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I STAR I
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★ A\_ovie • Radio *
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★ ★* By VIRGINIA VALE***
BETTE DAVIS is still try
ing to live up to the repu
tation she made for herself
by her performance in “Of
Human Bondage,” and in
“Jezebel” she does pretty
well.
Furthermore, she shows as much
courage in playing the heroine as she
did in that other success—for once
again she has a decidedly unsym
pathetic role,
‘'Jezebel" is a good picture, with
a good cast, and an assortment of
Southern accents that’s something
to hear. It’s the first of a collection
of Civil war pictures—or rather, pic
tures with a Civil war background—
which will include ‘‘The Unvan
quished,” and "Action in Aquila" as
well as “Gone With the Wind,” pro
vided they ever get around to mak
ing that last one!
Remember all the to-do about
whether Paulette Goddard would or
would not land the role of “Scarlett”
in that same ‘‘Gone With the
Wind?” Well, after signing a long
term contract with David Selznick
she was assigned to a co-starring
role with Janet Gaynor in “The
Young in Heart," which ought to
make a depightful picture. And,
speaking of the talented Janet, dis
cussions of those Academy awards
Janet Gaynor
still echo from the hills about Holly
wood. Lots of people thought the
little Gaynor ought to receive one of
the awards for her performance in
"A Star Is Born.” In fact, they got
pretty sentimental about it, because
she won the Academy award for the
year’s best performance way back
in 1927, for her work in “Seventh
Heaven.”
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You’ll certainly want to see Dean
na Durbin in “Mad About Music.”
There you have a plot, a delightful
one, perfectly suited to the talents
of the youthful star, and with a
grand part for Herbert Marshall
which he handles expertly. In fact,
it's a grand picture all the way
through, with the young Deanna
singing a popular number, “I Love
to Whistle,” as beautifully as 6he
does Gounod's “Ave Maria.”
M
Graham McNamee celebrates 15
years of broadcasting, this spring,
though he feels perfectly certain
that he hasn’t been at it that long.
But it actually was 15 years ago
that he W'ent into the office of a
New York station looking for a job.
He’s been busy ever since—hasn’t
been without a commercial program
since they first were put on the air.
_%_
Peter van Steeden is having a lot
of fun with a new recording device.
When his friends telephone him, he
records their voices, and then tele
phones them later and plays the
record back to them.
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It’s funny, the way that radio
audiences are classified. For in
stance, Haven MacQuarrie’s “Do
You Want to Be an Actor?” pro
gram was considered just right for
an automobile company that wanted
to plug the sales of used cars—the
program was said to have strong
middle-class appeal.
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ODDS and ENDS . . . Thai new Tim
and Irene show is going great guns . . .
Mas be one of the most popular radio
programs of its kind before long . . .
Jane II ithers has a new trailer which
she uses as a dressing room . . . Stan
Laurel hud to get a new derby for
“Swiss Miss”; the one he’d been using
for twelve years fell to pieces . . .
flow’d you like to earn your living
by supplying bugs, butterflies and in
sects to a motion picture studio? A
man in Hollywood does it . . . Radio’s
Eoicc of Experience was an aulomo.
bile salesman for thirty days, before
he became the Voice of Experience,
and averaged a sale a day . . . If you
hear Mary Livingston getting mixed up
in her lines on that Jack Renny broad
cast you’ll know that she had some
thing to eat; usually she doesn’t eat at
»’/ on Sundays until the program’s
oyer . . . For one scene in “Holiday”
Katherine Hepburn had to run up a
fifty-two step stairway; she did it nine
times in succession . . . And was Cary
Grant glad that the script arranged to
have him walk.
@ Western Newspaper Union.
Med the Sound Effects Man . . .
Among unsung heroes of the far-from
silent screen, an important fellow these days
When the ear catches as much as the eye, is
the sound effects man of a Hollywood studio.
His shop and storehouse may give outward
appearance of being a junkroom, filled with
miscellaneous trinkets that—apparently—no
one wants or needs. But although each of
these gadgets accumulates dust 364 days of
the year, each likewise has its day of glory,
producing mechanically and artificially a cer
tain noise that sounds like the real thing.
Crafty sound effects men save their employ
ers thousands of dollars; why move sound
equipment to a noisy factory when the same
type of pounding can be produced artificially
right in the studio? Such is the job of Joseph
Delfino, sound effects man for Twentieth Cen
tury-Fox studios, shown at right with his wife
at home.
This Magician Makes Himself
Into Gurgling, Babbling Brook
Or a Terrifying Wind Storm
Fifty-three-year-old Joseph Delfino has been making movies realistic since
1928, but no one heard of him until FOTO-FEATURE visited the Delfino ren
dezvous, a crowded storeroom on the Twentieth Century-Fox lot in Beverly
Hills, Calif. His “studio,” the only one of its kind in the industry, furnished
the moaning, howling, rumbling, roaring, crackling and hissing for “In Old
Chicago,” “Lloyds of London” and other productions, most recently for “Sally,
Irene and Mary.” To see Delfino placidly winding a crank at the left, you’d
hardly imagine that a few weeks hence cinema audiences will sigh over the
poetic sound made by a babbling brook. For that, precisely, is the noise this
contraption sends into the motion picture microphone.
Delfino makes nice music with the
above horn, but more noise with the
train effect machines below. His right
hand makes a “clickety-click” rhythm,
while the left hand sounds like an ele
vated train or a roller-coaster. The
panorama scene of his headquarters
gives you an idea of the complex job.
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After making queer noises all day, it’s nice to sit before the
fireplace in your West Los Angeles home, reading while the wife
does a bit of needlework, Delfino thinks up a lot of new sound
effect gadgets at home, but has also found time to build more
than half the furniture for this cozy cottage. He and his wife
personally decorated the house.
Above our hero is seen reading a script of “Sally, Irene
and Mary,” the new Fox production. From this script he
prepared an advance work sheet for special sound effects,
then collaborated with the sound recording engineer and
assistant director on what was needed before work started.
This done, he goes into the kitchen (left) and dons an
apron, turning out tastier “grub” than his wife. At least
that’s Delfino’s story. And on Sunday they go strolling.