News Flashes From Filmdom

Northern Advocate, 13 May 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

News Flashes From Filmdom

Otto Kruger was born in Toledo, Ohio, on September 6, 1885, the son of an accountant. His father wanted him to be an engineer and sent him to the University of Michigan, but Otto wanted more in the way of excitement r than engineering offered and took various jobs until the war. After the war he drifted on to the stage, where after a short time in minor productions, he made his appearance on Broadway, and through his capable acting was soon on the screen. His latest film is “The Housemaster,” in which he has the title role. Kruger is sft 9in tall and has brown hair and grey eyes. « * * Besides the lack of ambassadors and commercial attaches representing the United States at Berlin there will soon be a lack of American films, it seems from information which reaches us. The “incessant agitation” against Germany is viewed with displeasure in the Reich and recently, for the first time in years, there were no first-run theatres in Berlin showing Hollywood films. An anti-Nazi declaration signed by various American stars has also led to the bitterness of the misunderstood in the Third (now the Fourth) Reich, and anyway the American film industry is under predominatingly Jewish influence. As a further example of how

the German Government regards the | American people the Olympic Games | film of Lent Riefenstahl is not going

to be shown in the United States because the “motion picture* industry is controlled, both in production and distribution, by men who are opposed to Germany’s political activities” (Leni Riefenstahl).

There is a place on the Equator, the world’s hottest spot, where it is so cold that a man can freeze to death unless he wears heavy winter clothing. This locality, qualified for a place in Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” column, will be seen when the Twentieth Cen-tury-Fox >release “Dark Rapture,” the African film of weird customs and dangers arrives.

Gloria Jean, ten-year-old Scranton, Pennsylvania girl, is Hollywood’s latest Cinderella. A protege of Deanna Durbin, 16-year-old singing star, Gloria has been signed to a long-term contract by Universal. Brought to movieland several months ago, the girl has been coached and tested by studio experts. She will make her film bow in the title role of “The Under Pup,” an elaborate Joe Pasternak production, scheduled to start on May 1. Hailed by studio officials as a potential child star, Gloria has been taken under the wing of Miss Durbin, Universal’s No. 1 box office attraction. In her first picture, the new child discovery will be surrounded with established name players, including Nan Grey, Juanita Quigley, seven-year-old starlet, and others. “The Under Pup,” by I. A. R. Wylie, ran recently in “Good Housekeeping” magazine. The story will be adapted by Grover Jones, veteran scenarist.