Dorothy Arzner in the 20's 'n' 30's

4/26/1934 HCN Elizabeth Yeaman Although no contract has been signed, everybody at Universal seems to be quite confidant, unofficially, that Charles Laughton will be obtained for one of the starring roles in One More River. At least the studio is not even looking at any other actors for the part of the sadistic husband who brings such grief to his young wife and the young man whom she loves innocently. Diana Wynyard, you know, will be borrowed from MGM for the part of the wife. Laughton is now definitely scheduled to return to Hollywood on May 15, and he will be accompanied by his wife, Elsa Lanchester, who probably will have some film offers since she proved her ability as a comedienne so successfully in The Private Life of Henry VIII. Laughton, of course, will first go to MGM for the role of the sinister Father Barrett in The Barretts of Wimpole Street. The picture is now in production on scenes in which Laughton is not required. Laughton also has a contract to complete at Paramount, where stories are being planned for him. But Universal seems to have some assurance that this remarkable English actor can find the time to sandwich in a powerful portrayal for One More River. Since it is a Galsworthy story, he probably would like to do the role, and in his case the wish is likely to be the father of the deed. .... Also scheduled to return to Hollywood on May 15, from London, is Fred Astaire. Astaire is coming back to complete his contract with Radio Pictures, and his next picture will be the screen adaptation of his recent London stage hit, The Gay Divorcee. Thelma Todd this morning was selected for one of the feminine leads. She has been granted a vacation until she is needed for the picture. Ginger Rogers will be co-starred with Astaire as a follow up to their success in Flying Down to Rio. Ginger, at the moment, is on a six week's vacation. And The Gay Divorcee, which will be a musical, probably will get before the cameras the last of May. .... A story which I could not trace to its source is going about to the effect that Mae West will be the star of a picture titled Me and the King. Authors of this story are Marcel Ventura and Alexis Thurn-Taxis, and it is said that Me and the King will be made by Miss West following The Queen of Sheba. However, Paramount professes complete ignorance of these plans and denies knowledge of the existence or purchase of such a story. On the other hand, studio heads sometimes makes plans and forget to inform department heads of their plans. .... There's Always Tomorrow should have gone into production some days ago, but the picture is being delayed by some difficulties in casting. Frank Morgan has been borrowed for one of the leads, and Louise Latimer, a newcomer at Universal, is still scheduled to make her film debut in the picture. Maurice Murphy is also cast. But the two important feminine roles are still vacant. Lois Wilson is being tested for the part of the mother. And Esther Ralston and Genevieve Tobin are being tested for the romantic lead. A decision on these casting assignments probably will be made today. .... Myron Fagan, playwright and producer, declares that Henry Kolker gives a much finer performance in "Men In White" than the actor who portrays the same role in the New York production. Kolker's appearance in this play certainly should stimulate studio interest in him. He has now been engaged by Paramount for a featured role in She Loves Me Not costarring Miriam Hopkins and Bing Crosby. The picture will be at a standstill for about two weeks because Miss Hopkins is nursing a badly wrenched ankle. The ankle is an old offender, in fact it was responsible for Miriam's career as a dramatic actress. She had trained to become a dancer, and after weary weeks of job-seeking in New York, she won an engagement with a company that was leaving for South America. Just before the company sailed, Miriam sprained her ankle. She was so discouraged that she took up acting and forgot about dancing. .... Paul Kelly is to have an important role in Barbary Coast when Samuel Goldwyn finally gets around to making this picture. Anna Sten will be the feminine star instead of Gloria Swanson, but Gary Cooper remains scheduled for the male lead. Miss Sten will first make Resurrection with Fredric March under Rouben Mamoulian's direction. That picture will not start before June 1, so you may rest assured that Barbara Coast will not be started until fall. Alison Skipworth has been borrowed from Paramount for a role in the latter picture. .... Bryan Foy starts work today on High School Girl from the story by Crane Wilbur and with Wilbur directing. Cecilia Parker, Helen MacKellar, Noel Warwick, Carlyle Moore Jr., and Mahlon Hamilton have been engaged for the cast. .... Casting About: Halliwell Hobbes will portray a British ambassador in British Agent at Warners. Maude Eburne will have a comedy role in Hey, Sailor! at Warners. John Beal, Broadway actor in She Loves Me Not is coming to Radio Pictures for a role in A Hat, A Coat, A Glove. Treasure Hunt will be the title of the new Eddie Cantor musical in which the comedian will be seen as an African explorer.Dorothy Arzner in the 20's 'n' 30'sABBREVIATIONSDN – Los Angeles Daily NewsEH – Los Angeles Evening HeraldEHE – Los Angeles Evening Herald ExpressFD – Film DailyHCN – Hollywood Citizen NewsIDN – Illustrated Daily News (Los AngelesLAR – Los Angeles RecordLAPR – Los Angeles Post-RecordLAX – Los Angeles ExaminerLEE – Los Angeles Evening ExpressMPH – Motion Picture Herald**SFC – San Francisco Chronicle** The Motion Picture Herald, and Film Daily are not Los Angeles newspapers. They are trade publications3/30/1925 (Uniontown Morning Herald) PENN HAS FAST ACTION STORY PLAYING TODAY Breed of the Border, a rattling story of the Great American Desert, gold mining and how "Circus" Lacey, all dressed up like a horse and buggy, saved Esmerelda from the ravages of a bandit gang, contains many unusual and distinctive characters as well as a wealth of real action and comedy. It is an adaptation by Paul Gangelin and Dorothy Arzner of a magazine story by William Hoffman, and it gives Lefty Flynn his best starring vehicle under the F.B.O. banner. Harry Garson, producer and director of the story turned out a feature with tense drama and thrills, and in the famous "Death Valley" locations has caught with great realism the spirit as well as the backgrounds of the grim desert, taking its toll of the man who braves its hardships. Dorothy Dwan, Mr. Flynn's new leading lady, proves a charming heroine, while all of the cast, including Louise Carver, Milton Ross, Frank Hagney, Joe Bennett, Fred Burns and Bill Donovan are excellent. Breed of the Border comes to the Penn Theater today and tomorrow.10/18/1925 (Davenport Democrat and Leader-Post) POSTPONE FILMING LEW TYLER'S WIVES Dancing Days will be William Wellman's first directorial assignment for Preferred Pictures, B.P. Schulberg has announced. It was previously planned to give Wellman, Lew Tyler's Wives By Wallace Irwin as his initial production under his new contract but difficulties in securing a proper masculine lead for the title role at the present time have necessitated in filming this famous novel of marriage. Mr. Schulberg's casting department will continue its search for a letter-perfect Lew Tyler who, according to the book, is a combination hero and heavy. This is now scheduled as Wellman's second picture. Meanwhile, he has already begun the direction of Dancing Days, the story of which is by Dorothy Caros. Dorothy Arzner has just completed the adaptation and the cast is now being chosen. It is a society drama describing the exploits of a never-stay-home family.1/9/1927 (Galveston Daily News) WOMAN CHOSEN FILM DIRECTOR Hollywood has given the megaphone to a woman, Dorothy Arzner, the girl who single-handled ct and edited The Covered Wagon and Old Ironsides, two of the most important photoplays in screen history. Her initial directorial assignment will be Esther Ralston's first starring vehicle, Fashions For Women. Miss Arzner is said to be the only woman in the industry to be made a director in the last ten years. The selection of Miss Arzner, herself the product of Los Angeles, comes as a result of seven years of untiring labor as a script girl, film cutter, and scenario writer. To her, it fulfills a dream of twenty-one years ago, when she was a child at the old Hoffman Cafe in Los Angeles, the rendezvous of almost every motion picture pioneer on the west coast. Louis Arzner, her father, operated the cafe and scores of the present day film celebrities, almost unknown at that time, would take Dorothy on their knees and relate to her their fascinating film deeds. Late in 1919 she went to the Paramount studio asking for a chance to enter motion picture work at the bottom end at her own request began by typing scripts. From that lowly post she rose through script girl on the set to cutter, then writer, returning to editing, at the insistence of James Cruze, to do what is declared to be one of the most nearly perfect examples of film editing in screen history on Old Ironsides, then received her reward in the opportunity to become a director. 1/20/1927 (Oakland Tribune) 25-YEAR OLD OAKLAND GIRL IS ONLY WOMAN DIRECTOR In a rise of fortune as rapid and sensational as that of any heroine of the silver screen which has given her the reward, Dorothy Arzner, 25, a former resident of Oakland and pupil in the Lafayette school, has just signed a contract as Paramount's first woman director at a salary of $5,000 per month, and the second woman to hold such a position in the entire history of the film industry. Miss Arzner started work sometime ago as a humble script typist for William DeMille, widely known director, and served successively as a cutter, scenarist and assistant director, being the aid of James Cruze in the production of Old Ironsides. From humble script typist to Hollywood's only woman director at a salary of $5,000 per month is the story of Dorothy Arzner, 25-year-old Oakland girl. Miss Arzner was born in Oakland and until she was ten years of age lived at 5– Twenty-first street and attended the Lafayette school. The family moved to Los Angeles when her father, at that time holding of the dining concession on the Southern Pacific ferries, was given the management of the old Hoffman Cafe in the southern city. The cafe was, at that time, the rendezvous for most of the pioneers of the film industry, and it was here that the first ambition for a professional career was aroused in the girl. During the war Miss Arzner enlisted in the ambulance corps, of which William DeMille, director and producer, was one of the organizers, and upon her return from France obtained a "job" as script typist in his studios. From this position she went to that of film cutter in the Famous Players-Lasky studios and here encountered James Cruze, whom she had known at the old Hoffman cafe when he was an actor. Cruze, now a director, induced the girl to join Paramount as a cutter and she met with such success that she was put under contract. The girl's big opportunity came when Cruze starting filming Old Ironsides. The director engaged Miss Arzner as his assistant in making the Revolutionary war sea drama. During the filming of the sea scenes of this picture Miss Arzner was the only woman at sea with a company consisting of 3300 men. Upon the completion of Old Ironsides she was appointed a full-fledged director, the first in the history of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and the second in the history of the film industry. The $5,000-a-month Oakland miss is now at work on the production of Fashions For Women, the first starring vehicle of Esther Ralston and Miss Arzner's first picture.3/18/1927 (Southtown Economist) For the first time in 15 years, Hollywood reports a shortage of beautiful women. Dorothy Arzner, new woman director for Paramount, reports that she is having a difficult time filling the quota of 15 beautiful mannequins required for a style show in her first picture, Fashions For Women, starring Esther Ralston.4/10/1927 FD Fashions For WomenParamount Length: 6296 ft. Pictorial spectacle. Beautiful women, gorgeous clothes, lavish sets–they furnish a feast for the eyes. Story quite negligible. CAST......Esther Ralston quite a worthy distraction in the dual roles of a famous fashion beauty and the girl who doubles for her. Einar Hanson good looking but he has no part at all. Raymond Hatton the laugh maker. Others, Edward Martindel, Wm. Orlamond, Maude Wayne. Story and Production......Comedy romance. With such an array of finery, beauty and general elegance it probably isn't essential that the story should be anything more than framework upon which to hang the trimmings. The story is from the stage play, The Girl of the Hour, but it is quite possible that much of the original has been shelved to permit old dame fashion to have her fling. Raymond Hatton makes Esther Ralston the sensation of Paris when he arranges for her to double for the famous Celeste de Givray. Direction......Dorothy Arzner. Good. Authors......Paul Armont-Leopold Marchand. Scenario......Percy Heath. Photography......H. Kinley Martin. Very Good.5/10/1927 (Ogden Standard-Examiner) BEAUTIFUL GIRLS NOT ALWAYS DUMB Who said "beautiful but dumb?" "Don't kid yourself, says Dorothy Arzner, woman director for Paramount, "anyone who thinks obtuseness goes with beauty like ham with eggs is all moist." Miss Arzner should now. She recently send out a call for Hollywood's fifteen most beautiful girls to act mannequin parts in Esther Ralston's first starring vehicle, Fashions For Women, which reaches the Paramount Theater Wednesday. Two hundred tests were required before Miss Arzner finally selected fifteen. They were all beautiful and none of them were dumb. "In fact," said Paramount's new director, "I think beauty is a companion of mental cleverness. The fifteen girls finally selected are unusually bright. Several of them are college graduates. And one of the fifteen could come under the dumb classification. They're all mentally alert, well read, well bred and a type that might fit into any society group." The fifteen chosen were Beth Laemmle, Estelle Eterre, Bess Flowers, Jean Lorraine, Joyce Clark, Ethel Sykes, Lorraine Eddy, Muriel Finley, Constance Finley, Hazel Howell, Edwina Booth, Dixie Davis, Iris Ashton, Doris Hill and Marie Pergain.5/31/1927 (Modesto News-Herald) Fashions For Women From a bobbed-haired French cafe girl to the most famous woman in Paris and then back again to the restaurant–all in the brief space of seven days goes to make the "large" night's entertainment. Esther Ralston's first starring comedy Fashions For Women, the Paramount photoplay which had its premiere last evening at the Strand Theater, contains so much rare humor and such an orgy of beautiful gowns that the opening night audience was one of the noisiest of the year with its approving ovations. Embellished by beautiful blonde Esther Ralston, the picture itself has the four-fold attraction of humorous situations, fairy tale romance, the fascination of a dual role and styles enough to touch any woman's heart. Just because she resembles a famous mannequin, the most talked of woman in Paris, Esther Ralston, an impish devil-may-care cigarette girl, is selected to impersonate the noted model at a huge fashion show. The double role is particularly well filmed and the different personalities of the two women, the cigarette girl and model, is exceedingly convincing for, being the same person, only a careful differentiation of mannerisms–a stride or tilt of the head–can serve to distinguish them. Einar Hanson, as the aviator lover, looks to be the most European leading man importation thus far. Raymond Hatton, the modiste shop's press agent, lends much comedy through his bantamlike gestures. The story was made for Paramount by Dorothy Arzner, one of the few women directors in picturedom. Her knowledge of women's clothing and deftness of direction during the huge fashion show assisted much in the film's success. Rejuvenated Mabel Normand in a comedy, The Nickel Hopper, and a novelty, So This Is Europe, are also shown.7/17/1927 FD Ten Modern CommandmentsParamount Length: 6497 ft. Just what they like. Story of stage life with backstage atmosphere. Certain to please. Well directed. CAST......Esther Ralston the stunning blonde heroine who had the women in the audience gasping with her luxurious costumes. Neil Hamilton, the handsome young song writer. Arthur Hoyt first rate as the besieged play producer. Others Romaine Fielding, Joycelyn Lee, Roscoe Karns. Story and Production.....Comedy Romance. Dorothy Arzner has turned out a genuinely find entertainment in Ten Modern Commandments. It has box office elements of no means proportions and judging from the reception it got at the Paramount Theater the picture seems destined for a merry trip around the exchanges of the country. They roared continuously at the tragic plight of the poor little play producer, who hired a blonde "mama" to vamp him as a means of ridding himself of the star of his show. How she succeeds makes for good amusement. Direction......Dorothy Arzner. Splendid. Author......Jack Lait. Scenario......Doris Anderson-Paul Gangelon. Photography......Alfred Gilks. Excellent.11/20/1927 (Billings Gazette) MOVIE MEGASCOPE It has taken a woman to achieve the first striking improvement in megaphone design. She is Dorothy Arzner, one of the few women directors and one of the youngest. She found that by forming a rectangular opening in the large end of the horn she could look through the mouthpiece and "line up" her players as though they were on a screen, and this without detracting from the usefulness of the thing as a speech magnifier. If other directors adopt the idea the megaphone, which has been in danger of disappearing altogether from the movie sets, may yet be rescued from the cinema's ash-heap.12/25/1927 FD Get Your ManParamount Length: 5718 ft. Clever French skit with comedy highlights gives Clara Bow a fine chance to flash her vivid personality. CAST......Clara gets her man by methods highly original and amusing. Charles Rogers, the willing victim. Josef Swickard and Harvey Clarke two engaging French daddies. Others, Josephine Dunn and Frances Raymond. Story and Production......Comedy Romance. Adapted from Louis Vernuil's play. Clara Bow is placed in a French setting, and starts out to get for herself a young French gallant betrothed to another girl. The plot is by a French writer, and is witty, sprightly and full of clever comedy situations. It opens with an entertaining sequence with Clara and her "man" locked in the wax works museum in Paris. Clara, learning that her sweetie is betrothed to another against his will, starts out to bust up the marriage arranged by the daddies of the youthful pair. Parking herself in the French home, she pulls a line of artful scheming filled with comedy wows. Of course she gets her man. Delightful fun. Direction......Dorothy Arzner. Classy. Author......Louis Verneuil. Scenario......Hope Loring. Photography......Alfred Gilks. First-rate.3/11/1928 (Oakland Tribune) Hollywood By Dave Keene Hollywood, March 10.–Of the nineteen vocations open to women in the motion picture industry directing seems to be the inner shrine of the inner circle. Of the 336 recognized motion picture directors in Hollywood but two of them are women: Dorothy Arzner and Lois Weber. Between them they made four pictures last year; Miss Arzner three and Miss Weber one. Miss Arzner, who started her career as a studio stenographer, directed Fashions For Women and Ten Modern Commandments, starring Esther Ralston, and Get Your Man, starring Clara Bow. Miss Weber directed The Angel of Broadway for DeMille. But it is a fact that motion pictures offer a great opportunity to women. Here are the other eighteen vocations open to feminine talent in the studios: Acting, writing, accounting, stenography, publicity, script clerk, film cutter, casting, needlework, costume designing, set decorator, research work, hairdresser and beauty operator, portrait retoucher, wardrobe attendant, lady's maid, still photography, story reading. Of these, acting, writing and film cutting are the most desirable. Both Miss Arzner and Miss Weber spent some time as film cutters. Film cutting is film editing; splicing the scenes together in proper sequence, trimming the footage so that the action is smooth and brisk. Miss Arzner cut several of the Rudolph Valentino pictures. Her last being she became a director was Old Ironsides.4/19/1928 (Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune) Get Your Man IDEAL THEATER Get Your Man which opened Sunday at the Ideal Theatre, is a woman-made production.If that is a type of what women executives can do with a motion picture, then a new vogue is due to be established in the industry, for Get Your Man is a huge success. The women angle comes about in this manner; Clara Bow is the star, Dorothy Arzner directed. Hope Loring wrote the story, Agnes brand Leahy did the continuity. Henrietta Cohn served as unit business manager and Marion Morgan was a technical director. The picture is a personal victory for each of the women and a brilliant achievement for the feminine touch. Clara Bow has made even a greater hit in her fourth Paramount starring vehicle than in IT, Rough House Rosie and Hula if such be possible. Dorothy Arzner has certainly surpassed her own high mark established in Fashions For Women and Ten Modern Commandments. Miss Loring wrote a delightful screen story from this popular French play by Louis Verneuil and adds to her list of successes which already includes IT, Wings and Children of Divorce. Miss Leahy worked out the continuity to form an interesting, absorbing chain which make use of all the play's dramatic qualities. The business management has left little to be desired, for the picture is splendidly finished. The work of Miss Morgan in posing her dancers for the wax models produced astonishing effects. Miss Bow is surrounded by an excellent cast, including Charles Rogers, Josephine Dunn, Josef Swickard and Harvey Clarke. The story is of an American girl who is forced to manipulate the break of a traditional French betrothal between Rogers and Miss Dunn, who do not love each other, before Miss Bow and Rogers can marry. It is a comedy, chock full of laughs and dramatic thrills.8/1/1928 (Edwardsville Intelligencer) Dorothy Arzner, the only woman ever given a director's megaphone by Jesse L. Lasky, is soon to start work after a long rest. She will direct Nancy Carroll, of Abie's Irish Rose fame, and Richard Arlen, Clara Bow's leading man in Ladies of the Mob, in a story of a chorus girl and back stage life. Miss Arzner is young, slight, freckled and quiet-spoken. She walks with a rather deliberate swing and has a swell sense of humor. She learned picture making as a stenographer, script clerk and cutter. She is reputed to be one of the best cutters in the business.10/9/1928 (Edwardsville Intelligencer) Dorothy Arzner, the woman director, has completed camera work on Manhattan Cocktail and is now editing the film.11/17/1928 (Reno Evening Gazette) APOLLO LEAPS BACK FENCE TO PICTURE FAME George Bruggerman, twenty-two climbed the back fence to fame and landed a fat part in a motion picture the other day. Unable to crash the gates of a Hollywood studio, Bruggerman, winner of a dozen tests of physical perfection, went around to the back of the twenty-six-acre studio and scaled the fifteen-foot barbed wire crested fence. Then he went to Dorothy Arzner, the director of Manhattan Cocktail. She was impressed with his appearance and his manner of entering the studio. She arranged for a screen test and the part was his. Bruggerman is a Belgian and won fame as the world's youngest motorcycle rider, having begun his velodrome career at the age of three and a half years. He is six feet tall and weighs 185 pounds.12/2/1928 FD Manhattan CocktailParamount Length: 6051 ft. Technically perfect production with handsome mountings tied up to a kindergarten plot. Hick entertainment all about wicked New York. CAST......Nancy Carroll, demure and sexy, carries strong appeal. Richard Arlen scores decisively. Lilyan Tashman does an exotic characterization that is pretty nearly the best part of the production and should entitle her to featured prominence. Others, Danny O'Shea, Paul Lukas. Story and Production......Love Drama. They put everything into this filmograph but a grown up story. Modernistic settings, ideal cast, expert camera work, and the individualistic directorial treatment of Dorothy Arzner are all class. Then the kindergarten mush was passed out in steady doses through the infantile plot. Nancy comes through to New York to go on the stage. Richard, a budding playwright, follows. Nancy lands in a Broadway show, because the producer wants Nancy for immoral purposes. Then comes the meller plot–framing the boyfriend to get the gal, etc., etc. Cheap meller gorgeously gowned makes light entertainment. Synchronized with song sequence. Direction, Dorothy Arzner, classy; Author, Ernest Vajda; Scenario, Ethel Doherty; Editor, Doris Drought; Titles, George Marion Jr.; Photography, Harry Fischbeck, the best.12/13/1928 (Edwardsville Intelligencer) Dorothy Arzner, now the only woman director in Hollywood, will direct Clara Bow's all-talking picture, The Wild Party.1/20/1929 (Kingsport Times) Hollywood Sights and Sounds By Robbin Coons Hollywood–The testimony of the extras who work under them is a reasonably good criterion of the capabilities of the motion picture director, and put to that test, Dorothy Arzner, Hollywood's only woman director, measures up to any of them. One cannot remain in Hollywood long without hearing of the little woman who, in her own words, "pried the studio gates open with a typewriter," learned the picture game from the inside, and came at length to realize an ambition when she was entrusted with the direction of an Esther Ralston vehicle. She has been at a Paramount megaphone ever since. SHE'S THERE Clara Bow (you may have heard of her) has worked in several pictures under Miss Arzner, and the little redhead whoopee girl, resting between scenes on a Wild Party set, testifies from a star's viewpoint that Dorothy Arzner as a director is all "there." But four young extra girls of the picture, during the comparative leisure of the noon lunch period, amplify the star's beginning, and attest that Dorothy Arzner's sex, while it does not prevent her being as firm, as quick to make decisions, and as efficient as an man, gives her the advantages of "a woman's understanding." Too, they declare, she has the patience of Job, and sweetness, and a positive gift for getting things done, and quickly. NOT EASY Nor is this testimony biased by any consideration that the director, being a woman, is therefore "easy"–far from it. These girls tell of her zeal for work, and her ability to draw it from her players. It is a point of pride with Miss Arzner that her film product is measured as sternly as that of all directors, and she sees nothing unusual in the fact that she is doing a work monopolized, with two previous exceptions by men. Directing she chose for her career, and she trained herself for success in it, trained for eight years. 2/6/1929 (Olean Times) FILM BEAUTY IS ONLY HUNTED TO PLEASE PUBLIC By William Mountain Hollywood, Calif.—The dream of beauty for its own fair sake is not the ambition of this modern Baghdad where beauty is found in every laundry and at every lunch counter. Beauty here is sought for specific and strictly utilitarian purposes–that is, to serve the cinematic art. And that means amusing and releasing the public from its constricting complexes and swelling the box office. Pulchritude is plentiful in Hollywood. But often the casting director is handed a difficult problem. Here's one instance. Paramount is about to film The Wild Party with Clara Bow in her first all-talking picture. A drive is on in all the highways and byways of celluloid city for eight girls, all having "It," to take parts in this melange of modern night club revelry. Scores of willing candidates have been tested and the octette has not as yet been selected. Just how beautiful should a night club girl be? That's a new question in filmdom and Miss Dorothy Arzner, who will direct the Wild Party, is trying to find out. Every morning the entire cast for the picture gathered around a table with Miss Arzner and Robert Milton, New York stage director, as mentors. The dialogue of the picture is read by each character in turn. No actual rehearsal will be had until every player is letter perfect. Later reports that the search for eight Whoopee girls to support Clara Bow is still in progress. This may be true. From Paramount studio comes the report that in filming the all-talking Wild Party it was necessary to install a special "It proof" sound recording equipment. When the red-headed Clara spoke her first lines a whole lot of radio tubes burst in the recording room. Technicians explained there was too much "It" in the sound of the star's voice.4/14/1929 (Galveston Daily News) The Wild Party As an irrepressible, irresponsible college girl, idolized by her chums, Clara Bow is said to show unexpected dramatic and emotional ability while romping through the picture, The Wild Party showing at the Queen today and Monday and Tuesday. Starting Wednesday Willard Mack, famous David Belasco stage star and playwright, will present his first personally produced and directed "all-talking" picture, The Voice of the City, a MGM release. In The Wild Party, which marks Miss Bow's first entrance into the talking picture filed, she falls in love with one of her professors, gets him and herself into plenty of trouble, and finally sacrifices herself for her roommate's reputation. The story of The Wild Party, from one written by Warner Fabian, author of the originator of all the wild party stories, "Flaming Youth," calls for youth's maddest flaunting of the conventions, and the action reaches many a crescendo pitch as Clara and her mates have their wild, unbridled flings in night clubs and at weekend parties. There is an undercurrent of true romance throughout the play, which bubbles to the surface triumphantly in the last few scenes. Intelligent direction is said to be responsible for a great part of the picture's success. Dorothy Arzner, Hollywood's only woman director, has invested the production with a genuine boarding school atmosphere, breaking away from the threadbare methods of presenting such material in her dormitory and classroom scenes. Fredric March, a member of the Theater Guild Company that toured the country last season, and who many from here saw during their engagement in Houston last year, heads the supporting cast, and is said to show the value of his stage trained voice in the role of the professor, who considers his pupils a group of "half wits and mulish morons." He gives a very convincing performance. An excellent choice for president of the student body is Marceline Day, whose rich, well-modulated tones are said to be a real recorded surprise of the production. Joyce Compton, the college snoop, Shirley O'Hara, and Adrianne Dore are also well cast; important male members, in addition to Mr. March, are Jack Oakie, Phillips P. Holmes, Ben Hendricks Jr., Jack Luden and Jack Raymond. Spoken dialogue throughout the picture is said to add to its effectiveness. Clara Bow's voice, heard for the first time in this picture, is of an agreeable contralto quality. Her transformation to the talkies, while rapid, is said to be accompanied with ease, and assures her continued popularity as a speaking screen star. Again the Queen will introduce a new novelty in the Paramount short subject, Sidewalks of New York, which will be the highlight of the surrounding program. In these novelty arrangements of popular songs, with words and music on the screen, audiences are said to irresistably join in the singing. "The cleverest novelty in sound we have ever seen," was the report of the Howard Theater, Altoona, Pa. "It is recommended for every theater, regardless of size. Audiences not only sang loud and courageously, but applauded after every showing." Jan Rubini, "The Violin Virtuso," makes his Vitaphone debut on the program, assisted by Vernon Rickard, Irish tenor, and with Mona Content at the piano. Rubini known to the concert stages throughout the world, will offer "Zigeurnerweisen," "I Love You Truly" (sung by Mr. Rickard) and "I Hear You Calling Me." Fox Movietone News will again have the honor of presenting historical events of today's news in sound, talking scenes of the funeral of Marshal Foch, hero of France, as he is laid to rest as the world mourns. These shots show the body of the great soldier being taken down the Champ Elysses to the Arc de Tromphe and lies beside Unknown Soldier, while Paris pays homage.10/19/1929 LAR On the Dotted Line Dorothy Arzner, only woman director under contract to a motion picture studio, has signed a new contract as a Paramount director. She will start soon on the direction of Ruth Chatterton in Sarah and Son.