MGM’s ‘Marie Antoinette’ starring Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power, opens at the Carthay Circle. One hundred fifty-two featured players are in this Hunt Stromberg production, which was filmed on more than 100 elaborate sets. It is believed to be the costliest film this year – two and half million, the bulk due to the cast salaries. The film gets the road show treatment – overture – intermission, etc. Costume designer Adrian prepped for it by a visit to France to research the gowns of the period. They were a big part of the look for the film – Lord & Taylor gave him an award for his work on this 1938 film (there was no Academy Award yet for costume design)].
Paramount and 20th Century Fox protested to the National Labor Relations Board about the election on June 29 in which The Screenwriter’s Guild was chosen as the sole representative for film writers. They object that a secret ballot was made by persons alleging to be screen writers, when there would have been no way to know for sure that these individuals were currently employed as such.
After a year’s absence from Hollywood, Grant Withers returns to work in front of the cameras. The hero of the silent screen will appear as a West Point football coach in the Paramount film ‘Touchdown, Army.’ [The columnist must have misspoke, for Withers was in five films in 1938 before this one. Most of them were for minor studios, so perhaps that may explain his characterization as being ‘absent’ from Hollywood. And furthermore, for one of the films he actually was in Florida. His one appearance in a major studio film was for MGM, and for that one he was uncredited – another reason for his invisibility. For 1939 he appeared in six films, all but one of them for Monogram, and that other one was for an even smaller company].
‘The Mad Miss Manton’ goes into production today at RKO – starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. [Both stars had films with trains in their futures for 1939 – Stanwyck in DeMille’s ‘Union Pacific;’ Fonda in ‘Jesse James’].
Ricardo Cortez, who has a three way (acting/writing/directing) contract at 20th Century Fox has been assigned his directorial debut for the next Roving Reporter (third in the series), entitled ‘A Very Practical Joke.’ Michael Whalen will be returning to star in the Sol Wurtzel production. [When the film came out in 1939 it had a new title – ‘Inside Story’].
Director George Seitz has been tapped to direct the next (and fifth) Andy Hardy film – The Hardy Family Out West. He is currently in Honolulu on his first vacation in six years. [He directed the first in the series ‘A Family Affair’ in 1937. It earned back its cost threefold. So, MGM kept him at it. Of the three Hardy family films for 1939, he would do two of them].
Per Columnist Sidney Skolsky
At Paramount every night you can see a show at the cashier’s window. There the extras who toiled within the studio that day line up to receive their pay, chorus girls in their street clothes, cowboys, and other bit players. Skolsky points out that there are no autograph seekers haunting this line.
Within the environs of the Writers’ Building at Paramont you can find producer Arthur Hornblow’s office. There are three photos of Myrna Loy prominently displayed, and one signed drawing of Greta Garbo. When he is on a conference call and asks not to be disturbed, his secretary has to disobey that dictum when Myrna calls – she is Mrs Hornblow after all.
At 20th Century Fox, if you go up to the top floor of the Administration Building you will find Writers’ Row. And you may have problems finding their ace writer Nunnally Johnson. For instead of his name lettered on his door there is the message – “Leave Me Alone.”
