SCREEN HANDWRITING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1940, Page 9

SCREEN HANDWRITING

IS ALWAYS FAKED. When Bette Davis writes a despairing note to Charles Boyer in the picture ■■All This and Heaven Too,” she dips the pen and makes a start. From that point on Fern Berry takes over (writes Carlisle Jones in the New York “Herald-Tribune”). The note which Olivia de Havilland sends to Charles Winninger, her patron, in “My Love Came Back,” is not written in Olivia’s own neat backhand. In fact, Olivia didn’t write it at all, even though she went through the motions. Fern Berry, using a slightly different hand than she uses for Bette Davis, penned that, missive. The insert department of Warner Brothers studio, where Miss Berry works, has a big bag of such tricks. It would be a useless extravagance to have Bette or Olivia work an hour on a note when nothing but the hand and the handwriting are to be seen by the audience. Barbara O’Neil also writes notes and letters in “All this and Heaven Too,” in what is apparently a bold, slanted hand to match the violent personality of the Duchesse de Praslin. Augusta Bovier, who is an expert in all sorts penmanship, wrote these letters for Miss O’Neil. There was no ink on the actress's pen. Handwriting inserts are carefully made, but they always are filmed off the set and away from the assembled company which represents thousands of dollars’ daily expense. The insert department can afford to use all the time needed to get the right effect when only one or two relatively small salaries are involved. Among the handwriting experts for

the Warner Brothers inserts department, Griffith T. Ellis is king. He writes the royal correspondence, signs the royal commissions, and, when necessary, duplicates the royal signature, flourishes, miss-spellings and all. The orders and reports which pass between Errol Flynn and Flora Robson as soldier of fortune "and Queen Elizabeth of England in “The Sea Hawk” are samples of Ellis’s handiwork. He is quite proud of them, too, and of their authentic sixteenth century 'appearance. The royal invitation received by Charles Boyer in “All This and Heaven Too” from Louis Philippe, King of France in 1847, was written and embossed by Ellis.

The early news dispatches sent by carrier pigeon by Edward G. Robinson, playing Julius Reuter in the Warner picture “Man From Fleet Street,” had to be handwritten, and Ellis again was pressed into service to provide the oldfashioned script.