The Big Shot (Warner Bros.) (1942)

What's in a Name? Often jp-olf to Star's Character Here’s a tip for moviegoers who like to guess at the solution of mystery and crime pictures: Watch for the character names of the players. Nine times out of ten you can tell whether an actor is hero or villain by the label he wears. Good proof of that theory is the record of Humphrey Bogart — sometimes regarded as an enigma because it’s never certain until the last reel whether he’s going straight or straight to the chair. They Were Good Guys Take eight pictures in which Bogart was a good guy. Here are the names he wore: Sherry Scott, Hap Stewart, Val Stevens, David Graham, Harry Galleon, Michael O’Leary, Marshall Cane and John Murrell. There’s the ring of honesty in every one of ’em. Here are the crooks: Duke Mantee (remember Petrified Forest”?), “Turkey” Morgan, Whip McCord, Jack Buck, Roy Earle, Gloves Dino, “Rocks” Valentine, Jack Buck, “Red,” Joe Gurney—get the idea? Mr. Bogart is currently starred in Warner Bros.’ “The Big Shot,” which is now playing at the Strand Theatre. His name is Duke Berne. Students! NIGHTLY DATE SUSAN'S PART IN WAR EFFORT Susan Peters is having a date with a different boy in the service every night as her personal contribution to national defense. After two weeks of dating, Susan reported: “T think the boys just want somebody to talk to more than anything else — even more than shows or any kind of entertainment.” “They want to meet nice girls, the kind they knew back home, but don’t get those kids wrong. Girls aren’t everything to them. Men visitors are just about as welcome, provided the men aren’t of military age. They don’t seem to enjoy boys their own age unless they’re in uniform too.” Meantime, Susan is playing her first big part in Warner Bros.’ “The Big Shot,” now at the Strand Theatre. The Burbank lot is enthusiastic, says she reads lines better than any young actress in years. Special Stl Service Stills available on most of the scene cuts on the publicity pages in this Campaign Plan. Price: 10c¢ each. Order by still number indicated under each cut, from Campaign Plan Editor. If still number is not given, photo is not available because the cut was made from a special retouch or a composite. (*Asterisk denotes still is available at local Vitagraph Exchanges.) Mat 102—15c Susan Peters Garage Door Opened Career to Newcomer Richard Travis, of Paragould, Ark., is a boy who got into the movies through a garage door. Seeking theatrical experience, Travis had sought out some people who had.a little theatre in an abandoned garage on Santa Monica Blvd. It was here that a talent scout discovered him and it wasn’t long before he made his appearance in @ movie short subject. But Travis’ didn’t end with the garage door incident. Ola aaah AK Oro for luck,” he | claims, but Bette Davis | had a lot to | do with it. If | Bette hadn’t | gone to the movies that night — well, m6. very lucky guy that’s all.” Mat 103—15c Richard Travis This isn’t as complicated as it may seem. Richard Travis, in case you don’t get the name, is the young man who wooed and won Miss Davis in “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” a current hit picture. At the moment he is wooing and winning Susan Peters in Warner Bros.’ “The Big Shot,” currently at the Strand, and that’s doing all right for a kid who only a few years ago was reading fan magazines in his room over his father’s flower shop and wondering what it would be like to be an actor in Hollywood. Miss Davis dropped in to a movie one night and saw a short subject in which Travis was appearing. Before you could say “Paragould,” there he was the next day with Miss Davis in his arms making a test for “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” He did a swell job, as many movie-goers already know. It was that kind of work that gave him a lead in the Humphrey Bogart starring picture, “The Big Shot,” and now it looks as if Richard Travis is on his way to being a star. Right Off the Cob Chick Chandler had been assigned the part of a dancer in Warner Bros.’ “The Big Shot.” Not having hoofed for ten years, Chandler said he fits the part perfectly—he’s supposed to be corny. BOGART DIES IN B Humphrey Bogart, the man they love to shoot, dying of his wounds, and deservedly so, according to the script of ‘The Big Shot,” his latest Warner Bros. picture, currently at the Strand, played his final and fadeout scene in bed. This was quite contrary to usual Bogart custom because, as a portrayer of tough roles, he has died violently in many pictures but never before has he been allowed to spend his last moments in bed. good fortune © © Bogart Is Used To Prison If any man thoroughly believes that crime doesn’t pay, that man is Humphrey Bogart — who has never committed one, but has _ spent three years in jail just the same. That’s how his time figures since he started in pictures in 1936. He has made 82 films, has been behind the bars in 19 of them, a total of 156 weeks. And in “The Big Shot,” his latest picture now at the Strand, Bogart winds up in jail—of course! IRENE MANNING SINGS 100 WELL FOR FIRST FILM The life ambition of Irene Manning, who starred in light opera with John Charles Thomas before Warner Bros. brought her to Hollywood, is to be a dramatic actress. Her first assignment was to sing in “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and she looked so good that studio executives immediately cast her opposite Humphrey Bogart in “The Big Shot.” Then came the pay off. In a certain scene, Irene was given a song to sing—and nobody liked it. They said it was terrible. “You’re not a singer now,” she was told. “Just a woman. Most women don’t sing like light opera stars. If you can’t sing this song poorly, we’ll have to find someone who can.” When Irene cut out the trills and high c’s she was applauded —for skillful mediocrity. gart’s own opinion, was the fact that he had been given lines to say while dying, lines in which he admitted the error of his ways and advised a young man who had once been an accomplice of his to abandon the easy way of crime for the less promising but more satisfactory path of virtue and honesty. “All my life in Hollywood,” Humphrey commented on his bed of apparent pain, “I’ve been complaining because Jimmy Cagney or Eddie Robinson or Even more unusual, in Bo| some one else in the pictures I © Police Nab ‘Big Shot’ Stil EC 32* > Mat 202—30c A BULLET-STREAKED career nears its finish when the police eatch up with a one-time ganglord as he tries to make a come back. The role is played by Humphrey Bogart in Warner Bros.’ “The Big Shot,” now showing at the Strand. Film Cops Are Bigger, More Heavily Armed For Gangster Pictures Today’s screen criminal faces the world almost alone and almost unarmed. It may have escaped your attention, but when you see cops and robbers in pictures, the cops are invariably better armed, and more than that, much bigger men than the robbers. This is the way Hollywood for years has been telling audiences that crime doesn’t pay, that criminals can’t win, that policemen are more heroic than gangsters. The lesson has been pointed, but oddly enough few persons seem to have realized how it was done. Humphrey Bogart, who probably plays more criminals than any other screen actor and is at the moment practicing criminality in Warner Bros.’ “The Big Shot,” likes to point out what a restricted arsenal the modern motion picture gangster uses. Screen gangsters are allowed only pistols (when not worn in a shoulder holster) and occasionally permitted a rifle. The sawed-off shotguns, tear gas bombs, tommy guns and all other lethal equipment are all on the side of law and order. Moreover, in every instance in which gangsters stack up against the police, the police are bigger men. Much bigger men. Another thing—if an actor commits a crime, he pays for it. Bogart usually pays in the pen or in the chair, or dies of lead poisoning from bullets. In the old days, gangsters appeared on the screen with every weapon known to man, work in has been allowed to talk himself to death on the screen. “Before this Bogart has always just been killed off and left to the undertaker or the coyotes, according to the location of the demise. But here I am at the end of “The Big Shot” dying in bed, with my shoes off and talking about it. Talking a great deal about it, it seems to me. The idea came from the scenarist, not from me.” Bogart’s death bed in “The most of them illegal, and it’s probably true that these pictures influenced legislation and investigations which barred such armament from the criminal element. But today’s screen lesson is that crime doesn’t pay, that gangsters aren’t heroes. Ole Rockin’ Chair Got Him at Last Ole rockin’ chair got Humphrey Bogart at last. The screen bad man, who has faced knives, fists and sticks in many a tough screen fight during his career of 32 action pictures, suffered two cracked ribs when an _ over-stuffed leather rocking chair tossed him headover-heels. Bogart sat down in the rocker for a scene in Warner Bros.’ “The Big Shot,” prepared to recite what he called his “rocking chair soliloquy” sequence, and was tossed backwards as quickly as if he’d tried to mount a bronco from the wrong side. Bogart was advised to be quiet for a few days and— avoid rocking chairs. “There must be a trick to sitting on one of those things,’ Bogart was heard saying to himself as he left the set. D-FOR A CHANGE ® Big Shot” is located in a prison hospital from which he has made an unfortunate escape. As he stops speaking—finally— having exhausted himself with his own good advice, the male nurse raises the blind and lets the sunlight enter the room. But the sunlight throws the shadow of the bars at the window across the bed on which Bogart has just died. “Symbolism, too,’ beamed Humphrey when he saw the preparations which were made for the scene. G «LOHS 914d GAHL-NOIVdNVO ALIOIT&Nd