Well, I've lost the knack of placing illustrations in the Blog! I thought I was doing things the way I did them with success with Ann Harding and Mickey Mouse. Even with Blogger Dashboard telling me my Charlie Chan illustration is uploaded, I don't seem to be able to get it into the blog.
Oh, well, It's late, and I'll try again tomorrow.
gdh
9/3/1931 HDC Elizabeth Yeaman
Master Jackie Cooper is responsible for ending a ten year hunt for a market for a story. At least he is indirectly responsible, for MGM has bought the rights to Limpy as a future starring vehicle for little Cooper.
The story was written by William Johnston and for ten years Harry Sherman has been trying to sell it. Which should prove that persistence wins out in the long run. Sherman used to be an independent producer and at various times he planned to produce "Limpy" himself.
But now that MGM has bought the story he has been engaged as supervisor on that lot. And Sylvia Thalberg and Frank Butler will collaborate on the screen adaptation. Right now Jackie Cooper is working with Wallace Beery in The Champ.
Plans also have been made to co-star him with Marie Dressler in a picture. This youngster has developed a box office following that rivals most of the adult stars in pictures, and it's all the result of his work in Skippy. Before that, he had been acting in Hal Roach comedies for some time, but nobody had really discovered his amazing ability.
And Paramount, the studio which really started the revival of child pictures with Tom Sawyer, now will have to find someone to take little Cooper's place, because since he was signed up by MGM the studio cannot spare him to make pictures for other studios. It is interesting to note that he is one of the few child stars who is not beautiful. Usually it is an angelic countenance that makes audiences rave over a child actor.
But Jackie is a "heavy" among children. He is, in fact, one of the few child character actors. And lest you think he might be a bit sissy because he is an actor, he has a hard boiled manner that would do justice to a gangster!
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Universal again is making plans to produce Fate, which is only another title for The Road Back, the Eric Maria Remarque novel which is a post-war sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front. Ernst L.
Frank will direct the picture, which should be one of the biggest films on the Universal schedule and will require a very large budget. And who is Ernst L. Frank?
I was as much puzzled by the name as you may be. But upon, investigation I discovered that he is none other than Ernest Laemmle, a nephew of Carl Laemmle Sr. It seems that he changed his name some time ago, but I just hadn't heard about it.
He has been with Universal for six years and has directed nine pictures in that time, in addition to some foreign versions last year. Fate should be one of the biggest directorial assignments on this lot. And Ernst L.
Frank is also working on the screen play with John B. Clymer.
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Gene Raymond, young Broadway stage star who recently entered pictures after a notable performance in "Young Sinners," has been given the male lead opposite Sylvia Sidney in Ladies of the Big House. This is being adapted from a romantic play by Ernest Booth, life-term convict at Folsom. Raymond was signed to a Paramount long-term contract some time ago and he made his film debut in Personal Maid, with Nancy Carroll.
The executives must think a lot of his work or he would not be cast with so important an actress as Miss Sidney. She is another newcomer, but her work is bringing her recognition so rapidly that soon she will be a star in her own right. Marion Gering will direct the picture and Louis Weltzenkorn is writing the screen treatment.
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An excellent cast is being lined up to support Walter Huston in Law and Order, the W.R.
Burnett story which John Huston and Tom Reed now are preparing for the screen. Kent Douglass and Helen Chandler have just been assigned important roles. Douglass is one of the most accomplished actors who recently deserted the stage for the screen.
His performance in Five and Ten, was memorable, although the role was a brief one. In Law and Order, Huston will appear as the adventurous sheriff of a mining town, who broken hearted by the loss of his wife, advertises for another wife.
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It is interesting to note that J. Warren Kerrigan plans to take up his screen career again under the management of Fritzi Brunette. Miss Brunette formerly was Kerrigan's leading lady, appearing with him in ten silent pictures at the old studios now occupied by United Artists.
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