Frisco Jenny (Warner Bros.) (1932)

PUBLICITY STORIES PACK POWER Advance Feature Advance Feature How Movie Studio Prepared|futh Chatterton Plays Girl Its Stage for an Earthquake and Woman in ‘Frisco Jenny’ Portrays Innocent Girl of 17 and Hardened Floors Cut Into Sections, Walls and Beams Fixed For Dramatic Crash in ‘Frisco Jenny’’ REPARING a movie stage for an earthquake is no ordinary job. Fifty workmen spent many weeks recently at the First National studio in North Hollywood perfecting an earth quake for the benefit of Ruth Chatterton’s new picture, ‘‘ Frisco 2? Jenny,’’ which comes to the theatre on ee Sere | Harth tremor isn’t exactly the term. What it was, exactly, that Miss Chatterton had to survive, was a duplication of the San Francisco earthquake of April 17, 1906. The technical department had to bring the world toppling down around Miss Chat terton’s ears without so much shoulders. No small order that, ton, who bruises easily. In the story, Miss Chatterton as the Jenny Sandoval, cashier in a Barbary Coast “resort? and her father, played by Robert O’Connor, are both caught inside a unelegant collapsing building. To make this scene effective it. was necessary to have a building which would collapse and to have Miss Chatterton and Mr. O’Connor in the very middle of it. The dramatic possibilities of such a scene were great enough to persuade the studio and the star to take the chance. The set was built solidly at first, exactly as other sets are constructed and the preliminary scenes photographed in that. Then, while the other sequences, workmen tore it all to pieces company moved on to and rebuilt it for collapsing purposes. Floor Cut Into Strips First of all the floor was cut into eighteen inch strips, each strip resting on rollers so that it could be moved independently. These supporting rollers, in turn, were supported on trap doors which could be tripped at a given signal, letting the whole floor collapse into the basement below. The supporting pillars around the room were left suspended by wires, their moved, so that by snipping the wire foundations completely rethey, too, would slide downward into the basement, taking the ceiling beams with them. These ceiling beams, originally of heavy wood, were completely removed and _ replaced with “break-a-way” materials, a substance about as substantial as the pith inside a sunflower stem. Part of the walls were removed replaced with “break-a-way”’ brick, some of them made of painted and others of a mixture of Paris and soda, which such a porous state that cardboard, plaster of hardens in the bricks weigh only a few ounces each. Rebuilt Bar The long walnut bar on one side of the room was also removed and rebuilt of the featherweight wood. Dummy glassware replaced the brittle crystal behind the bar. Chairs and tables, exactly duplicating those used in the earlier scenes in the room, were built of the same “breaka-way” materials so that they, too, would crush under the slightest additional weight. It is well known, of course, that the San Francisco earthquake did not strike all at once. There was a preliminary shudder which rocked ‘buildings, shattered chimneys and dislodged weakened structures only. Mere man cannot improve on that technique for dramatic suspense. The “Frisco Jenny” set was so arranged that at the first slight rocking a small portion out of one brick wall Page Siz Se fl as scratching the lovely lady’s particularly with Miss. Chatter falls forward into the room, almost, but not quite, at Miss Chatterton’s eet. The floor undulates gently, propelled by the hands of. men stationed at the rocker controls; the back bar tips drunkenly forward and then settles slowly back into place while the glassware crashes. All this takes but a moment. Seconds later the man-made earthquake strikes in full force. The floor leaps and seems to buckle. The walls rock Mature Leader of City’s Lawless Element UTH CHATTERTON, while playing the part of the same person throughout the First National picture, ‘‘ Frisco Jenny,’’ which comes to the Theatre on @ sieie spin widrp Otwsimsie 9 in reality enacts a dual personality. For in the opening part of the story she takes the part of an innocent girl of seventeen and follows it through the years into maturity. And the characters of the young girl and the hardened woman are as far apart as the beauty of the early dawn and the darkness of the night. In the title role of ‘‘ Frisco Jenny,’’ a tale of the old Barbary Coast along the Embarcadero of San Francisco when its bright lights blazed forth its glitter and its shame, along about the time of the great earthquake and down to the present, Miss Chatterton passes through a quarter of a century of time. Her role calls for a gradual transition of character, both physically and spiritually,-over the years, in which she changes from the innocence of youth to the hardened leader of the vice district. It is a high tribute to Miss Chatterton’s art that she develops this callousness of the moral fibre in the aging process with no abrupt or obvious change, but makes the character appear to be the natural and gradual outgrowth of its environment. In the actual make-up for her part, the most unusual feature is that practically none was required for the role of a girl of seventeen, but was used to -emphasize the passing of time. An ash blonde wig is used by Miss Chatterton, both as a girl and as the matured woman. While the wig is changed to show the different style of dressing the hair, at no time is it tinged with gray, it being held that women of this character would see to it that their hair was touched up. | Wears Curls | As a girl she appears with curls over her shoulder, a la the Gibson style of the period. Lighting effects were watched carefully, a smal amount of frontal lights being! used with just a spot of high light overhead to bring out stereopticon effects. In the physical process of making the character appear more mature, the make-up was made heavier and heavier day by day as the scenes progressed, the style of dressing the hair and the gowns changed to that of an older woman. Lights were made stronger and a bit more glaring. It was a singular fact, however, that many retakes had to be made of closeups of Miss Chatterton in the latter part of the picture, because she appeared too youthful for the hardened character she represented. The hair, when the character reaches middle age, is dressed in a pompadour of the time, but modified sufficiently so that it could pass even in a drawing room of today. Later, toward the close of the picture, the wig is bobbed. Upon being asked how she retained the smooth, satiny skin and slim figure of girlhood, Miss Chatterton denied that she took any special form of strenuous physical exercise, or that she went in for any system of dieting. ‘‘The only recipe I can give for youth,’’ she said, ‘‘is clean and careful living, with over-indulgence in nothing. The skin must be cared for carefully to preserve it. Creams and cold water are usually enough for this. A certain amount of exercise, of course, is necessary and perhaps dieting on occasions. CHATTERTON SEEN AT DRAMATIC BEST IN “FRISCO JENNY” Scenes from the Strand’s new drama, “Frisco Jenny,’ 9 ? starring Ruth Chatterton. Never has this grand artist bee Supporting Miss Chatterton in this trays the role of a victim of circumstances who sacrifices her life to save her son from moral disgrace. picture are James Murray, Louis Calhern and Donald Cook. We urge you to see it! Cut No.8 Cut 50c Mat 20c 3 E nm more human, as she por and then slowly tip inward, toward the imprisoned people. The furniture eareens and rolls about the floor. The ceiling crashes down. | Chatterton Protected | Miss Chatterton is stationed, for story purposes, on a comparatively substantial part of the floor, one that would rock but not collapse. O’Connor, on the other hand, had to fall into the basement below with the floor, to land on an improvised slide which would carry him out of actual danger before the bar and ceiling followed him into the darkness there. Directly over the star, however, the ceiling beams collapse. There is a trick to that, of course. No studio is going to let a ceiling fall on Miss Chatterton, even if she were willing to let it, which she wasn’t. She was saved, actually, and for story purposes as well, by the simple device most commonly recommended for real earthquakes—by standing under a strong supporting beam. In this instance the entire collapsing ceiling was caught, half way on its descent into the basement, by strong supporting wires strung from metal beams above the set. So far as was humanly possible no individual was actually endangered. Actually the whole great saloon and dance hall was hung on wires over a huge excavation. The cutaway floor was covered with imitation planking so that in buckling it appears to be literally torn apart. All around the principals, at safe distances, showers of real bricks, broken glass, loosened signs and debris add to the terror and pandemonium of the scene. The terrified Jenny seems actually to stand on the brink of destruction and to be saved by a miracle. No Rehearsals Obviously, such a scene can only be made once. It can be neither rehearsed nor repeated without great additional danger and enormous extra expense. It simply has to work in all details the first time. In that it is like the real thing. Nature, no respecter of persons, might roll Miss Chatterton into the basement and save O’Connor, which would end the story of “Frisco Jenny” prematurely. The studio built earthquake is safer—not without danger perhaps— but safer than a real one. Building it was, all told, the most difficult and delicate task the technical department of First National has ever had to do. It is easier to build one into a story than to build one in a scene. Take it from the men who have just reconstructed the earthquake which destroyed San Francisco in 1906 and furnished the inspiration for the story of “Frisco Jenny,” in which Ruth Chatterton plays the greatest emotional role. The cast supporting Miss Chatterton includes Donald Cook, James Murray, Louis Calhern, Hallam Cooley and Pat O’Malley. The screen play is by Wilson Mizner and Robert Lord. It was directed by William A. Wellman. The screen play is based on the story of Gerald Beaumont, Lillie Hayward and John Francis Larkin. THE END ‘‘In playing the part of Frisco Jenny as a girl, I think that just dressing the part makes you feel something of the bubbling joyousness and irresponsible innocence of youth. However, it is an actress’ business, you know, to understand and interpret character, no matter of what age or class. Besides,’’? she smiled, ‘‘T don’t feel so far away from my own youth as not to understand a girl of seventeen.’’ A New Type Role ‘“Frisco Jenny’’ takes Miss Chatterton away from her recent type of picture in which she has played the role of society matron, and; carries her back to the parts in which she made her earlier successes on the screen, such as ‘‘Madame X’’ and ‘‘Sarah and Son.’’ The role of ‘‘Frisco Jenny,’’ a character that could ruthlessly commit murder and yet at the same time was so governed by mother love that she gould give her own life to spare her son the disgrace of knowing of his mother’s shame, is said to be the strongest and the most eolorful which she has ever portrayed.