BIRDS REFUSE TO LAUGH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 38, 15 February 1939, Page 8

BIRDS REFUSE TO LAUGH

DISGRUNTLED KOOKABURRAS | FILM STUDIO FRANTIC RENT COSTS £4O A DAY HOLLYWOOD. FeB. 13. If anybody in Australia knows an unfailing method for making kookaburras laugh please communicate with United Artists studio before the author, Grover Jones, the director. Hal Roach, June Lang, Victor McLaglen a<nd Brian Aherne, the players, are carted off to the asylum. The filming of “Captain Fury,” formerly titled “Captain Midnight," has been held up for three days because four kookaburras, rented at a i cost of £4O a day from the Catalina | Island bird park, perch unrelentingly i on the limbs of an artificial tree and | sneer dt all attempts to amuse them ! Mr. Jones made the kookaburras’ - laughter an integral part of the script, j but he soon admitted that he did not | know how to make them laugh. Mr. j Roach appealed to the Catalina super-1 intendent, who worked hard, but I failed to produce even a chuckle. Desperate, Mr. Roach brought in | the superintendent’s wife, who is re-1 puted to have a way with kookaburras. She laughed and coaxed until her voice became a croak, but it was of no avail. Disgusted, Mr. Roach had the sound equipment dismantled —and then the kookaburras, all four, laughed long and loud, but quit before the equipment could be remounted. They haven’t laughed since.