The Year Was 1938 – August 7

NEWS AROUND HOLLYWOOD

• Stunt man Jack Long died from injuries received on Friday when his motorcycle crashed with an automobile in Los Angeles at Santa Monica Blvd and Orange Grove Avenue. [Jack Long (born as Kenneth D Snyder in Iowa in 1902) was working as an extra, actor and stunt man at poverty row film studios since 1931. The bulk of the time he appeared and worked in features and shorts at Columbia. The last credits listed for him are a Harry Langdon short ’Sue My Lawyer,’ and a feature ‘Juvenile Court’ with Paul Kelly and Rita Hayworth. According to one newspaper article he had a reputation for taking jobs “too dangerous for other stunt men”].  (A third traffic accident tragedy linked to Columbia employees).
• Twentieth Century Fox has hired the Los Angeles munincipal stadium for $200 per day, for their college football picture ‘Hold That Co-Ed,’ with George Murphy, John Barrymore, and Elaine Barrie. Though it seats 11,000 people, Fox only used 250 extras who were seated in one section and shot for scripted moments. Other footage from news reels were added to ‘fill’ in the stadium. The extras were dressed warmly for a Thanksgiving Day game, but because temperatures were hovering around 100º they were sweating profusely – but not to worry, the cameras were kept at a safe distance, so that their sweat would not be visible. [John Barrymore’s wife Elaine Barrie, though listed in some news accounts, does not appear in the finished film. This oddity, a football musical, contains the tune and dance – the Limpy Dimp – featuring George Murphy and Joan Davis].
• A story is circulating that actor Abner Bibermann believes that a jinx is on him when it comes to scripts written by Ben Hecht. He had been dropped from two of Hecht’s plays, and scenes that he was filmed in for ‘Nothing Sacred’ wound up on the cutting room floor. When he learned that Hecht was one of the writers on ‘Gunga Din’ on which he is playing the villain, he made a bet with Doug Fairbanks jr that chances were he would not be in the finished film. He is hoping he loses the bet. [He lost the bet, for Biberman remained in the film. And was a very effective villain].

OUTSIDE HOLLYWOOD

• Constantin Stanislavsky, founder of the Moscow Art Theater, suffers a heart attack and dies. [A stage actor and director, active from the time of the Czars, he was retained under the Soviet regime. Widely known for his development of his method for actors – internal analysis, coupled with external action – he had a wide following throughout the world – director Richard Boleslavsky – Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler – to name a few. As developed by Strasberg and others it became known as the Method].

• Sidney Howard leaves from his farm in Tyringham MA for the coast to work on the screenplay of William Faulkner’s novel ‘Unvanquished’ for MGM. [The Faulkner novel is actually a collection of seven short stories centered around the Sartoris family during the American Civil War. It was not made into a film. Not knowing the order of events, either Howard was redirected to work on Gone with the Wind instead, or having worked on that script already, he was thought a good candidate for the Unvanquished project].
• Reports from the troupe working on location in Idaho for ‘Northwest Passage’ carry stories about a 12 year old boy called Ivan “Pieface” Hansen. The stunt men along marveled at his toughness and strength – he swims like a fish, and leapt from a raft at the last moment before it went over a 50 foot waterfall. (Another account says he was 15. Two stunt men who were also on the raft were Harold Herman ‘Stubby’ Kruger, former Olympic swimmer, and Tony Beard, a 1932-34 USC football star. Per the Post-Register of Idaho Falls, the troupe was switching base of operations from McCall ID to Idaho Falls on 7/7/1938. The plan was to shoot at Mesa Falls east of Ashton ID. No stars were along, but Wallace Beery’s double Harry Wilson was. Others in the party – Len Smith, head cameraman, Jim Thorpe, extra, Col Tim McCoy, tech director in charge of the Indians employed, Eddie Waller, assistant director, all headed up by Frank Messenger (along with MGM the target of a law suit brought by Boise hotel man Keith Farley, for meals supplied to the Indian extras. He was trying to collect 11,987 dollars)].