They Tell Me That

Radio Record, Volume XIII, Issue 11, 21 August 1939, Page 17

They Tell Me That

Our Special

Correspondent,

Jennifer

Quentin, Gives You The Latest Hollywood Gossip

ETRO has a busy prosramme for Robert Donat, who has demonstrated in ‘‘The Citadel’? and ‘*Good-bye, Mr. Chips’’ that, given proper production values, you don’t have to go to Hollywood to be a world star. Donat is scheduled for "Ruined City" and the frequently announced "Beau Brummel." Donat, whose amazing transition from youth to old age as the

English schoolmaster in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" has won him wide eritical and audience acclaim, will have an even more surprising City of make-ups for "Ruined " , Again he will prove his versatility, by covering. a span of years. with seven. make-up changes in the picture, adapted: ‘to the screen from the Neville Shute novel, ’Kindling." Donat will have a characterisation of wide range in the story of

a wealthy business man, who‘ becomes interested in a citr’ of unemployed and fights to rehabilitate it, despite all odds, including a prison term. . . In "Good-bye, Mr. Chips" Donat four make-ups, being seen — at 24, then 40, 60 and finally,

Struck Oil TN the interests of screen realism, Universal set up a derrick staffed by a crew from the oilfields for shooting .an oildrilling scene. All went well until, at fifty feet, the drill struck a gusher-of water, putting to flight Freddie Bartholomew, Jackie Cooper, directors, and cameramen. Cloud-burst NE part of the great flood in Twentieth Century Fox’s ‘When the Rains Came" however, will not be seen on the screen. It was an impromptu piece of realism confined to the studio. Being one of his most ambitious pictures, Darryl Zanuck had ordered extra magnificent sets, including a £10,000 Hindu palace, as accurate as could be. A full-strength studio are-light shone down on the awning of the palace. Above the are was the giant rain-machine ready to loose the flood. , Studio electricity is hotter than even the Indian sun. The awning, fanned by the breeze, burst into flames. The rain-machine, made to react to heat, got warmed up before its cue and ejected a cloud-burst which doused the fire before the

studio firemen had even turned on their. hoses. On the "‘G.W.T.W."’ Set _,VERYBODY expects a "super" "Gone With The Wind," and I shall be amazed if, after all the hullabaloo, we do not get one. I paid a visit to the set recently, and saw Victor Mleming, just -back. after flu and still tottering Slightly, handling the biggest crowd I ever saw on a studio set pnywhere.

Every detail worked like a. clock. The scene represented Ate | lanta, Georgia, railway station | after a big battle, when Doctor Meade was helping the wounded and couldn’t respond to Scarlett’s entreaties to rush to Melanie, then about to have a baby. Vivien Leigh, as Scariett, looked marvellous and played the scene without bothering anything about her personal appearance or comfort. The huge set was sprinkled with tons of red tile dust to simulate the red soil of the South. It. was choking everybody--Vivien included. One thousand five hundred extras lay all over the railway lines, mingled with four hundred dumimies to represent dead. Only ° four women on the whole set! In the story the women are all supposed to have left the town. Searlett, determined not to give up. her home, has stayed on with Melanie. : ; The cameras and photographic crew aboard a large platform were hoisted by the largest obtainable crane to a height of several hundred feet, where they swung perilously over the crowd. Twelve assistant directors, six cameras, and good luck to a gecene which cost, for the day, well over £15,000. Gagging Parson HAL RAYNOR, gag writer for comedian Joe Penner, has just finished a biography of Sam Dreben called "The Fighting Jew." When not writing radio and film -wisecracks, author is known as Rev. Henry Scott

os Rubel, episcopal minister at Glendora, California, Sentimental Preview NRY FONDA’S "Young Mr. Lincoln" gave Hollywood one of those doubly sentimental previews the whole town loves. It showed young "Abe" Lincoln cheating at games. slaying his political opponents with wicked repartee and, as a lawyer, playing both ends against the middle with an ease which must have made the Hollywood agents turn green with etvy. Just before the film came on, Marion Andersen, the famous negro contralto, sang five songs for which Mr. Zanuck paid her £1400. Hollywood’s coloured peaple, most of whom were in the kitchens at the time cooking chicken pies or mixing too many mint juleps for the big film star parties which were to folflow the preview, ought to. be grateful that Abe Lincoln so * thoroughly delivered the negroes from slavery as to enable at feast one of them to charm

noisy filmland into spine-chilled ecstasy with Schubert's "Ave Marie" ... at a fee of 25/- for every note! Besides showing that Abe Lincoln was not always a_ perfectly honest fellow, the picture, to my mind, is further proof that, unless cheated of his opportunities, Henry Fonda can become Hollywood’s one and only answer to Robert Donat. Sigrid’s Third GIGRID GURIB, Sam Goldwyn’s Scandinavian discovery who proved to be simply an intelligent young lady from Brooklyn, has just completed her third film. The picture is "Forgotten Women," a Universal melodrama about a girl whose prison record interferes with her married happiness. Universal are so impressed with her work in it that they’ve given her a five-year contract for two pictures a year. Miss Gurie is partnered by William Lundigan, whose role is possibly the most important of his career. He has done a

good deal of nice work in modest pictures, and thoroughly deserves a break. Another promising young player who gets a chance in this film is Eve Arden. Her best work was done in "Stage Door,’ as one of the inmates of the theatrical boarding-house.