Player Injured, So Film Plot Rewritten

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 257, 28 July 1939, Page 14

Player Injured, So Film Plot Rewritten

r PHE vulnerability of motion picture production to human mishaps and the resourcefulness of the studios to cope with them was illustrated during the making of “The Girl Downstairs,” the new romantic comedy starring Franclska Gaal and Franchot Tone, when Reginald Gardiner fell down a flight of stairs in his home and broke his arm two weeks after production commenced. G-ardiner had ‘ been photographed in the early sequences of the picture and again in a scene toward the end. There were many other scenes to be done in between, but it was impossible for. the actor to make them with his arm in a cast.

Norman Taurog, the director, consulted the authors of the script and the result was that another character was injected into the story, that of Charlemaine Grump, played by Reginald Owen. In the story, Gardiner's character was made to disappear mysteriously and reappear just as mysteriously to fit into his scenes with Franchot Tone later in the picture.