CINEMA NEWS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 141, 27 March 1948, Page 3

CINEMA NEWS

(By “Spotlight”)

“THE PERILS OF PAULINE” Betty Hutton “knocks herself out” in putting across a song in a picture, but what the audience doesn’t see is the damage the “Blonde Bombshell” does to her wardrobe. To film a particularly violent routine while “warbling” a song for “The Perils of Pauline,” she wore out ten pairs of specially made black silk hose. Her acrobatic gyrations included running, jumping, leaping and swinging on a backdrop. The fragile stockings kept breaking out at the knees.

Because of the many hazardous stunts she performed during the filming of “The Perils of Pauline,” Betty Hutton was made an honorary member of the Hollywood Stunt Players’ Club.

Life began for Betty Hutton in Battle Creek, Michigan, on February 2G, 1921. At fourteen, Betty got. a chance to sing with the band at the local hotel. The first night she sang, Vincent Lopez was eating in the diningroom, and, impressed with her enthusiasm and freshness, signed her for his orchestra. Things didn’t get off to a wonderful start and soar to great heights, and Betty was “tipped off” that 'she was. about to be fired. In selfdisgust, she felt like “tearing things up,” and this feeling pervaded her song that night. She stamped, shouted, batted the microphone around, waved her arms and threw vicious punches at the air. When the number was over, it was the audience’s turn to “tear things up”; they nearly took the place apart. Her first picture was a part in “The Fleet’s In,” and she was made a star on the strength of her performance.

Billy De Wolfe’s balloon ascension stunt for “The Perils of Pauline” avoh the comedian a big hand from the rest of the movie troupe. Scorning the use 'of a “double,” Billy hung on to a rope dangling from the balloon basket while the captive sphere lifted him 50 feet off the ground as the camera filmed the scene. The neAvs of the actor’s game action travelled fast and the magnitude of the feat increased With the telling. By the time Billy returned to the studio late in the afternoon, he Ava-s credited Avith soaring up into the ozone to an altitude of a thousand feet at the end of the rope.

Betty Hutton had to kick Jackie, 400-pound movie lion, in the pants a half dozen times to film a scene correctly for “The Perils of Pauline.” After the booting Avas over, the “Blonde Bombshell” sent over to the studio commissary for a half gallon of icecream for Jackie to show there Avere no hard feelings. Ice-cream is his favourite dish.

Betty Hutton’s nickname of “Incendiary Blonde” proved almost too literal for comfort when a fiery stunt which she Avas performing for “The Perils of Pauline” backfired with nearly disastrous results. Trapped by blazing kerosene, the star narroAvly missed being burned and her hair was singed Avhen wind machines being used for the scene blew flames dangerously close to her. Betty was re-enacting aPearl White (fabulous queen of the early serials) forest fire thriller and was tied to a tree Avhile kerosene in troughs around the set Avas ignited to create the illusion of a conflagration. The bloAving machines fanned the blaze higher than was anticipated, and Betty found flames shooting at her from all directions. Her terrified screams Avere not simulated as anxious creAV members feverishly turned off the bloAvers and Director George Marshall leaped to her side to unloosen the bonds holding her to the tree trunk. A halt Avas called to alloAv Betty to calm her frightened nerves, but after the 'soot had been removed from her face, and her singed hair re-combed, Betty gamely Avent on Avith the “bloocl-and-tliunder” scene.

“WANTED FOR MURDER” Much of the dramatic impact of “Wanted For Murder” is due to the extensive use of actual street scenes and famous landmarks for its London background. By the expedient of concealed cameras, most of tlie footage for the picture was photographed in the “Underground” railway, Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, Hampstead Heath, as well as in and around the home of Scotland Yard. Only one sequence caused difficulty with crowds. The spectacle of hundreds of London “police” charging into Hyde Park through various gates drew a vast “rubber-necking” audience. However, since such a gathering would be normal in any event, Director Lawrence Huntington incorporated them into the scene.

NEWS FROM THE FILM CAPITAL HOLLYWOOD, March 1. Colleen Townshed, the Hollywood gill who landed a top role with Linda Darnell, Cornel Wilde, Anne Baxter and Kirk Douglas in "The Walls of Jericho” was discovered through television. She got. a. job in a television show, a movie producer saw her on the screen of his home set, and decided she was not only beautiful, but could act. Once before, she was cast for a loading role on the 20th Century Fox lot, but producers at the last minute thought she was too heavy. She reduced to 115 pounds, and Director John Stalin immediately put her in “The Walls of Jericho.”

Five thousand Indians appeared in “Captain from'Castillo” hut since many of them were unable to sign their names to their payroll cards. Director Henry King had to figure out another means of identification. So la* resorted to the very best mol hod of all—hiking their fingerprints. Those who could not write simply moved into another line at. the end of a day’s shooting near Urua’pan. Mexico, put their cards on a. table, rubbed their thumb in an ink pad, and placed it on the card. As King explained. “If finger printing is good enough for the F. 8.1., it. should be good enough for us!”