In the Studios
- Paramount has renewed Wesley Ruggles’ contract for another year as a producer-director. [He directed Cimarron for RKO in 1931 for which they received the Best Picture Oscar (and best director nom for Ruggles). Ruggles switched to Paramount in 1932 for whom he turned out some profitable comedies].
- A non-dancing Ruby Keeler currently playing in RKO’s ‘Mother Carey’s Chickens’ (the project that Katherine Hepburn turned down). Al Jolson pursued Ruby for three months in 1928 before she said yes and they married.
- Gene Fowler and Howard Estabrook (Oscar winner for writing Cimarron) signed to collaborate on a screenplay for ‘The Real Glory’ for Goldwyn, production to begin this summer. [Gary Cooper headlined this action film for 1939]
- Claudette Colbert at Paramount next for ‘Midnight’ to start shooting in August with Arthur J Hornblow jr producing and Mitchell Leisen directing. [Screenwriters Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder liven up this RomCom for 1939].
- A three day delay hits the filming of Paramount’s ’Spawn of the North’ caused when a synthetic iceberg with a wooden frame became top heavy when draped with real ice and flopped into the studio lagoon.
- Ernst Lubitsch is being considered as director for “The Women.” Norma Shearer might get the lead. [Norma indeed did get the lead, but it was George Cukor that got the director’s chair].
- Last week – the Hal Roach lot hummed with 450 people working on the Laurel & Hardy comedy ‘Meet the Missus.’ [Still under its working title, Missus was released as ‘Blockheads’ in August 1938].
- One of the Dead End kids, Bernard Punsly, age 14, signs at Warners for a year’s pact – $250/week, with six yearly options raising his salary to $1000/week. Fifty percent to be held in trust until age 21. (According to new provisions set to protect children working in pictures).
In Real Life
Toluca Lake is urging Edgar Bergen to take up residence there, so they can elect Charlie McCarthy as their mayor. (Encino had Al Jolson as theirs, and Van Nuys – Andy Devine).
Other Studios Elsewhere
- Max Fleischer reconsiders his decision not to do an animated feature, and began work today at his NY studio on ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ (in Technicolor). The bulk will be done at his Miami studio. It is estimated it will take 18 months to complete. [It would be released in December 1939].
On the Move
- The PR director from 20th Century Fox [Col Jason S Joy] is in DC to talk to the naval office about their upcoming film, ‘The Splinter Fleet’ – to see about shooting part at the US Naval Academy. Director John Ford with cast – Richard Greene, Nancy Kelly, and Slim Summerville, were the only ones attached so far.
- Adolphe Menjou leaving New York for London on the Ile de France.
- W S Van Dyke returns from Idaho where he has selected locations for Metro’s ‘Northwest Passage’ – Payette Lake and the upper reaches of the Payette River. Arrangements were put in place for housing 300 cast and crew and a camp site for 800 Nez Perce Indians who will do tribal dances for the picture. Top roles to Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Wallace Beery. [Spencer Tracy remained with the project, but Gable and Beery were out, (Gable was most likely tied up in ‘Gone with the Wind’). And King Vidor directed].
On the Injured List
Gene Autry laid up with infected knees, the result of a fall from his horse during filming on ‘Gold Mine in the Sky’ at Keene Camp CA. Republic now working around him.