HOLLYWOOD AND POLITICS

Prohibition No Dead Issue

Politics, prohibition and a smattering of adventures engaged the production eye this week. Three studios announced they already have political stories on the fire and two others indicated they are looking for political yarns. The theory is that as this is a political year, patrons will flock to the theaters to see political pictures.




Clarence Brown began shooting Joan Crawford’s latest picture, “Letty Lynton”; the del Rio company is busily engaged in making interiors of “The Bird of Paradise” after taking the scenario stuff at the islands; George Bancroft completed his “The World and the Flesh,” a story of the Russian revolution, and Fox is waiting for cleared stages to begin shooting four more yarns.




But prohibition! In one way or another it has entered pictures, nearly always through gangster films. Now it has, with one jump, leaped into the center of the show world, and indications are that the silver screen of the next few months will be more talked of than prohibition polls.

Some time ago, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced that it was making a film of Upton Sinclair’s “The Wet Parade.” Hollywood accepted it calmly, thinking perhaps, that it was a rather trite way of cashing in on a controversial subject.

This week, newspaper men were called into the studio to see a preview of the film. The consensus of opinion was that the prohibition argument has just begun.



Peculiarly, “The Wet Parade” furnished ammunition for both sides. It is openly a serious study of the problem, but it is likely to become excellent box office. John Mahin, the writer, and Victor Fleming, the director, took every argument that both sides have used – the old South with its hospitality, the cities with the saloons, and the post-prohibition days of the racketeers.

Mr. Sinclair himself is dryer than a Federal report, and while every attempt is made to stay away from bias, the picture paints a pretty bad picture of liquor as it is consumed, but gives the wets the solace of the old argument that drink shouldn’t be taken away from every one because a few can’t hold theirs.

It is an interesting experiment, so Hollywood believes, in how deeply the screen can enter into a controversial subject and still make money.


In “Letty Lynton,” Clarence Brown daringly takes a girl of uncertain morals, permits her to provide a means, innocently of course – for her ex-lover’s demise, and marries her off happily in the end with every one understanding and forgiving. A short time ago stars would not play such parts where they might be viewed with an unsympathetic public eye.



Of interest in the making of “Letty” is the use for the first time of a new tripod invented by Mr. Brown and his camera man, Oliver Marsh., The camera stand is a contrivance on wheels which will permit every possible angle necessary in the shooting of a picture without the attendant changes in stationary tripods. Its chief virtue is that it saves an hour a day, which means this:

Overhead is roughly $1000 an hour; M-G-M makes forty pictures a year; each picture takes twenty-five days or longer to shoot; result is approximately $1,000,000 a year saved. It may be much less, but even for half the saving the Brown-Marsh invention will pay for itself, inasmuch as it costs about $2,500 to build.

Mr. Brown has quite a reputation in Hollywood as an inventor. He was an automotive engineer before entering pictures, and is credited with many mechanical achievements. He is also an electrical engineer, which has embroiled him in arguments with sound technicians who said things couldn’t be done, which he then proceeded to bring to pass.




The prediction that films would form an excellent historical record is beginning to reach a practical stage of truth. In “The Wet Parade” considerable footage of old news reels is used to put over events and denote the passage of time. This includes war stuff, the signing of the prohibition act by President Wilson and flashes from the Wilson-Hughes campaign.

At Paramount old news reels were used this week to guide the filming of “The World and the Flesh.” Paramount got from its library several reels of Russian revolution shots and thus dressed its people with unquestioned accuracy. While none of the old film is embodied in the current story, as is done in the M-G-M effort, the picture will show results of the reference.




It is difficult to find girls who look unsophisticated. They may be, but the camera can’t tell. Out at the Roach lot they have been looking for two such youngsters for a series known as “The Boy Friends” comedies. Out of 350 applicants, 25 were selected for tests and none came up to the Hollywood requirements of un-sophistication. So the studio went back to two girls who had graduated from “Our Gang,” Mary Kornman and Betty Bolen.




And speaking of youngsters, the grooming of Creighton Chaney, son of Lon Chaney, has begun. The boy was taken up by RKO on hope rather than certainty. He has been cast in a quite small part in “The Roadhouse Murder,” another newspaper yarn, and his work thus far is reported “satisfactory.”



RKO has been having considerable success with Westerns. Having completed six with Tom Keene, they have given him a new contract, and Oliver Drake has been engaged to do the first stories. In the smaller communities Westerns are reputed to be attracting customers who shied at the more sophisticated reels.




The new RKO story board began functioning this week. Because of it, an improvement in stories is expected by David O. Selznick, whose brain child it is. An attempt is being made to view stories from every angle, and for this purpose different types of literary minds have been engaged. There is Kenneth Macgowan, former chairman of the Harvard School of the Drama; H. M. Swanson, editor of College Humor; Adela Rogers St. Johns, looking after the woman’s angle, and James Seymour, former story head of Pathe, who views stories solely from the cinematic grand stand.


Paramount reached a new high in giving work to extras, more people being employed in current productions than at any time during the last two years. Approximately 10,000 extra checks will be given out before the completion of the seven pictures now in work.



One of these, the Bancroft picture, brought work to 1,355, most of whom are bearded Russians from the local colony. This picture, “The World and the Flesh,” is Bancroft’s next to last picture with Paramount. On it and on the one which follows, “The Challenger,” rests the future of the actor with the company. For a time there was a slump with the product of this player, but “Rich Man’s Folly” seemed to re-establish him. If the current film is box-office, and if the following prize-fight yarn clicks, Bancroft will remain one of the “lot’s” fair-haired boys.

WHO’S WHO THIS WEEK IN PICTURES

There is a limitless sea between the Maurice Chevalier whose new picture, “One Hour With You,” is to be presented simultaneously at two Broadway theaters – the Rialto and Rivoli – Wednesday night and the Maruice Chevalier who returned to his native France in 1918, a poilu in a faded horizon-blue uniform, from a prison camp in Germany. His slight successes as a music-hall singer were forgotten and he had a wound in his chest which doctors said would never again permit him to sing.

He was born in Menilmontant, the Bowery of Paris. His father was a house painter, who died when Maurice was 11. His ambition was for the stage almost from the beginning, but his mother did not favor the life of an actor. The lad became an apprentice carpenter, but he spent more time imitating his stage favorites than in practicing his trade, and lost his job. After that he went from job to job, electrician, printer, apprentice in a nail factory, losing them with perfect abandon.

He was 15 when he went to the concert of the Three Lions one night with mythical references and was allowed to try his young voice before the patrons. Ushered to the door, he found another job, this time at the Casino des Tourelles. This paid him 3 francs an evening, four evenings a week.



A friend took him to meet Mistinguett, idol of the Paris musical comedy stage, who, scanning his sparkling face, is reported to have said: “You need have no worry about your future, with a smile like yours.” A few years later, Chevalier found himself, now a tall youth in his late teens, the dancing partner of the great Mistinguett in the Folies Bergere.



He went off to war, was wounded, imprisoned and came back with a Military Cross. He found work in an obscure café, recovered his voice, and again became the partner of Mistinguett. He went to London and appeared with Elsie Janis in a review entitled “Hello, America.” Jesse L. Lasky engaged him for the talking films in 1928 and he became a cinema favorite at once with his first picture, “Innocents of Paris.”



He made “Playboy of Paris” and ‘The Big Pond.” Then Ernst Lubitsch directed him in “The Love Parade.” The collaboration of the Parisian and the German won high favor. Last year they turned out “The Smiling Lieutenant” and the current film is a product of the same duo. They will do another later in the Spring.




A newsreel photographer started Marion Davies on a screen career which has continued right into the talking film era and up to her present title role in “Polly of the Circus,” at the Capitol. The camera man photographed her with other girls on the beach in Florida. A producer saw the pictures and introduced her to Hollywood. She made “Runaway Romany” for the producer and has been in lights ever since. Miss Davies was born in Brooklyn, the daughter of former Magistrate Bernard Douras. Her first role was in the chorus of “Chu Chin Chow,” whence she was graduated into the cast of “Oh, Boy,” as a featured dancer.



She posed for Howard Chandler Christy and Harrison Fisher and was the model for Christy’s painting, “Morning.” She climaxed her stage career in the Follies, and then went into pictures. Some of her silent films were “Little Old New York,” “When Knighthood Was in Flower,” “Janice Meredith” and “Beverly of Graustark.” Since the advent of sound she has made, among others, “Bachelor Father,” “It’s a Wise Child” and “Five and Ten” among others.



Miss Davies is supported by Clark Gable in “Polly of the Circus.” One of cinemas’s younger and most popular recruits, Mr. Gable was born in Ohio, and went to business college there without any though of either stage or screen as a livelihood.

Working nights as a stage hand in Akron, he learned the rudiments of acting and joined a traveling troupe. He managed to see most of the tank towns during his extended experience in stock. He got his chance in pictures while he was playing in “The Last Mile” in Los Angeles. He appeared with Joan Crawford in “Dance, Fools, Dance,” and his fortune was made.




Since then he has been in “Susan Lenox” with Greta Garbo; “The Easiest Way,” with Constance Bennett,“A Free Soul,” with Norma Shearer, and in “Laughing Sinners<” “The Secret Six,” “Sporting Blood,” “Possessed” and “Hell Divers.”




Miriam Hopkins, who trips across the Paramount screen this week in “Dancers in the Dark,” is relatively new to the cinema spotlight. Her appearance with Chevalier last year in “The Smiling Lieutenant” started her on the upward swing and her recent performance in “24 Hours,” “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Two Kinds of Women” have added greatly to her popularity.

Miss Hopkins is as genuinely American as her name. She comes from Savannah, Ga., and is a direct descendent of Arthur Middleton, one of the Declaration of Independence signers. She journeyed to New York in 1917 to go to boarding school and wound up as a chorus girl in the Music Box Revue.



The footlights appealed to her, so she studied dancing – Grecian interpretive, ballet and toe – and landed a job in a ballet company en route to South America. On the day the boat sailed, she broke her ankle. That was the turning point in her budding career. She stayed in New York, went into vaudeville, worked up to a featured role in “The Garrick Gaieties” and then retired from musical comedy for a fling at serious dramatics. After calling on theatrical agents for months she was given a part in “Excess Baggage.”



In rapid succession she appeared in “Flight,” the Guild’s “The Camel Through the Needle’s Eye” and in “Lysistrata,” It was in the Aristophanes comedy that she really began to be talked about. Between performances Paramount induced her to take a run over to the Astoria studio for a part in “The Best People.” A motion picture contract was the result and when “Lysistrata” finally closed, she went off to Hollywood.




When a young man named James Cagney rang the bell with two startling performances in “The Doorway to Hell” and “The Public Enemy,” Hollywood rubbed its eyes and discovered that it knew practically nothing about him. That blind spot has since been corrected and there is no dearth of information about Mr. Cagney’s rise from gentleman of the chorus to the screen’s favorite bad boy.



His next picture is “The Crowd Roars,” which will be presented at the Winter Garden on Tuesday.

He is as intimately of New York as his speech and demeanor would indicate. He was born at Eighth Street and Avenue D, the son of a bookkeeper, and when his father obtained work in Yorkville, the family moved uptown with him. After he received his diploma from Stuyvesant High School, he enrolled in the Fine Arts course at Columbia, but his family needed his help so he went to work.

He wrapped bundles at Wanamaker’s and went into vaudeville with a stage-struck lad who worked with him. Not vastly inspired by his job of female impersonator, he turned his back on the stage and went to work in Wall Street. But soon he was back touring the country in another vaudeville act.



Then he went into the chorus of a revue called “Pitter Patter.” If it is hard to picture the present Mr. Cagney as a chorus boy, there are photographs to prove it.



His first serious work on the stage was in the Maxwell Anderson-Jim Tully piece, “Outside Looking In.” In 1930 he played a part in “Penny Arcade,” and when the Warners bought the play for the screen they took him along to Hollywood with it.

In November of that year he got his first real chance, as a gangster in support of Lew Ayres in “The Doorway to Hell.” Though still unknown to the film public, his performance brought such favorable press that the Warners decided to take a chance with him in another gang picture, “The Public Enemy.”

From that time on his popularity kept growing. His most recent pictures have been “Blonde Crazy,” and “Taxi.”

STEP LIVELY, GIRLS, ONLY A FEW ROMEOS LEFT!

If you would like to have a Screen Sheik for a Leap Year Prize, it’s time to sort over the Scattering Eligibles still remaining after Dan Cupid’s Raids in 1931 –

And those left are described as Exceedlingly Shy and Ready to Break for the Tall Uncut at the Mere Mention of the Word Matrimony—

Here are a Few Pointers about what is Requisite in a Young Woman’s Fishing Tackle if she aspires to Take One of them Into Camp

By Alice L. Tildesley
March 20, 1932

Cupid picked off so many of Hollywood’s favorite bachelors during 1931 that alarm is expressed lest all the romantic screen actors become benedicts.



Richard Dix and Bill Powell have led lovely blondes to the altar.

Charlie Farrell and Lew Ayres have given two feminine players the right to put “Mrs.” before their names.

Kenneth McKenna and Stuart Erwin have said “I will” and “I do” to the age-old query about “all their worldly goods.”

How do other Hollywood bachelors feel about matrimony?

Looking over the film quota of unattached males, we find more than 30 gentlemen, ranking from Jackie Cooper to Ramon Novarro, from Billy Bakewell to George O’Brien, potential matrimonial prizes.



Jackie Cooper, who is just 8 years old and the youngest character actor on the screen, has plenty of time to change his mind, but at present he has very little use for the other sex.

“They can’t play football,” he complains, “and what’s the use of anybody who can’t do that? I’d rather have a dog.”



Charles (Buddy) Rogers emphatically declares that he won’t be off the market until he is 32. At present he is deserting Hollywood for a season on the stage and his beautiful Beverly Hills home is for sale. Charles’ brother, who got married and divorced in a brief space of time, is said to have further deterred “America’s Boy Friend” from considering whether or not two can live as cheaply as one.



Mary Brian is often seen with Charles, but then Mary is Hollywood’s favorite girl friend, and her company is fought for by other eligible youths, including Russell Gleason and Billy Bakewell.

Russell, who has created a trust fund for himself that will make him independent at 23, has dreams of going to Oxford for more education before stepping off to wedded bliss; but he admits that Father and Mother Gleason’s marriage has turned out well and they married when they were both under 21.



William Bakewell confesses that the trouble with romance is that a man is terribly attracted to a girl while she seems inaccessible, but the minute it begins to look as if she might smile on him, he feels a yen for freedom.

“Anyway, I’m not going to think of marrying until I’m 27,” he concludes.

William Haines, Ramon Novarro, George O’Brien and John Roche are among Hollywood’s inveterate bachelors.



You can’t get Bill Haines to be serious on the subject. Ever since he announced his engagement to Polly Moran as a gag, he simply begins a long argument with himself on whether or not it’s “right” for an engaged man to discuss such subjects as weddings with “another woman.”

He says his hair turned blond once from fumes of nitroglycerin when he was working in a powder factory on the James river in his native state of Virginia, and he wouldn’t wonder if it would turn white if it got within sight of an altar.



Ramon Novarro’s name is never coupled with that of a woman. Romance still stays far from this handsome descendent of the Aztec emperor, Montezuma.

“I think it is dead,” he confided. “Modern hardness has killed it – the lovely thing. I believe that one reason for marriage is parenthood, and I have had all the thrills of that state over my younger brothers and sisters, that if I marry it must be for romance.”



George O’Brien’s technique in the game of love is admirable, yet he has never become actually engaged, unless it was to Olive Borden, who has since married a man outside the profession.

When a girl attracts George’s attention there are flowers for her every day; telegrams punctuate her waking hours; telephone calls pursue her. She is the queen of the May. But always, so far, something has happened and the attentions poured out on one are turned into another’s channels.

George won’t commit himself further than: “You wait – one of these days - !”

Which is about the same lucid observation obtainable from John Roche, whose sweethearts invariably turn into fond friends, who go to the house for dinner two and three times all amiably trimming Christmas trees or helping serve at big summer beach parties.



Until lately, Gary Cooper has been considered exclusively Lupe’s. But since the vivid little Mexican has gone her way, we begin to remember that several others were holders of that cow boy star’s heartstrings in the past.

Gary hails from Montana, and began his Hollywood career as an extra. He got his first “break” in pictures because Sam Goldwyn was looking for a real cowboy to play in “The Winning of Barbara Worth.” On that desert location I sat next to him at table for three meals a day and heard him say nothing at all. He opened his mouth only to put food into it.

He is scarcely more loquacious now, and on the subject of weddings and women has less than nothing to say. At any rate, it is safe to prophesy that he will not be the first bachelor to take the fatal plunge. Or is it safe?



Life has been a series of high romantic moments for the Russian star, Ivan Lebedeff. He was the son of the privy councilor to the Russian empire and was brought up with the young noblemen of the court, educated at the University of St. Petersburg and the Imperial Lyceum. The war brought him adventures from the day he enlisted in the Third Regiment of Dragoons. Transferred to “partisan” service, he captured the only German bagged during the war. He was wounded several times, sentenced to death, escaped, became dictator of Odessa and was the center of a sensational plot to capture a well-known spy in Constantinople. After these and other similarly exciting passages, romance seems to him just a bit tame.

“Marriage may be in the future, who knows?” he shrugs, his slender eyebrows lifting, “but for me, I lived one day at a time, I do not look ahead to see what is to come. It is fate. I can do nothing if it is written in the stars. So, I do not say ‘I shall do this’ or ‘I shall do that.’ I wait.”



In the meantime, the dark and fascinating Slav is seen more and more often with the beautiful Thelma Todd.



Perhaps the most –talked-of bachelor of those new to Hollywood is James Dunn, the O. K. boy of “Bad Girl.” James left his father’s office to go on the stage about four years ago, and his best known work there was in “Sweet Adeline,” opposite Helen Morgan. He had done nothing but extra work in pictures when he was signed by Fox last spring, but he “clicked” with his first role and is spoken of everywhere as the find of the year.

If you care to get on with James, don’t whistle in his dressing room. Twice someone whistled there and each time something happened, according to the O. K. boy.

“The first time I was hurt in a taxi accident and the second I broke two ribs in a fall,” he declares earnestly.

“Sure. I’m in the market for a wife – if she has enough money. I’m looking for one with a hundred thousand dollars. Got one handy? Tell her I like bright-colored shirts and ties, I smoke cigarettes and play the piano by ear. I hate to comb my hair, too.

“On, no, I don’t care if she’s dark or fair so long as she’s white and has a good bank account.”

“Jimmy, people will believe you!” warned a scandalized guest.

“Oh, yeah. And tell her not to whistle in my dressing room!”

And yet they do say that there is a certain Follies girl who may yet whistle in Jimmy’s dressing room and he’ll have to like it.



Charles Butterworth is another graduate from “Sweet Adeline,” his biggest stage success. This famous comedian declares that he will never marry a girl who talks baby talk.

“My opinion of this whole subject of matrimony,” he confides, “is that the thing is done with cleverly arranged mirrors. We won’t go into it, if you don’t mind.”



Joel McCrea is on the son of one of Pasadena’s wealthiest citizens. Born with the much-talked-of silver spoon in his mouth, everything else seems to have fallen without effort into his lap. He walked into the movies and accepted various fat parts, among them leads with Greta Garbo, Marion Davies and Constance Bennett.

He is tall, good-looking and appealing. For a time it was rumored that Constance Bennett regarded him with a more than favorable eye. But Connie’s married now. Joel says he hopes to marry the ideal girl one of these days, but he isn’t going on record as to what qualities that ideal girl must possess.



Phillips Holmes is one of our most attractive unattached leading men. Son of Taylor Holmes, of stage and screen fame, Phillips had no intention of following in the theatrical profession. He was pursuing his education at Princeton university when director Frank Tuttle came down with a picture company to film scenes for a college play.

“Who’s that?” asked the director, spying Phillips on the campus. And when a director says “Who’s that?” you know the answer. Phillips was soon signing on a dotted line.

So now, when Phillips insists that he has no matrimonial intentions at present, that he thinks careers should be established firmly before other risks are taken, that anyway he hasn’t met the girl, how do we know that some determined maiden may not be in the offing ready to say “Who’s that?”



Harpo is the only one of the Four Marx Brothers who isn’t married, and he’s in love. Harpo got his name from playing the harp he inherited from his grandmother, who was in her time a harpist.
The boy taught himself to play and does everything wrong, even to tuning the instrument so that no one else can play it. But what’s the use of listing Harpo’s attractions when he may be applying for a license to marry any day?



Kent Taylor is a new name in Hollywood, but one not destined to remain unknown, according to studio predictions.

Kent tried various jobs – window trimming, carrying cement, tending gas burners in a nut and bolt factory and selling awnings – but all the time he longed to be an actor.

A neighbor, who worked at a studio, told Kent that he was an excellent type for pictures and persuaded him to go with her to ask for a test.

“There’s Henry King, the big director,” the actress pointed out. “Go brace him for a job,”

Kent did so, and to his amazement Mr. King asked him to practice a certain song and come back for a test. When he returned for the test Kent was given the part, which consisted merely of a sailor who sings a song. He went to Florida on location with the company, and after hanging around for four weeks to sing, was told that the song would be delivered by a string orchestra and he wouldn’t be needed!

After that Kent did extra work under a casting director who asked him as a favor to sit in with a girl for a test of a new camera device.

“It won’t mean a thing to you,” he was warned, “but none of our contract men are free.”

Kent and the girl decided on their own action and worked for an hour. When the officials saw the resultant test, they chorused that the boy must be called back for a contract.

“That’s life,” says Kent, from his vast experience, “If you think you have something, you haven’t; but if you think you haven’t you have. That’s romance too. I’m not counting any chickens yet and I’m not going to say I’m married till I have the license in my hand.”

Among the young bachelors who declare themselves to be “willin’” are Robert Young, Eric Linden, John Darrow and Randolph Scott.

Bob Young is a graduate of Pasadena’s community theater.



Eric Linden was the youngest student entered at Columbia university for years. He’s only 20 now, but he’s had two years on the stage.



John Darrow has no dependents and is saving his money on a novel insurance plan. He is both modest and charming.



Randolph Scott is from Virginia, and it was “Under a Virginia Moon,” a play, that attracted film attention.

“I like to paint and I like to play the piano. When I find the right girl, I’ll probably break down and marry her – if she’ll have me,” says Scott.

STUDIOS BUSY GRINDING OUT FILMS

Barbara Stanwyck’s next picture for Warner Brothers will be “The Mud Lark,” from the new novel by Arthur Stringer which recently was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post. Miss Stanwyck will be back in Hollywood from her vaudeville tour by the first of April to study her script. “So Big,” from Edna Ferber’s novel, in which Miss Stanwyck plays the central role for Selina Peake, is ready for release.




Several pictures are to be built around the fighting in Shanghai, but Columbia has a new angle. “War Correspondent,” it is called, and it will deal with the lighter side of the conflict. Jack Holt will be precipitated among the warring factions in the role of a news gatherer with no sense of the fitness of things. Harlan Thompson, recently brought to Hollywood from the street called Broadway, will be in charge of the production, which is scheduled to get underway immediately.




Captain Frank M. Hawks, who is as fast as his name suggests, will make a short subject for Vitaphone over in Brooklyn, beginning probably during this week. The film will deal with flying. Arrangements have been made to do the outdoor “shooting” at one of the metropolitan airports. The script calls for a total of fifty-four planes.




Rian James, author of the novel on which the new Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. film, “Love Is a Racket” is based, has sold a second story to the Warners. “Crooner” is the title and it is scheduled for Spring production.




Walter Huston, one of the cinema’s leading free-agents, has cast in his lot with Columbia Pictures for one film. Mr. Huston will play the lead in the first production to be directed by Allan Dwan for the company. The film, as yet untitled, will show him as the head of a metropolitan bank which is having its troubles because of the general state of things. At the moment Mr. Huston is on the MGM lot finishing his role in “The Wet Parade.”




Lee Tracy will have a part in “Doctor X,” the mystery piece by Howard Comstock and Allen Miller, which the Warners will produce in Technicolor. Mr. Tracy recently completed a role in “Tinsel Girl” and is now working with the younger Fairbanks in “Love Is a Racket.” Lionel Atwell and Fay Wray will have the two leading roles in “Dr. X.” Production is scheduled to begin this week.




An important part in Mary Roberts Rhinehart’s thriller, “Miss Pinkerton,” is that of the corpus delicti, Allan Lane, an ambitious young actor, was delighted to find himself cast in the role of Herbert Wynne until he learned the exact nature of his assignment. He becomes The Body as soon as the story opens, and plays the rest of the picture with one ear buried in the carpet, quite dead.




“The Famous Ferguson Case,” First National’s recently completed newspaper story, will be out on Broadway in a fortnight or so, probably at the Strand. Joan Blondell heads a cast which includes Tom Brown, Adrienne Dore, Vivienne Osborne and Leslie Fenton. Courtney Terrett wrote the story.




Universal has acquired two Hollywood directors, John Ford and Tay Garnett, for next year’s program. It will be a homecoming for Mr. Ford, the director of “Arrowsmith.” He started in the films on the Universal lot as assistant to his brother, Francis Ford, in serials. For several years he supervised Harry Carey in Westerns, and then left Universal to direct “The Iron Horse” for Fox.




John Francis Dillon’s first duty under his recently signed Fox contact will be to direct Warner Baxter in “Man About Town” with a cast that includes Karen Morley, Conway Tearle and Alan Mowbray.




The picture recently produced at the now empty Astoria studio under the title “Sensation” is to be released as “Escapade.” Edmund Lowe and Claudette Colbert are the principals and April 8 is the date of its opening at the New York and Brooklyn Paramounts.