Sixteen Years With Hollywood’s Stars
TELEVISION PROMISES TO DUPLICATE
SOUND REVOLUTION OF YESTERDAY
By BOBBINS COONS (JP) Newsfeatures Writer
(Pint in A Sarin)
Joan Crawford was making a
movie scene. She was weeping,
for her “Mildred Pierce” was an
unhappy girl. Joan’s great and
beautiful eyes were shining with
THE MOVIES SPEAK and Helene Costello sings in one of the
first talking films, “Lights Of New York," made in 1928.
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and
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tears. And—this was where I
came in, 16 years ago.
Joan’s picture then was “Our
Blushing Brides,” if I recall cor
rectly. She was just beginning her
rise to a stardom that has per
sisted to this day and likely will
endure as long as she wills it. She
was just a pretty girl then, flushed
with excitement and success and
just getting past her own giddy
passion for dancing and fun. She
had met Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.,!
and was on her way to developing
the wide interests which have
helped to make her one of the
town’s distinguished as as well as
beautiful women. You may gather
that I think Joan’s great. I do.
Endless Show
When I came in to the endless
show that is Hollywood, in late
December, 1928, the town was in
a frenzy of near-hysteria over
that baneful novelty—the talking
picture. Studios were working
overtime converting their huge
STAR'S START: Joan Crawford
and John Mack Brown in "Our
Dancing Daughter!." produced
in 1928.
bam-like wooden stages into
soundproofed structures; some
were scrambling madly to get
musical scores soundtracked for
their completed silent films; Par
amount had done its first “all
talkie” (“Interference”) and was
struggling to rush more through;
Warner Bros., like the cat that ate
the canary, was sitting back smug
ly raking in the shekels on its
bold gamble with sound, ‘ ‘The
Jazz Singer,” ‘‘The Singing Fool,”
‘‘The Lights of New York” and
those other pioneer movies which
talked and sang. There were
“part-talkies” like ‘‘Glorious Bet
sy,” which had begun as silents
and had dialogue sequences added
—to ride the boxoffice crest of
the novelty. And there were some
producers, like Joseph M.
Schenck, who confidently pre
dicted that the talkie would be
just a fad, would never replace
the silent movie.
A Historic Change
When I came in the screen was
in the throes of this historic
change. As I go out another revo
lution is already brewing. No one
knows yet whether television will
alter the course of movie history
as drastically as did sound; sev
eral of the studios, taking no
chances, already have dipped into
the television basket. For no one
doubts that television, when it
comes in force in some postwar
day, will wreak changes, possibly
even transforming the whole face
. a *
Aleutians Airforce
Strength Small
During War
SEATTLE. Sep\ 12—UP)—The
Eleventh Airforce strength in the
Aleutians, highly secret through
out the war. was the first aerial
task force to strike regularly at
the Jap homeland, is revealed to
have been composed of but two
Army bombing squadrons and a
small force of Navy Wing planes,
but because of security to be
maintained it tied up approxim
ately one-tenth of the Jap air
force, badly heeded elsewhere by
the enemy.
The Army said the units which
crossed the North Pacific were the
first Allied airmen to bomb the
Jap homeland in the Kuriles after
Doolittle’s Tokyo raid was the
of the entertainment world.
Sixteen years . . . from one rev
olution to the dawn of another.
. . . Stars rising and setting, ca
reers zooming and crashing . . .
Tragedies, humor — faces, faces,
faces in a long parade across the
screen of memory. If you’ll stick
around, I’ll try (by way of Aloha)
to call back some of them.
(Next Down Hollywood’s Memory
Lane)
(our hundred fourth Healy bom
bardment squadron.
Naval bombers of the Fleet Ail
Wing and four other bombing
squadrons of the Eleventh airfor#
departed for home immediately
after the Kiska and Attu cam
paigns,’leaving only two Army
and one Navy bombing units.
All of the forces of fighters and
patrol planes which patrolled and
orotected the North Pacific and
Bering Sea from Annette Island,
five hundred miles north of Seat
tle to Shimushu Island nine
hundred miles north of Tokyo in
the Kuriles.
The Seventy Seventh bombard
ment squadron was the first %>
cross the eight hundred fifty miles
of the north Pacific to bomb Par
amushiru and Shimushu in the
Kuriles. It carried out this mis
sion July tenth, 1943 and again
four months later, the longest
overwater bombing mission of th£
war.
The Seventy-Seventh and the
Four Hundred Fourth squadrons
on two subsequent occasions were
caught over the Kuriles by forty
to fifty Jap planes, but in spite of
odds against them carried out the
missions, someimes fought off the
enemy for almost one hour of the^
six hour trip back to the Aleu
tians. All Kurile missions were
carried out without fighter sup
port.
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THE GLUE POT
1 wish to thank the people and mer
chants of Nome for their hospitality
and hearty cooperation during my
short visit.
We will make a limited amount of
space available in the Nome section
of the Alaska Life Magazine’s An
nual Edition, for others desiring
representation.
SAM STYLES
P.0. Box 1091
JUNEAU, ALASKA
(An Alaskan representing Alaska Life Magazine)