PRODUCERS’ DILEMMA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 63, 14 February 1939, Page 7

PRODUCERS’ DILEMMA.

KOOKABURRAS WOULD NOT LAUGH.

HOLLYAVOOD, Feb. 13. If anybody ill Australia knows of an unfailing'method for making kookaburras laugh, please communicate witn United Artists before the author Mr Grover Jones, the director, Mr Hal Roach and the stars Miss June Bang. Messrs Victor McLaglen and Brian Aherne are carted off to the asylum. The filming of “Captain Fury, which was formerly titled “Captain Midnight,” has been held up for three days because four kookaburras, which are rented for 200 dollars a day fi om the Catalina Island lvrd park, perch unrelentingly on the limbs of an artificial tree and sneer at all attempts to amuse them. Mr Jones made the kookaburra s laughter an integral part of the script but soon admitted that he did not know how to make them laugh. Mr Hal Roach appealed to the Catalina superintendent who worked hard, but failed to produce even a chuckle. Becoming desperate, Mr Roach brought in the superintendent s wife who is reputed to have a way with kookaburras. She laughed and coaxed until her voice became a croak, but it was unavailing. Disgusted. Mr Roach had the sound equipment dismantled and then the kookaburras, all four of them, laughed ]on" and loud, but stopped before the equipment could be re-mounted, and they haven’t laughed since.