The Story Of Birth Of Swing Bands

Northern Advocate, 29 July 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

The Story Of Birth Of Swing Bands

For the first time in their motion picture career, the Yacht Club Boys, who burst in and out of the plot in “Artists and Models,” and “Thrill of a Lifetime,” are given real character roles in “Cocoanut Grove,” Paramount’s new film, and their delirious antics are a running gag all through this piuure.

The story of “Cocoanut Grove,” which stars Fred Mag Murray, and has a featured cast of such well-known entertainers as Harriet Hilliard, Ben Blue, Rufe Davis, Harry Owens and his Royal Halwaiian Orchestra, and Dorothy Howe, is the story of a happy-go-lucky swing band leader and his hungry crew playing their way to fame and fortune at Hollywood’s famous night spot, the Cocoanut Grove.

In their hilarious trek across country from Chicago to Los Angeles, the swing-nutty band annexes a kid, little Billy Lee, a sweet-singing girl, Miss Hilliard, who in turn annexes , MacMurray’s heart, and a hill-billy comic, Rule Davis. Adventures, mishaps, and screwy situations are strung along the way. Among the new highlights of “Cocoanut Grove” is the first screen appearance of Harry Owens, who composed the recent song hit “Sweet Leilani,” and his Royal Hawaiian Orchestra.

A nationwide poll recently conducted by “Showman’s Trade Review,” one of the motion picture industry’s leading trade papers, revealed “Hopalong Cassidy” as filmdom’s favourite outdoor action hero. “Cassidy” not only wen the poll, but led his nearest competitor by one hundred and eightyseven votes, hanging up an enviable record. This character, created by the well-known author, Clarence E. Mulford, has been portrayed by William Boyd in a long line of Paramount films, of which “In Old Mexico” was the twentieth.

This last device can be carried on until the audience is tired. The wrestlers themselves are seemingly immune to fatigue, albeit they scream with pain whenever the occasion demands it. Sucn unorthodox methods are hilariously depicted in “The Gladiator," in which Brown and Dean employ not only the laughter-creating holds of modern wrestling, but create several new ones which Dean promises to use in his fluture bouts for the “champeenship of the world.”

Women arc doing the proposing in pictures. Of course, women have always done it in real life (sometimes so non-secrotly that only the man is in the dark). But until recently, the movies preferred to depict the lady as waiting bashfully for the man of her choice to pop the question, Madeleine Carroll, who is so blonde and so beautiful, had to voice the marriage proposal in Paramount's "Care moiety.” The man was Fred MacMurr.ay, who, in real life, also happens -so rso very bashful where the determined sex is concerned.

and “Kidnapped” is a poor book. When “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” was made for the screen, on the other hand, the result, as one critic pointed out. could not have been more startling had “Black Beauty" been made with a white horse in the leading role. However, in this instance, it would appear that the objectors are doomed to be disappointed because David O. Selznick. who is making “Gone With (he Wind," has already done faithful and sterling jobs on "Little Women,” “David Copperfield.” "A Tale of Two Cities," “The Prisoner of Zenda," and “Anna Karenina.”

Another and still younger set of aspirants to stardom came into prominence in 1933 and called themselves The Puppets. Among the more active members were. Tom Brown, Patricia Ellis, Anita Louise, Helen Mack, Paula Stone, Grace and Gertrude Durkin and their brother, the late Junior Durkin, Mary Carlisle, Gwynne Pickford, Ben Alexander. Johnny Downs, Toby Wing, Jimmy Ellison, Bill Henry,