The Year Was 1938 – May 30th

Director Frank Lloyd circa 1940

• Director Frank Lloyd will work the holiday (Decoration Day, i.e.  Memorial Day) in the cutting room at Paramount, going through the footage from his latest film ‘If I Were King,’ just so his star Ronald Colman can get a shave tomorrow. He needs to be certain that no retakes will be necessary before his star lops off the whiskers that have been sprouting the past eight weeks for his portrayal of Francois Villon, the 15^th century French poet. [Frank Lloyd only had this one film for 1938, and would have only one for 1939 – ‘Rulers of the Sea’].
• Frank Factor, the 34 year old son of Max Factor, legally changed his name to Max Factor jr. He, like his father, is a Hollywood makeup artist. He lists his reasons for doing so – for the sake of their business of manufacturing makeup – and for the family connection, a sentimental reason. [His father would pass away in August of 1938. Max jr would supervise the wigs for ‘The Wizard of Oz’].
• Producer Walter Wanger has bought the movie rights to the upcoming biography of James Farley, the former Postmaster General. It will be serialized in American Magazine this fall. [Entitled ‘Behind the Ballots.’ Nothing was done with it as far as I could ascertain. Many credit Farley with the election of FDR to the presidency, and as a reward for his help was appointed the Postmaster General. He also was made the head of the DNC and held the posts concurrently. Later with his position with Coca Cola he was responsible (with government help) for its proliferation around the world].
• Officials at the Columbia Studio speak up to squelch rumors that Lionel Barrymore, then in an important role on ‘You Can’t Take It with You,’ is down with a fatal illness. They admit that the actor had been in for a hospital stay 6 weeks prior for a mild case of arthritis, but nothing since has deterred him from his performance. [More contemporary articles about the actor state that he was in so much pain on this film that hourly shots of painkillers were administered to help him play his character’s role on crutches. Having broken his hip twice and suffering from severe arthritis, from here on out he did not stand in his films].
• In his column Ed Sullivan points out that he has screen credit for his story that Hal Roach picked up to produce – There Goes My Heart, with Fredric March and Virginia Bruce.
• Mervyn LeRoy was reported to be planning a film with the Marx Brothers to be called ‘Three Ring Circus.’ [To be done next after ‘Room Service.’ This eventuated in their film ‘A Day at the Circus’ for MGM].

ITEM OF INTEREST

• Columnist Sidney Skolsky points out the irony that forest scenes for movies are usually shot in Sherwood Forest near Hollywood, but WB’s ‘Robin Hood’ which takes place in Sherwood Forest, was shot at Ridwell Park in Chico, CA

ON THE MOVE

• Darryl F Zanuck arrives in NY from LA. [Word was making the rounds that Zanuck was being insured by his company, 20^th Century Fox for $10,000,000. Agent, producer and insurance broker Artie Stebbins was seeing to the deal. Stebbins was a nephew of Joseph Schenck]. Ed Sullivan adds that he took two cutters on the train with him, and cut (or edited) two pictures along the way.

Advertisement

The Year Was 1938 – May 17th

Samuel Briskin

• Sam Briskin, producer, left RKO last November, being recalled to Columbia to an exec prod post. Had been there between 1926-1934. [Briskin was the real talent behind the successes at Columbia in that earlier period. Cohn lost him over a dispute about the stock options in the company. Briskin could have gone anywhere in 1935 – Fox – MGM – Universal – and wound up at RKO. Cohn got him back at Columbia with a seven year contract and stock options. He was immediately involved in the dispute between the directors and the producers].
• As part of their economy, Paramount announces they are trimming film budgets and film schedules (cutting 8 weeks to 6). No bidding against rival studios for novels or plays. Tightening in all departments. 
• RKO now has a writing staff with 38 writers working on 22 scripts.
• Tailors and seamstresses are busier than they have been for several years, because of a flock of historical films upcoming – for Paramount – 6 (includes ‘Zaza’ for 1939); for WB – 6 (includes ‘Juarez’ and ‘Dodge City’ for 1939); 20^th Century Fox – 1; Metro – 1 (‘Northwest Passage’ for 1939). [20^th Century Fox actually had many more – ‘Jesse James,’ ‘Young Mr. Lincoln,’ ‘Drums Along the Mohawk’; and the MGM title did not make it into release until 1940. MGM did have ‘Gone with the Wind,’ but not at this point in 1938].
• Jerry Wald, writer at WB, is going to court to untangle the problem of three agencies claiming to represent him. They are – Zeppo Marx Inc, Myron Selznick & Co and Leland Hayward, Inc. [Wald had four screenplays made into films for 1939, including the gangster film ‘The Roaring Twenties’].
• Deal in the making between David O Selznick and W C Fields. Selznick tried to borrow him from Paramount before, but was unsuccessful. Now that Fields left Paramount, it is possible that Fields will be in their film ‘Heartbreak Town,’ about the trials of Hollywood moppets. [Sounds like they were trying to capitalize on the Jackie Coogan situation. W C Fields ended up at Universal instead]. (See May 9^th)
• Cecil B DeMille settles with the IRS on a tax bill going back to his 1934 earnings.
• Robert Pirosh and George Seaton called in to collaborate with Irving Brecher on the script for MGM’s ‘A Day at the Circus,’ the next Marx Bros movie. Brecher started it last week. [Pirosh and Seaton had worked together on Marx Bros films before, and ended with no credit on this one, their only film for 1939 was ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ and even that was uncredited; Brecher did get the credit for ‘A Day at the Circus,’ but he also was uncredited for Oz].
• Gene Autry to draw $10,000 per picture in his new pact. It had been $5000. When he was out due to  his feud with Republic, his side kick Smiley Burnett was assigned to work as Roy Rogers’s sidekick. (Roy was filling in for the missing Autry). [Now what to do about Burnett].
• Buck Jones sues Republic to restrain the release of their serial ‘The Lone Ranger’ – for imitating those films in which he played a Texas Ranger. On top of that the name of horse was Silver also. [His only film for 1939 had him as a boxer, not a cowboy – ‘Unmarried,’ a remake of a 1932 film – both Paramount].

ON THE MOVE

• Wesley Ruggles dueling with Paramount on a new contract (to produce and direct) before departing on a European vacation. [He got the contract and did ‘Invitation to Happiness’ for Paramount in 1939].