The Wilmington morning star., 1940-06-09
MOVIES ARE STILL
USING OLD TRICKS
Sunrise Employed AS Sunset
In Frank James Train
Robbery
BY HUBBARD KEAVY

BY HUBBARD "A
HOLLYWOOD-R-The fellow
who wrote the script put in a lot
of dialog and a couple of prellml-
nary scenes about Frank James
holding up a train at sunset. And
so the impending hold-up at sunset
was planted thoroughly and ire
vocably in the dialog.
When it came time to film the
hold-up, just about everybody dis
covered all at once that it couldn't
be. The mountain was there and
the train was here and the setting
sun was way over there, back OF
the Gamers It looked like 1.-The re-
turn of Frank James was in for
a spell of re-takes.
But the worriers reckoned With
out the ingenuity of Fritz Lang,
the director. He said We'll film II
in the morning, when the sun is
rising. and if we do it real quick
and with the right filters no one
will ever know the difference. And
I'll betcha you won't.
Walter Bradfield. part of whose
Job is to tell about the charms OF
the charming Steffi Duna, is tell
ing now about how Steffi got back
into the cinema.
Seems she was without a job
and was all but forgotten. A di-
rector, looking for a girl for a part
in his film was sitting in a pro-
lection room more or less patient
ly waiting for a messenger to de-
lever some film tests. Well, the
messenger finally showed up and.
instead of a can of tests he was
supposed to have picked up at an
other studio, he brought a can con-
taing the short film, La Cucarra-
cha" Steffi played in that, about
seven years ago.
You can guess the rest, about
Steffi getting the job and a flock
of others. Always looking for the
still brighter side, l inquired the
name of the messenger boy and
wondered how handsomely Steffi
had rewarded him for his mistake.
Mr.. Bradfield said, no, Steffi
hadn't found him but that it would
make the story any better, she
would. l didn't press it because l
had a date to talk to a man about
yak hair.
That's right, yak hair. George H.
Cthe H is not for Hirsute) Thomas
buys hair for one of the studios,
He was having a time trying te
get enough, about a quarter ton o.
it, to cover chins of alleged hilli'
billies in Coming around tn
Mountain"
He used to get plenty of it from
importers who got it from Austria
and Germany, where peasant wo
man, he says, comb and brush ano
oil their locks for the movies
When they get a headful, they &c
to market, have it clipped and be
for long it gets to Hollywood, read.
to be trimmed and pasted by i;
Westmore onto some willing chin.
Thomas looked and looked ant
finally found an importer who hae
a bale of Yak hair, sent from Asia
It's just as satisfactory as human
hair and the extras wearing i
didn't know the difference. Thi
just goes to show you that a yal
has some other use than filling ir
the spaces beginning with 16 per
pendicular.
The humanizing effect of the mo
vies:
They were fairly we'll along into
the filming of the movie brigham
Young" %portraying the life a n {
times and wives of that mormon
when someone decided he had tt
be 'humanized." So they wrote ir
some extra scenes, showing Dear
Jaeger (he's Brigham) milking {
cow, pinning a diaper on a baby
shoeing a horse and doctoring {
goat.
Whoever wrote those scene:
wasn't SO very original. He iust
copied ideas presidential aspi
rants have been using for years.
There was to have been a para
graph or two here reporting or
actor Donald Crisp's continuing I'm.
successful experiments to W
blue roses, but he got sidetracked
on a matter of another color.
He was more concerned the nth.
er day with his recent discovery
that there are hardly n more
blondes in Hollywood. He remem.
bers a few years ago when there
were eight very blonde blends on
very corner and now, he says,
you only see about one blonde per
square mile. And she's asking Of
dark blonde. Well, that's W h
Crisp says, and not to crisply. This
passing Of the blonde is worth in
vestigating.
Some other time I'll tell you a
bout Crisp's blue roses that al