Pichel as General Carbajal in the WB feature 'Juarez'
BORN ON THIS DAY
Actor and director Irving Pichel turned 47. He had been working in films since 1930, and made his debut as director in 1932 on The Most Dangerous Game. For 1938, he acted in ‘Jezebel’ and ‘Topper Takes a Trip.’ He would have seven credits for 1939, including ‘Juarez’ and the serial ‘Dick Tracy’s G-Men.’ One of the 1939 credits was for ‘The Great Commandment,’ a Christian film that had a very limited release that year, and was picked up by 20th Century Fox for a wider release in 1941. He both directed it and supplied the voice for Jesus. Pichel made the choice not to show an actor for Christ, but rather the camera revealed His point of view.
Singer and bandleader Phil Harris has his 34th birthday. He has film appearances going back to 1929, but his main ties are with radio since 1936 when he became the musical director for the Jack Benny Show. No surprise then that he would have a part in Benny’s film ‘Man About Town’ for 1939.
NEWS AROUND HOLLYWOOD
RKO has completed casting the major roles for ‘Gunga Din’ with Montagu Love as a British colonel and Lumsden Hare as a British major. [Both were leading men in the silent era – now they fill up their time with character parts. Montagu Love, the veteran of over an hundred silent films, many as the principal villain, will be kept busy in five films for 1939 and Lumsden Hare with just three].
RKO is also winding up cast assignments for ‘Birthday of a Stooge’ (comedy with Frankie Albertson, Allan Lane, and Adrienne Ames); and ‘Smashing the Rackets’ with Chester Morris, Frances Mercer and Bruce Cabot. [The first film, a mystery rom-com, was released under the title ‘Fugitives for a Night.’ And Smashing remained Smashing…’].
Columbia is still on a search for an actor to play Joe Bonaparte for ‘Golden Boy.’ Two who auditioned (Stanley Brown and Robert Fiske) wound up with Columbia contracts, but not for the plum role – rather they landed parts in other productions.
Claudette Colbert will step into the starring role in ‘Zaza’ next week, following the collapse of Isa Miranda. [See May 19]. The production will shutter until then. [Miranda was brought over by Paramount and touted as the “Italian Marlene Dietrich.” Throughout Europe she had a huge following. She did complete two films for the studio – ‘Hotel Imperial’ in 1939, and ‘Adventure in Diamonds’ in 1940 – before returning to Italy for the duration of the war. There in 1944 she finally played the role of Zaza].
For Universal’s new film ‘Letter of Introduction’ the sound man messed up the first scene in which Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy appeared before the cameras. So engrossed was he by the lines being spouted by Charlie that he had the microphone aimed at the dummy instead of the ventriloquist. This necessitated reshooting the scene all over again. [This may have been Joe Lapis, who worked at Universal from 1929 to 1964. He worked on everything – monster movies, musicals, both versions of ‘Imitation of Life’ (1934 and 1959), and Spartacus. He had eight film credits for 1938, and five for 1939].
