The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-07-07
IN HOLLYWOOD .
---A------------- IN HOLLYWOOD Even Directors Are Afraid
 Of This New Film Llminary
Scientific Movie Short Hero Is $25OOOO Parcel of Radum wu Scarcely Larger Than Matchhead, But
 More Respected Than GarbO
Rv PAUL HARRISON

NEA Service stan Correspondent
 Hollywood. .-On Stage 22 at Metro, Pete Smith and his staff, together with a scientist from California tech, are making a film short about radium. The studio has rented $25O,O0O worth of the stuff, but even that amount is scarcely larger than the head of 8 match.
 The most precious of elements isn't very exciting to see. Looks like gray talcurn powder and isn't yisibly luminous. But at the stu dio it commands more awed re- spect and curiosity than Greta Garbo, and is as closely guarded.
 During actual filming of the substance, only three persons are permitted on the set, and they wear suits of leaden arm0r.
 The camera also is shielded by heavy lead plates because, al- though radium's rays are invisible to the eye, they affect photo- graphic film. But for the shields, the rays would penetrate the cam era housing and ruin all the film inside. So only the lens is exposed.
 So much publicity ballyhood has been written about preparations for this picture that there is no telling just where theatricalism leaves of and necessary precautions begin.
 Everyone on the set seems to be afraid of the radium even while it remains in the polished metcl case which is slung from a strap over the doctors shoulder. Inside the case is a glass vial Within the vial is 8 hollow platinum nee- dle. The radium is in the needle.
 The doctor who'll manipulate the radium for the camera will stand behind a wall of lead through which holes have been cut for his arms. His arms and hands must be protected by rub Der armor impregnated with led. He won't look directly at the dan gerous stuff, but into periscope.
 The set for most of the shots in the picture is a laboratory, and this, in turn, is part of a larger set used in the filming of General HospitaP and for that highly un- scientific epic of the Marxes, "A Day at the Races"
 The picture is to be strictly scientific except for one se- quence, and the radium expert is so indignant about that one that he won't permit his name to be used in connection with the short.
 In order to provide a little va riety, Smith has included a se- quence about an African native who has been mangled by a lion. Tho tribes witch doctors dig hole in the ground, bury the vic- tim up to his neck, and leave him there for four days. When they dig him up again his wounds are healed-due. presumably. to the presence of traces of radium in the earth.
 When the doctor heard about that he said, ''Phooey!" or maybe "PrepOsterous!" Anyways he doesn't want to be identified with any such hocus- -pocus.
 WeIghty Scene
 Luise Rainer and Spencer Tracy have started work in picture about war between two rival groups of taxicab operators. She has the role of Tracy's wife-her first straight, modern part since she came to Hollywood.
 He's a taxi driver, and plenty tough. In fact, the whole picture will be plenty tough; they'll smash q fleet of 65 cabs and have hired practically all the stunt men and former prizefighters in town for the gang fights
 For one of the initial sequences he had to carry Miss Rainer up a long flight of stairs, with a cam era boom following them along the railing. To get the timing and light ing just right, and presumably to spare Tracy some effort. dummy was made to represent the actress. But the effigy was life sized and must have been stuffed with sand,