Comedies Are Costly

Northern Advocate, 13 May 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

Comedies Are Costly

Comedies nowadays cost more than epics. A screen epic may be made now and then for as little as 500,000 dollars. A million dollars will turn out a perfectly healthy epic. But a comedy with the kind of players in it who count most at the box office costs at least a million, generally more. Players like Carole Lombard, who is the top-ranking comedienne of the screen, get salaries commensurate with their box-office draft. And comedies require more than one player to do them. In the case of “Fools for Scandal,” which Miss Lombard has just completed for Mervyn Leßoy at Warner Bros., the cast includes as her co-star and leading man, Fernand Gravet, one of Hollywood’s highest-priced importations. There is also Ralph Bellamy, who catapulted on the exchange as a result of his stellar performance in “The Awful Truth.” Other valuable considerations beside that of the comedy casts include the time element. Time is the prime requisite in the polishing of a screen comedy. It, takes time to film the story so that it will be funny. Making it funny during that time requires the services of high-priced writers who know the motion picture as well as humour. And because humour —stage, screen, radio or written —is a delicate matter, there is a lot of time taken to see that the delicate adjustments and balances are made. The most successful comedies of recent months have been known as “screwball” —bad things happening to pleas-antly-crazy people who are possessed of enough money to indulge their penchants for daffiness. That means elaborate gettings, wardrobes, and other physical aspects of production.

Old Jack, a well-known North Country celebrity, had the reputation of al~ . ways being able to answer any questions by asking another. One day a city visitor on holiday made a bet that he could fool old Jack. He approached the old fellow and said: “I say, xny man, have you seen a cartload of monkeys go past here?” The old man scratched his head and then said. “Why. hast thou fallen off?” much to the discomfiture, of the city man.