gibson, Pat O’Brien and Frances Dee, and “The Broken Wing,” with Lupe Velez, Leo Carrillo and Melvyn Douglas.



Zasu Pitts has joined the rapidly shaping cast of “The Trial of Vivienne Ware,” now in production with Joan Bennett in the leading role at Fox Movietone City. Miss Pitts, believe it or not, will play the part of a tabloid sob sister.



Pat O’Brien will play the leading role opposite Wynne Gibson in “Clara Deane,” Paramount’s picture version of a play by Arthur M. Brilant. The role embraces three periods, ranging down the years from 1912 to the present.



Ever since Tom Mix agreed to come back to the screen, he has been a center of public interest. First came his winning of several law suits against him; next, his wife divorced him, then he was taken down with appendicitis, peritonitis set in, and for days his life was despaired of. His rapid recovery was an agreeable surprise to Hollywood, and the speed with which Ben Stoloff galloped him through his first picture, “Destry Rides Again,” was almost as unexpected as his sudden marriage to Mary Hubbell Ward, a trapeze performer who was in the Sells-Floto Circus, of which Tom Mix was the star.

COMING PICTURES

February 29, 1932 - Excerpted from the New York Times



An unusually large number of plays and novels are being adapted to the screen for forthcoming Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer productions. Each of the six pictures now under way at Culver City is derived from a play or novel. In one case, that of “Grand Hotel,” a novel and a play by the same author were used in making the screen adaptation.



“The Wet Parade” was adapted for screen purposes from the Upton Sinclair novel of the same name, dealing with prohibition. Under the direction of Victor Fleming, the cast includes Walter Huston, Dorothy Jordan, Lewis Stone, Wallace Ford, Neil Hamilton, Robert Young, Jimmy Durante, Myrna Loy, John Miljan and Joan Marsh.



Vicki Baum’s novel, “Grand Hotel,” was dramatized and ran for more than a year at the National Theater. For the screen version the film company assembled a cast headed by Greta Garbo and John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore. Edmund Goulding was given the directorial assignment for this film, which is now in the final stage of production.



Ramon Novarro’s new picture, “Huddle,” is a screen transcription from Francis Wallace’s novel of the same name, published serially in College Humor in 1931. This football story is being directed by Sam Wood, and included in the cast are Madge Evans and Una Merkel.



In “Limpy,” Jackie Cooper’s new picture, the juvenile star of “Skippy” and “Sooky” plays a crippled newsboy. William Johnston’s novel, “Limpy,” has been brought to the screen under the direction of Harry Pollard. Charles (Chic) Sale has a leading role in this photoplay, with Dorothy Peterson, Helen Parrish, Andy Shuford and Gus Leonard in the supporting cast.



Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer prize-winning play, “Strange Interlude,” was adapted to the screen to serve as a special production with Norma Shearer and Clark Gable in leading roles. Among others selected for the cast, under the direction of Robert Z. Leonard, are Ralph Morgan, Alexander Kirkland and Henry B. Walthall.

Ivor Novello’s stage play, “the Truth Game,” will serve as Robert Montgomery’s new starring film, with Nora Gregor, formerly of Max Reinhart’s Vienna company, in the leading feminine role. Nils Asther, Edward Everett Horton, Heather Thatcher, Frederick Kerr and C. Aubrey Smith are cast in supporting roles.

Pictures soon to go into production at the Culver City studios include four novels and one unproduced play. “China Seas,” a novel by Crosbie Garstin, will be directed by Todd Browning, who has just completed “Freaks,” a story of circus life.



“Footlights,” which will serve as Buster Keaton’s next picture, is by Clarence Budington Kelland and is at present appearing in The Saturday Evening Post. The story is to be directed by Edward Sedgwick, with a comedy cast still to be selected.



Joan Crawford’s next picture will be “Letty Lynton,” adapted to the screen from the novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes. Under direction of Clarence Brown, the leading male role in the forthcoming picture will be played by Nils Asther. No other announcements as to cast have been made.
“Night Court,” written originally for the stage by Mark Hellinger and Charles Beahan, will reach the screen with Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Anita Page and Lewis Stone in prominent roles. It will be directed by W.S. Van Dyke, with continuity and dialogue by Bayard Veiller and Lenore Coffee.



The temporary cast announced for “Skyscraper” included Madge Evans, Robert Young and Una Merkel. This adaptation of Faith Baldwin’s novel of the same name will find its way to the screen under direction of Edgar Selwyn, whose last picture was “The Sin of Madelon Claudet.”



UNIVERSAL FILMS

Universal Pictures continue to keep their studio busy. In addition to four productions finished since the first of February and now in the cutting room, there are five still in work, besides a serial and several short features, and four ready to go into production the minute Carl Laemmle Jr., returns to Hollywood from New York.

With the “big push” of the last few weeks clicking beyond its objectives, the younger Laemmle took the opportunity to accompany his father to new York for two weeks of theatergoing. The Laemmle party arrived in New York on Friday.
Before the first of March the five productions now in work will undoubtedly be finished. They are “Mountains in Flame,” “Night World,” “Cohens and Kellys in Hollywood,” “The Stowaway” and “The Information Kid.”

“Mountains in Flame” is a story of the World War on the Italian front. It concerns the fortunes of an Austrian mountaineer and his Italian mountain-climbing companion.
Another production which will finish this week will be “Night World.” This picture was the result of Hobart Henley’s trip to New York. The things that intrigued him most here were the night clubs., and to carry out his idea P.J. Wolfson and Alan Rivken developed a story which is said to have an unusual ending.



“Cohens and Kellys in Hollywood,” is about finished. It had to be completed in a hurry because it is the annual St. Patrick’s Day release of the Universal company. This number is the sixth in the series which began with “The Cohens and Kellys.”
James Whale also suggested to Carl Laemmle, Jr. that he bring R. C. Sherriff from England to adapt Erich Maria Remarque’s novel “The Road Back,” which James Whale will direct. Mr. Whale’s next picture, however, will be “The Old Dark House,” in which Boris Karloff will undoubtedly be featured.



In the meantime Mr. Whale is delighted that his third production, “The Impatient Maiden,” should have differed so radically from “Journey’s End,” “Waterloo Bridge,” and “Frankenstein.” He is one director who refuses to be catalogued by Hollywood. “The Impatient Maiden” is the story by Donald Henderson Clarke, which, after some months of effort, was translated into screen form satisfactory to the Hays office.

Still another production completed in February was “Steady Company,” with Norman Foster, June Clyde and Henry Armetta. It was directed by Edward Ludwig.

Still awaiting a satisfactory title is the adaptation of Emil Gavreaux’s novel, “Hot News.” It has been previously referred to in the studio as “Ambition,” and was completed under that title with a cast including Charles Bickford, Rose Hobart, Pat O’Brien, Claudia Dell, Glenda Farrell, Tully Marshall, J. Farrell MacDonald and Harry Beresford.

February 29, 1932

From Luella O. Parsons:

Los Angeles, Feb. 29
Roscoe Arbuckle will test the public feeling by appearing in a sketch in Pantages Theater in Hollywood next week. If the reaction is what all his friends hope and believe, he will then make a motion picture and take it out in twenty key cities in a personal appearance tour. Certainly, there is no one cruel enough to put a stone in the way of Arbuckle’s comeback. He has been punished tenfold. A jury exonerated him, they why should anyone else try to act as his judge?
Certain organizations throughout the country have had their say about keeping him off the screen for many years. If now he can amuse and entertain the American public in the same type of clean comedies he made years ago, why shouldn’t he have the chance? Even the most hardened criminal is forgiven, and “Fatty” Arbuckle is no criminal.




I reckon Irene Dunne’s makeup in Cimarron did it. At any rate, after a month’s meditation, Universal decided that Genevieve Tobin is not the type to play the lead in Back Streets.
You see, so much depends on the makeup in the old sequence. Irene Dunne did the old age parts so beautifully in Cimarron she has been borrowed from Radio Pictures.
I imagine that Carl Laemmle, Jr. made the transaction over the long distance telephone, for he and his father, Carl Laemmle, Sr. are now in New York.

Walter Wanger is bringing a well-known authority on Washington politics with him when he reaches Hollywood. He will lend his valuable aid (the Washington authority, I mean,) to Merry Go Round. And just between us, I am wondering what Columbia can do with the spicy Merry Go Round, which is more or less a series of narratives.



OWNING LIQUOR NO JOKE FOR COMEDIAN

Los Angeles, Feb. 29 (UP)
Eddie Gribbon, film comedian and his wife, Loretta, were convicted in municipal court today of possession of liquor. Police raided the Gribbon home February 3 and said they confiscated several bottles of liquor. Gribbon and his wife will be sentenced tomorrow. They were acquitted of charges of intoxication.

CHINESE BID FOR HOLLYWOOD FLIERS

Hollywood, Feb. 29 (UP)
Motion Picture daredevils of the air who have done dangerous stunts and dodged make-believe bullets before the camera, have been given an opportunity for real flying with the Chinese forces.
Bob Demster, stunt flier, revealed today the Chinese had offered him and other aviators six months’ pay, deposited in advance, and a round trip ticket to Shanghai for services in the current conflict. Several of the fliers, it was reported, are considering the offer seriously.




BAXTER-LEILA HYAMS IN FOX-GRAND FILM

Warner Baxter and Leila Hyams will be seen in “Surrender,” for a three days’ engagement at the Fox Grand theater.
Jack Souders and the Merrymakers band will be on the three-day program. They will offer novelty, classical and popular numbers for the entertainment of all music lovers, and a singer will be featured in two of the numbers.
“Surrender” tells the story of a man and a woman madly in love with one another, but unable to be engaged because of a bitter racial hatred. Ralph Bellamy, Alexander Kirkland and C. Aubrey Smith head the supporting cast.
Next Thursday, “This Reckless Age” will be the feature attraction, with a big state show, for a four-days’ engagement.



NORMANDS JEWELS BRING SMALL PRICE

Mabel Normand’s beautiful collection of jewelry, once valued at $100,000, has been sold at auction for one-quarter of that amount. Rings, bracelets and unset diamonds valued at up to $10,000 each, were sold for $2500 and less. Very few picture people attended the sale, the majority of pieces being bought by dealers. The proceeds of the sale went to Miss Normand’s mother.



TWO GOOD ROLES WAIT FOR DUNN

Two new leading roles await James Dunn when he arrives at the Fox studios in Hollywood from his vaudeville tour of the Eastern cities.
The first of these is in “Little Teacher,” with Marian Nixon, who acted opposite Charles Farrell in “After Tomorrow,” soon to be released.
Following “Little Teacher,” Dunn will act in “Society Girl” from the play by John Larkin, Jr. It will be produced by Sidney Lanfield, who directed Dunn and Sally Eilers in their current romance, “Dance Team.”



ONLY EXTRA GIRL, BUT PAY IS GOOD

Hollywood, Feb. 29
She’s only an extra girl – but she earns in the neighborhood of $750 a week just the same.
That’s the record of Lillian Bond, auburn-haired actress who deserted Broadway when it was at her feet in order to try her luck in Hollywood.
But she isn’t an extra in theory – only in fact. Theoretically, Lillian is a Warner Brothers featured platyer. That’s what her contract says and that is why she gets such a large salary. But she is doing an extra girl’s work.
Now they want to break the contract, so they have assigned the very pretty young actress to extra parts, hoping she will do something that will give them an excuse to terminate the contract – this being house-cleaning time on the Warner-First National lot.



GARY COOPER BAGS LION IN AFRICA

Gary Cooper has killed two lions in the jungle near Naivasha, Africa, and is returning to civilization, according to a cable received in Hollywood by his father, Judge Charles Cooper. The message said the film star started by plane for Rome on Wednesday, February 10. He sails from Italy for London for a two week stay and will leave England for New York in March. From New York Cooper will go directly to Hollywood to resume his film work for Paramount.



GOVERNOR ROLPH CROWNS ANITA AT TAHOE

Tahoe City, Cal. Feb. 29 (Special)
Anita Page, golden haired screen star from Hollywood, was crowned “Queen of Winter” on a snowy white thrown among Tahoe’s woods yesterday morning with Gov. James Rolph, Jr. presiding at the coronation. The throne, erected near the toboggan slide with giant pines towering behind it, was surrounded by hundreds of cheering people as the governor, in regal robes of white befitting the character of King Winter, led Miss Page to the throne and placed the crown on her head after making a short talk.
The actress wore a flowing gown of white satin with high frilled cloak to harmonize, and walked to the throne from the royal sleigh supported by the governor.
Her reign as queen, however, lasted but two hours as she departed for San Francisco shortly after noon in company with Governor Rolph and his party.


The “unusual weather” of the current season has presented a new problem which has been met by the studios. In what are now referred to as “the good old days,” a company would plan on exterior location work a week in advance, knowing just what the weather would be. This year it has been impossible in the evening to know what would take place the next day, climatically.
As a result, Paramount has been working on an alternate schedule plan that has been taken up by other studios. Two schedules are prepared for each day’s work. Weather permitting, the companies go on location. If it is raining when the supervisor awakens in the morning, he phones the studio, and sets are made ready for work that day. Thus, all companies have been kept consistently at work.
Weather or no weather, Paramount has an average payroll in excess of 1,700 daily since the first of the year. This equals the daily average for both 1930 and 1931.

RKO has been notified that the location shots of “Bird of Paradise” taken in Hawaii have been completed and that the company will return within a few days. With “Strange interlude” at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, this is the most important production in work at the moment.



Again highlighting a career that is without parallel in a land of freakish fates, Henry B. Walthall has been signed for an important part in “Strange Interlude,” the Shearer-Gable film. Since the days of the Little Colonel in “Birth of a Nation,” Walthall has been up and down the ladder of fame. Sometimes he fades from sight completely, then bobs up in some production, then is lifted to prominence by a major company, only to disappear again later.
The things that have happened to him would have meant the professional death of a hundred other players, but his seems a charmed life. His current part attests this, as M-G-M spares no expense or effort in making a Shearer picture.



The cycle of newspaper stories continues. Warners are shooting “the Famous Ferguson Case,” said to combine the Ruth Snyder-Hall-Mills cases. So much press antagonism was created in a number of sources over “Five Star Final” that the studio sought newspaper protection in the current film. According to reports, Warners submitted a copy of the “Ferguson” script to a chain publisher also interested in the cinema to het his reaction and suggest changes so that the picture might avoid a duplication of “Five Star Final.”
Many stars are on the road augmenting their incomes. The average studio contract calls for forty weeks of work. Players receiving nominal salaries have found ready bookings in the important film houses, and in vaudeville, at double and treble their studio salaries.