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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 1936)
r mmm " ""Mjm.i''' ""mmmm - -- " in! 'Vr 'f"f f"""ti f v rffHH "" " " ' 1.;,. u,Jl f II "" lILfl f ,, vvi.,'vr. r Air t iil V J You're apt to come upon almost every imaginable luxurious gadget, wandering through the homes of . stars. Turning on concealed lights, Josephine nutchinson (left) changes her lilies to rainbow colors. Paul Muni (center) takes life easy In a special house he has built in which to rehearse. Anita Louise simply throws a switch, and her bird cage is cleaned . . . just like that! Looking 'em Over WITH GAIL GARDNER Five Star Motion Picture Editor & yj Sit"'' v Winifred Shaw SYLVIA SIDNEY, loaned to Walter Wanger for "Mury Burns, Fugitive," plnys a girl hunted by the law because of her love for a criminal. Con victed on circumstantial evidence when she is found guilty, she finally extricates herself by the help of a wealthy scientist. The cast is composed of Melvyn Douglas, Alan Buxterm, Pert Kelton and Wallace Ford. An other crime story with Miss Sid ney doing her utmost to make it convincing. "D ROADWAY HOSTESS" is D one of those light, strictly pedestrian pictures which deals with trials on the Great White Way. In unreels a theme as old as the movies, a little country girl who goes to the big city in search of a musical career. She gets a tryout in a cafe, but before she gets the job she is spotted by a city slicker, Lyle Talbot, who becomes her manager. From thereon, most of the audience is able to go on with the Btory. Winifred Shaw is in the lead and shows promise of becoming a very good pctress. She is given capable assistance by Allen Jenkins, comic, Spring Byington, Talbot and a newcomer, Marie Wilson, who, in her small role, indicates she may become the screen's funniest woman if she doesn't watch out a rare type indeed. The picture is an old girl in a new dress. THE chances are you will not require the services of a film reviewer to send you streaming to see "The Indestructible Mrs. Talbot." It is one of those sprightly comedies of intense drama always in demand by sophisticated audi ences. Especially will the wives of philandering husbands, and the sweethearts of married men en joy it for, like the erstwhile "Animal Kingdom," it deals with the husband who enjoys the liberties of single blessedness while married. Ann Harding (Mrs. Talbot) is the modern wife who sends her husband, Herbert Marshall (Dr. Tal bot), into the arms of another woman (Margaret Lindsay), displays a very fine flaire for sueh smart comedy as this. Marshall, whose heart is sup posed to be as transient as moon light, takes his scenes with con vincing ardor. Walter Abel, that splendid actor from Broadway who recently made his screen de but, succeeds in making the char acter of the young engineer, vainly in love with Ann, so poig nant that one wishes him better luck with his amour. The action of the play is fast. The casting is Walter Abel . perfect. The story is a refreshing variation of the love triangle. You will like it. "Professional Soldier," strange as it sounds, isn't a war picture at all, but an operetta with the opera left out. It has one of those preposterous plots concerning the kidnaping of a boy king, Freddie Bartholomew, who rules over a mythical kingdom. Victor Mcljig len, the kidnaper, is one of those rough brute-men with a heart of gold. Vic is hired by some revolutionists, whose inter est is the people's welfare, to kidnap the King. He accomplishes this with the aid of Michael Whalen. There's a countess, too, Gloria Stuart, who gets That's No Railroad Station, Madam; It's the Home of a Big Movie Star! Inside You'll See Soda Fountains, Trick Beds, Secret Passageways, Glass Rooms, "Port Hole" Windows with Windows Behind Them Specially Lighted Many Other Oddities By Donna Risher "k 10, ma'am, that's not the Santa Fe station," IN, I returned. the tourist's guide to the curious lady from Iowa, as he pointed to a red, black and ) 'e pile of lumber atop a hill, "that's a movie star's home." Duly awed at the sight, the curious lady appro priately exclaimed, "My land." But had she been privileged to visit the interior of this home and other homes of the film celebrities, she, no doubt, would have received the shock of her life at the sight of the unusual features contained therein. For these home hobbies of the stars run from soda fountains to crystal-glass living rooms. . Perhaps the most unique collection ever assem bled is that in the Beverly Hills home of Joe E. Brown. Joe has a trophy room filled with everything under the sun. There is a hand-made saddle worn by a Derby winner. A baseball thrown by Christy Matthewson. A football kicked by "Dixie" Howell. Odds and ends from all corners of the earth. And right next door Joe has a soda fountain where ice cream sodas can be obtained at all hours. DOLORES DEL RIO'S proud possession is a room of glass in her Brentwood mansion. One entire wall consists of a huge plate of crystal glass overlooking her garden. The opposite wall is one great flawless mirror, and the ceiling is a mass of smaller mirrors'. The effect, upon entering, is start ling and something a casual visitor never forgets. At Paul Muni's ranch house near Van Nuys, his odd rehearsal house arouses special curiosity. It is a small, substantial structure, which stands half hidden by walnut trees behind the ranch house proper. This rehearsal house was once an elaborate port able dressing room, presented to Douglas Fair banks, Jr., by Joan Crawford just before that young couple went separate ways. When Fairbanks left mixed up in the action. After several reels of devil try, the King and the kidnaper escape death from a bullet, and the picture ends with everything just dandy. No matter how bpd the material, McLaglen and Freddie are always in there acting. . In the past, Janet Gaynor has been squandered somewhat futilely in pictures which were obviously made for some other player. In "Small Town Girl,"the little Janet is shrewdly cast, and this may I ju or may not oe accounted ior oy J - i the fact that she is off her home lot (Fox) and is making her first picture for M-G-M. The story is by Ben Ames Wil liams, the popular magazine writer. It has much to do with a New England doctor, tawis Stone, who is eager for his son, J Robert Taylor, to follow in his . lotHtut'iis. lounir lavior is in love Janet Gaynor ... . 1 . . . L , with Janet . . . but ah, me . . . love will find, a way. There is: Conflict. Poignant mo ments. Good photography. Happy ending. "Riff Raff" is decidedly the most fittingly named photoplay of the month. By the time it nn-wimls you have seen the "reds" in a waterfront strike, Jean Harlow parting with her baby born in prison, a love atTair between a fish cannery worker and a dock hand, not to mention the bloated capitalist who buys his woman with fur coats. Harlow, Spencer Tracy, Una Merkel and Joseph Calleia do their utmost, but that doesn't seem to be enough. for England, Muni acquired it. In this house Muni studies his lines and tries out new characteriza tions. The double walls make the place sound proof, and it contains all the comforts of home. Warren William's chart room is probably the only one of its kind in the world. It is a hide-away under the roof of his new house, which is next door to Al Jolson's in Encino. The room is reached through a window-like door above the head of the actor's bed. The bed head itself forms steps which lead to this door. A visitor would never know the. room was there unless invited to enter by Master William. The room' is modeled like a ship's chart room. v t IT has an imitation mast running through it, port holes for windows, with landscapes behind them specially lighted. A compass is inlaid in the floor. When Mrs. William can't locate Warren, she climbs to the chart room, salutes, and tells him dinner is waiting. Dick Powell helped design the tricky bed he has built in his home in the Toluca Lake district. With out lifting his head from the pillow, Dick can turn on a radio hidden in the bed head. Secret compart ments hold the telephone, and a complete call but ton panel makes it possible to summon the servants from all parts of the house. WILLIAM' POWELL'S new house in Beverly Hills has numerous secret passagss and hidden panels, which the actor uses to confound his guests. John Barrymore points with pride to his trophy room, which holds, among other things, a dinosaur egg sent him by Roy Chapman Andrews from the Gobi desert. Joserfhine Hutchinson has an electri fied lily pond. When she touches a b "tton, the cream-white blossoms turn to mauve, pink, blue and cornflower. Anita Louise cites her bird cagj as the trickiest to be found in Hollywood. Anita merely throws a switch, and the cage is refilled wit'i water, replen ished wiih frcG'i bird seed, and the perches are washed. ' James Cagney's gun room and library have no counterpart anywhere, while Al Jolsrn's apart ment hotel in '-is country home is sing.ilar indocd. n r - Gossip From the Studios and Social Centers of Hollywood by Jane .."MMkt: Fredric March With five years of stardom behind her, Jean Harlow has signed a new long term contract at M-G-M. THEY were filming a trade-slaving sequence of "Anthony Adverse" when I was out on the Warner Bros, lot the other day. I went out to see Fredric March, who takes the lead role. Instead I saw a great many other things. As I approached there was a jungle across the river. Dank and lush it stood in a cup of hills. In the center of the jungle was an African compound, surrounded by a stake fence. In the compound was a plat form and on this platform were nearly a hundred half-naked men, yoked together. Slaves. Magnifi cent fellows, their glossy skins shown like new enamel. Below them were a motley crew of bearded men garbed as Arabs, carrying long-mounted rifles; witch doctors, bright with paint and feathers; blacks with bull whips and wicked-looking knives. There was the camera on hand to put on film the tragedies and horror of slave trading under a blazing African sun. And there was Director Mer vyn LcRoy standing behind the camera, telling the slaves when to cry out in pain and when to show horror. But the blazing sun didn't blaze and the wind blew cold. Nevertheless, I wanted to cry when one poor devil after another was sold to cruel Arabs with bull vhips. Bowed with grief they were, stoically accepthiT their awful fate meekly. I turned my head a vay when one big fellow got 20 lashes . . . the blood spurted brightly. . . . My throat hurt. . . . Couldn't someone do something about this? ... It seemed no one could . . . and pretty soon the sun sank lower anu lower and, the wind blew colder and colder. Four o'clock came. Blue with cold. Director LeRoy, shiveringly, ordered the whole company dis missed. . . . WHAM! The biggest slave of all threw off his yoke, jumped down from the platform, rushed to a pile of brush, and so help me dug out a golf club! He set his big feet apart and be gan practicing his drive. Several other blacks disap peared behind the compound. I peered at them over a dying bush . . . they had a blanket on the ground and in the big black hand of the slave with the 20 lashes . . . there was a rattling pair of dice. . . . Now I ask you . . . can you tie that? t Led off by Ruby Keeler less than four years ago, tne young hooters are being welcomed by the producers. So if you are trying to make the grade in pictures, see that you know your syncopation, because the shortest cut to fame nowadays is being made by those who can sing and dance. It's come to this, Albert; it's come to this: The movies now have glass chairs, glass divans, glass tables and even glass up holstery. . . . S'fact. Stop and think if you have to stop to thmk-chair. Mervyn LeRoy Ruby Keeler what a fat gal would do sitting on a glass PAGE FOUR
