D. W. Griffith's Hollywood Program #15: Hollywood Life Date: Feb 22 1933

WJZ D. W. GRIFFITH'S HOLLYWOOD PROGRAM NO. 15
TIME: (10:00 — 10:15 P. M.) FEBRUARY 22, 1933 WEDNESDAY

CAST:
KEECH, the announcer
D. W. GRIFFITH
MARY
GEORGETTE
ZASU PITTS
JIMMY DURANTE
JAMES CAGNEY
MAN, Harris
and various small roles with male and female VOICES

ORCHESTRA: (FANFARE) (SIGNATURE....FADES DOWN UNDER) KEECH: The makers of Hinds Honey and Almond Cream once again present Mr. D. W. Griffith, the great motion picture director and star-discoverer. But before Mr. Griffith begins tonight's story I want to tell you a little Hollywood secret. It so happens that one of our most glamorous movie stars has extremely large hands. The knuckles are prominent...the bones show. But so beautifully kept are these hands that people think of them as one of the most attractive things about this gorgeous foreign beauty. Hands don't have to be tiny, rounded, cushiony....to be lovely. Large, thin hands can be just as attractive if the skin is soft, white, smooth. Just try 3-days of hand beauty care with Hinds, and see how it can transform rough, red unattractive hands into soft, white alluring ones. At the end of this program I am going to tell you just how to procure a complimentary bottle of Hinds Honey & Almond Cream; and with each bottle you receive goes an additional special offer. Be sure to listen for this important announcement. And now.... Mr D W Griffith....... GRIFFITH: Thank you, Mr. Keech. Ladies and gentlemen, for the benefit of all the folk's ambitions to get into motion pictures, I would again like to mention one element that is seldom spoken about, and yet it's certainly a tremendous element in the life of every human being. That element is... luck. Many of the great fortunes of the world have been accumulated more through luck than anything else. Napoleon Bonaparte, when an officer's name was brought to him for promotion, would ask, after going over the man's general fitness, "Is he lucky"? I know this idea doesn't fit the general primer written about success but it is true, nevertheless. And so it is in motion pictures..... Tonight I want to tell you the true story of two girls, Georgette and Mary. They lived in one of those cheap little rooming houses that honeycomb Hollywood... a single room and a toy kitchenette, walls so thin that you could hear across their adjoining hall, all the radios that happened to be in use. As the scene opens, Mary has just returned from a vain search for work and is tidying up the room. (THE DOOR OPENS) MARY: Is that you, Georgette? GEORGETTE: (APPROACHING) Sure. Who were you expecting? MARY: My goodness, Georgette, wherever did you get that dress? GEORGETTE: Begged it......(VERY EXCITEDLY) I'm going to the Mayfair Club tonight. MARY: Going to the Mayfair? GEORGETTE: Sure, got an invite and everything. We've been hanging around this dump waiting for some cuckoo studio to call us for one year, and I'm sick of it....extras and tests and nothing ever happens. MARY: Gee, you look grand. GEORGETTE: Say Mary... why don't you come along? I could get you in with the Columbia picture crowd, maybe. MARY: Oh no... I haven't got a dress and it's so long since I've gone out anywhere I wouldn't know how to act. Besides, I have just got to write home to the family..... haven't written for a week. (MELANCHOLY SOUND OF "SWANEE RIVER" FROM VICTROLA... AWAY) GEORGETTE: Do you hear that? All that guy across the hall ever does is play those gloomy songs on the victrola. MARY: Well, it does sort of help, when you want to cry. GEORGETTE: It's bad enough.... No job... No money... without having to listen to that. I wish I had that old Methuselah on the Swanee river. I'd push him in. MARY: Georgette... your dress ought to be pinned in the back, it is a little too big there. I'll pin it so they will never notice it. GEORGETTE: O. K. Maybe you're right.... but if this mirror isn't a liar... it's plenty tight in the chest. MARY: Oh, you've got a beautiful figure, Georgette, and how that dress does show it off. GEORGETTE: Sure, I got the best figure in Hollywood but nobody worth while seems to notice it. (SOUND OF AUTOMOBILE HORN) There's Bill.... we're going out in his car. (DOOR OPENS) All right, Bill, be there in a minute. Now, Mary, don't have the blues tonight, write your letters and go to bed and sleep well. I'll get you in on the next party... Goodbye.... VOICES OUTSIDE: Hurry up Georgette, come on. MARY: Good bye. (DOOR CLOSES) (MUSIC SWELLS UP...... FADES OUT) GRIFFITH: Now let us follow Georgette to that famous and popular Club in Hollywood... the Mayfair. Here gather the select of the movie industry and a sprinkling of smart people from other walks in life. (NIGHT CLUB MUSIC IN SOFT) GRIFFITH: A great ball room and about the best-looking gathering of men and women that you could find anywhere in the world. Yes, most of your favorite stars are here... Let's listen to a man and girl talking at one table. MAN: Say, that Joan Bennett is some dancer! GIRL: Who's the man she's dancing with? MAN: That's Gene Markey, her husband. Look, there's ZaSu Pitts over there.... GIRL: Is she with her husband? MAN: No, she's got a divorce, they say. GIRL: She looks just like she does on the screen. MAN: Watch out... she'll hear you... She's close. (MUSIC SWELLS A FEW SECONDS... THEN FADES UNDER) ZASU PITTS: Well, I think this is just the grandest party. MAN'S VOICE: Isn't that Joan Blondell over at that table? ZASU PITTS: Where? MAN: Right there in front of you. ZASU PITTS: Oh yes... Yes... that's her..... MAN: My, my I like the way she walks... she's certainly got it. ZASU PITTS: Well, she's got very nice looking things to walk on too.... don't you think? MAN: I don't have to THINK about that! It doesn't require thought. ZASU PITTS: Oh dear... just like a man... Well, she's a good actress too... Oh dear... there are so many pretty girls here. Over at that table there... just a lot of Wampas babies... My goodness! there are fifteen or sixteen of them... Blondes, brunettes, red—heads. Just coming into pictures to push us all out! MAN: Oh, there's Georgette... she's all dressed up. Why, it's the first time I've seen her out... wonder if her chum, Mary is around. ZASU PITTS: Oh, my, my, my.... Look... LOOK... Oh dear... MAN: What's the matter? ZASU PITTS: There's Marlene Dietrich! My Heavens! She's got on pants..... (MURMUR OF VOICES) MAN: Let her wear what she wants.... she looks good to me! ZASU PITTS: Well, of all the nerve... she's got a man's Tuxedo on! (MUSIC SWELLS UP.... FADES DOWN) GRIFFITH: And sure enough! There she was............Marlene Dietrich striding across the floor as unconcerned as a new laid egg... dressed like a man. Smart girl! Just a pair of men's pants on her shapely legs and yet, within a few hours, she was going to be photographed and talked about a hundred times more than if she had built the biggest charity hospital ever known. Glory be to trousers........ Oh, something new! That's a silly idea.... Catherine, the Great of Russia... Queen Elizabeth of England... away in the long past... didn't they wear pants?... figuratively, anyhow? Boy, how they bossed the men around. They had sweethearts in great numbers but they ruled the roost and if any of their boy friends got uppish, off went their heads! And in spite of this little eccentricity, both of the great ladies I have mentioned raised their kingdoms to greater power than they had ever before known. Maybe we should have a woman Dictator! That might end our troubles! But now, after the hullabaloo over the pants, let's stop by another table. MAN'S VOICE: Bill, meet Mr. Jimmy Durante... JIMMY DURANTE: How are you, Boy.. how are you? Glad to meet you... I seen you lampin' Lilyan Tashman over there! MAN: Well, why not?... She's the best dressed girl I've ever seen. JIMMY: Cha.. cha.. Boy, look! Now if I was meeting up with her and she was meeting up with me... It calls for a song and dance, boys.. a song and dance. If I was runnin' this joint, I'd lift the piano right over near her. She's the best dressed girl.. and I'm Jimmy, the best-dressed man. Hot—cha!! (MUSIC SWELLS... FIVE SECONDS... THEN FADES) CAGNEY: Well, hello, Georgette... first time I've seen you out. GEORGETTE: Hello, Mr. Cagney.... CAGNEY: Call me Jimmy... well, you're certainly all dressed up. GEORGETTE: Hush... I borrowed the dress! I'm sick of sitting at home waiting for somebody to make an actress out of me... Boy, I'm going to have a good time tonight! CAGNEY: Where's Mary? GEORGETTE: Oh, she's in the shack writing letters back home, I guess, hoping some cuckoo studio will call her up for a job. CAGNEY: Come on, Baby... how about a dance? (MUSIC SWELLS... THEN FADES) GRIFFITH: And with that, Georgette swirled off in a fox trot... to the music of the orchestra, a few popping corks, strange gurgles in glasses, laughter... well, you know... just a regular party. (MUSIC FADES OUT) GRIFFITH: Some time before, I had taken a test of Miss Georgette... also one of her chum, Mary...at our studio. Georgette was a funny girl...you couldn't tell her anything...and yet she was pretty good. Now, Miss Georgette...you are supposed to be a cabaret singer and dancer, in Paris. You are singing a gay song and as you sing, you walk among the tables..... GEORGETTE: Oh, I know... I've seen them do it. This is the idea! I hum a little song...then I stop and look here..then I have a little kick..then I go on to the next table.... and I lean over the table.... GRIFFITH: Wait a minute..how do you know? You haven't found out what it is all about yet. GEORGETTE: Why..it's just like all the girls do in... GRIFFITH: (INTERRUPTING) In where? GEORGETTE: Well, didn't I see Joan Blondell in that picture... what's its name? GRIFFITH: But this isn't THAT picture...we're doing another picture... Wait...I'm trying to tell you what it's about. (MUSIC FADES DOWN UNDER) GRIFFITH: The next test we made for the same part was Georgette's chum, Mary. Mary was willing to learn and listen... and she was good, too! We had a tough time figuring which was the better to take a chance on....Mary was to be relied on, but Georgette had something different....And so it ended as it often does, in our not doing this picture at all. Another director and supervisor took hold of it. And this night while the Mayfair party is going on, the director and assistant were arranging to start casting the picture the very next day. They were looking at the various tests made for the part and were arguing as to whether to select Mary or Georgette. (DANCE BAND PLAYS..."HOME SWEET HOME"....SOFT) GRIFFITH: Now the Mayfair is closing up and a gay party catch Georgette at the top of the stairs. MAN: We need another girl. GIRL: There's Georgette...maybe she'll go. (CALLS) Georgette! GEORGETTE: (APPROACHING) Yes, Maisie? GIRL: Come on with us....we've got a whole gang. GEORGETTE: Where are you going? GIRL: Well...there's a bunch from New York...they're well supplied with automobiles and we're going to Caliente. GEORGETTE: When are you coming back? GIRL: Who cares....come on...let's go! (MUSIC IN STRONG....FADES DOWN) GRIFFITH: And so... bright and early in the morning, while this line of automobiles filled with gay pleasure-seekers including Georgette, nears the border line leading into the gayest spot perhaps in the world, we find little Mary........ .....cooking her own breakfast. The telephone rings...... (TELEPHONE) (CLICK OF RECEIVER) MARY: Hello...? MAN: (VOICE OVER PHONE) Hello...is Georgette there? MARY: No she isn't. MAN: When do you expect her? MARY: I...I don't know. MAN: Where is she? MARY: I don't know that, either. I got a wire from her this morning saying she might be away a day or two. MAN: You're Mary, aren't you? MARY: Why...yes. MAN: Well, listen....I'm Harris....assistant director at the studio. Can you come over here right away? MARY: Yes...I can. MAN: We've got a part we were going to use Georgette in.... but we can't wait for her. I saw your tests and I think you can play it. Come as quick as you can! (MUSIC IN STRONG....FADES DOWN) GRIFFITH: Well...Mary got the part. It was just an ordinary program picture, but it was a gift from God to Mary! And when Georgette came back in the middle of the week and heard about it -- incidentally, she went down a brunette and came back a blonde -- she nearly tore the blondine out of her hair at losing the part. Now I would like very much to make this a highly moral story and punish Miss Georgette for running away like that. But the truth is...and this is why I can't mention any real names... One of the gentlemen in the New York party...worth lots of money...and a pretty good chap besides....got a terrible crush on Georgette..and two weeks later, he married her. So nobody to this day can figure out which one of the girls was the luckiest.....I leave it to you! (SIGNATURE) KEECH: Ladies....are you buying an inferior hand lotion just because you think it's cheaper? Then here's something you ought to know. The medium and large sizes of Hinds sell for just about half the cost of other widely advertised lotions. Ask your druggist to let you compare prices next time you are buying hand lotions. So don't deny yourself the luxury of the finest hand lotion ever made, when you can buy it for just about half what ordinary lotions cost. And remember, Hinds Honey and Almond Cream makes your hands soft, white, lovely in only three days, no matter how rough, red and toil-worn they are. By the way, have you tried the new Hinds beauty aids? They are Hinds Cleansing Cream, a delicate liquefying cream, Hinds Texture Cream...a greaseless skin softener, and Hinds Toning Cleanser....a liquid cleanser that refines pores. Now here's how you get your 7 day trial bottle of Hinds Honey and Almond Cream absolutely without cost. Just send your name and address, or drop a postcard to Hinds - H-I-N-D-S, Bloomfield - B-L-O-O-M-F-I-E-L-D, New Jersey. And with your complimentary bottle of Hinds you will also receive notice of a very special additional offer of great interest to all the ladies - Be sure to take full advantage of this opportunity and write promptly to Hinds, Bloomfield, New Jersey. The Hinds Honey and Almond Cream program comes to you every Wednesday and Sunday at 10 P.M. In tonight's program Jimmy Durante was impersonated by _______________ ZaSu Pitts by _______________ and James Cagney by _______________ This is the National Broadcasting Company.