The Year Was 1938 – June 3rd

Henry Travers in 1938 (you may recognize him as Harold the Angel from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’)

• Actor Henry Travers has arrived from New York. He will report to WB to play Bette Davis’s father in her latest, ‘The Sisters.’ [‘The Sisters’ was his only film for 1938, but he stayed around for seven more in 1939, including ‘Dodge City,’ ‘Dark Victory,’ ’Stanley and Livingstone,’ and ‘The Rains Came’].
• Columbia expects hundreds of aspiring actors at their studio to try out for the part of Joe Bonaparte from the Clifford Odets play, Golden Boy. Julian Evans will have charge of the proceedings. The ballyhoo is so great surrounding this search, he forsees photographers from Life magazine to be there. [Harry Cohn was probably hoping for the same type of publicity that Selznick was generating over his search for Scarlett O’Hara].
• Three tunes have been completed for MGM’s ’Sweethearts’ the next Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald musical by Bob Wright and Chet Forrest. [Wright and Forrest had supplied music the year before for the Eddy/MacDonald film ‘Maytime.’ And for 1939 there were many contributions they made for MGM films, including Eddy (without MacDonald) for ‘Balalaika’].
• With ‘Crime School’ and the Dead End kids doing well, WB plans another to be called ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’ once issues with the title have been cleared by the Hays Office. Humphrey Bogart and Gale Page are set to star. [Ronald Reagan and Margaret Lindsay would star instead].
• John Litel has been cast by WB in the new prison picture ‘Blackwell’s Island.’ Project to be directed by William McGann. [John Garfield replaced Litel before shooting commenced].
• Midget sets for ‘The Terror of Tiny Town’ now guarded to keep off the swarm of curiosity seekers.
• Ed Sullivan makes the rounds of studio commissaries. At WB –  Bette Davis and Olivia DeHavilland were having lunch and arguing about the best way to put on weight. Spencer Tracy and Father Flannagan were at the MGM commissary, the good Father in town to talk about their production of ‘Boys Town.’ Boris Morros in his signature flashy attire, (this time a bright red check shirt) pauses to talk with Joan Bennett at the Paramount commissary. (See May 25^th).

STARS IN OTHER NEWS

• William LeBaron at Paramount announces that they are keeping Bob Hope on, and have assigned him his next picture – ‘Thanks for the Memory.’ He will have an engagment to play in Roberta locally before traveling to New York where he will start his personal appearance tour with Jackie Coogan.
• Clark Gable had been home sick with the flu. After three days in bed he tried to return to work on the ‘Too Hot To Handle’ picture. The director judged his voice still too husky and sent him home. 

ITEM OF INTEREST

• One hears stories about the malapropisms perpetrated by Samuel Goldwyn, like the declaration – “Include me out.” Columnist Sidney Skolsky reports the latest making the rounds around Hollywood – someone ran into Goldwyn and invited him to lunch – to which Goldwyn replied, “I can’t eat yet. I just had breakfast for lunch.”

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The Year Was 1938 – May 19th

Virginia Weidler in 1938

• Today child actor Virginia Weidler was added to the RKO production ‘Mother Carey’s Chickens.’ She was borrowed from MGM where she was at work in ‘Too Hot to Handle.’ She is also currently loaned out to Paramount on ‘Men with Wings.’
• United Artists board to meet today to finalize the releasing deal with Hal Roach. Roach can bring his own production money. Dr A H Gianninni, president of UA prepared the way for him. Mary Pickford to attend the meeting also.
• Independent exihibitors at a confab in Pittsburgh have asked the government to do an investigation into the picture industry, especially pricing policies and terms of film leasing, all to be included in any anti-trust action that is pending in Washington.
• Silent film actress Alla Nazimova has been brought into Paramount to help tutor the Italian actress Isa Miranda. Producer Albert Lewis and director George Cukor brought Nazimova in to help Miranda recreate a role that Nazimova played on the Russian stage 37 years prior. [The film was released in 1938 – but not with Isa Miranda. Claudette Colbert took the role instead. I wonder what happened].

Columnist Sidney Skolsky often wrote about “Watching Them Make Pictures” for this week he details three happenings:

• On the MGM backlot, Jack Conway was directing Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon in a scene for ‘Too Hot to Handle.’ Playing competing newsreelmen Pidgeon was to chase Gable and Gable was to trip and fall face first into a mud puddle especially prepared for him. He fell into the mud perfectly – but Pidgeon blew his line, so they had to do it all over again.
• Out on the movie ranch in the Valley, Richard Thorpe was shooting a scene for “Give and Take” with Robert Taylor and Maureen O’Sullivan. A man was plowing in the far background and was whistling. The sound man warned the director that his mic was picking up this whistling. Thorpe said to just keep it as background – but then the sound man broke in again and told him that they would not be able to use it as the man was whistling “Thanks for the Memory,” a Paramount song. [The film was released as ‘The Crowd Roars’].
• He checked in at Paramount and entered a sound stage where “The Spawn of the North” was being shot. Business was on hold for the moment, for they were celebrating Henry Fonda’s birthday (May 16^th). Fonda was serving out the cake when two Western Union messengers arrived and sang Happy Birthday to Fonda. They had been sent by his former roommates John Swope and James Stewart. Before he knew it Fonda had handed out all the pieces, not having reserved one for himself. One of the visitors surrendered his piece to Hank. Soon, director Henry Hathaway had Fonda, Dorothy Lamour, Louise Platt and George Raft back to work.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

• Ed Sullivan in his column extolls a list of names you were never meant to see in the credits. Claire Meyers – Sally Sage – Marjorie Lane – Eadie Adams – Virginia Verrill. The legs of Meyers, or more properly Myers, stood in for closeups of those of Joan Crawford, Virgina Bruce and other ladies in the MGM stable. Sage’s hands stood in for those of Bette Davis in ‘Jezebel.’ [She had uncredited parts in six WB films for 1939]. The last three lent their voices for songs that came from the lips of, respectively, Eleanor Powell for ‘Broadway Melody of 1936,’  ‘Born to Dance,’ ‘Rosalie,’ as well as ‘Broadway Melody of 1938’; for Jean Harlow in ’Suzy’ and ‘Reckless’; and for Andrea Leeds in ‘The Goldwyn Follies.’