Anne Shirley in Screen Guide

Anne Shirley from Screen Guide, May 1942.  A brief blurb laments her recent divorce from John Payne, but supports the young mother and working actress in Hollywood style by following her every move.  

When a personal life-changing event happens, the only recourse is to up the glamour.  We can both applaud and pity the stars under such circumstances.  So many decades later we still have their films and they continue to entertain. Could they ever have imagined that?

The Secret Lives of Hollywood Stars in Children's Novels

Deanna Durbin had a secret life, at least as evidenced by her two adventures told in children's novels: Deanna Durbin and the Adventure of Blue Valley, and Deanna Durbin and the Feather of Flame.  These began a popular, if sometimes rather odd, series of girls' books by Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin.  We learned about the adventures of other stars as well in exploits never told in fan magazines.

These two books were published in 1941 and spearheaded the collection that would be known as the Whitman Authorized Editions, though whether any star actually authorized these stories is quite doubtful.  They do stand as creative examples of not only the studios' ownership of its stars, but its wide-reaching commercial exploitation of the stars as its products.

One of the more interesting of the series was Ginger Rogers and the Riddle of the Scarlet Cloak, which was actually written by her mother, Lela E. Rogers, so Ginger must have at least known about the novel even if she didn't authorize it.  The story has Ginger dealing with a rough relationship with her mother, meeting her father for the first time, and in her job as a night switchboard operator for a hotel, ferrets out enemy spies in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.  A full day's work.

Most, but not all, of the books in the series were written by Katheryn Heisenfelt.

We see by the titles that many stars had a lot going on in their lives. There is:

Bonita Granville and the Mystery of Star Island

Jane Withers and the Hidden Room

Ann Rutherford and the Key to Nightmare Hall

Betty Grable and the House with Iron Shutters

Jane Withers and the Phantom Violin (Jane Withers was very busy.)

Betty Hutton and the Romance of Palmetto Island

Ann Sheridan and the Sign of the Sphinx (Look at her casting that wry eye at the whole idea.)

Jane Withers and the Swamp Wizard (Jane's back again in a weird swamp story.)

Judy Garland and the Hoodoo Costume

Shirley Temple and the Spirit of Dragonwood

Shirley Temple and the Screaming Specter (because why should Jane Withers have all the excitement?

Gene Tierney and the Invisible Wedding Gift (I find this title the most intriguing.)

Dorothy Lamour and the Haunted Lighthouse

And just so you don't think the ladies have all the fun, we have:

John Payne and the Menace at Hawk's Nest

Gregory Peck and the Red Box Enigma

Van Johnson, the Luckiest Guy in the World.

If any of you have read any of these books, I'd like to hear your book report. 

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In this previous post from 2010, I discussed some children's novels that were centered around World War II and published in that era.  I'll be writing a book on this subject, something that's been on the back burner for, obviously, a very long time.  My to-do list is so long it sometimes strangles me, and I have to shoot it.  But I'd like hear your input as well on books like the Cherry Ames series, the Dave Dawson series, the Ann Bartlett series, etc., all the pre-teen novels about the war.  I'll post more on this down the road.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century.

EXTRA! Newspapers and the movies

Above a newspaper spread wide in the murderous hands of Joseph Cotten hides Mr. Cotten’s face from us as he intends to hide his crimes. But he is eventually revealed, at least to the trusting heart of his niece, Teresa Wright, through steadfast newspaper reporting that dogs him from town to town.


One of the most dramatic moments in this film, “Shadow of a Doubt” (1943) is when Teresa Wright goes to the library to read a copy of the newspaper her uncle has destroyed at home, to discover this haunting headline, and then the camera scrolls down the entire column to the thunderous strains of “The Merry Widow Waltz.”

Splashing newspaper headlines were a common dramatic device used in the old movies, sometimes to forward the plot, to explain a twist in the story, or to add a little humor. And it wasn’t enough to show us headlines; we were invariably shown a shot of the running printing presses, to boot. Though newspaper men and women were seen to be a fast-talking, cynical, and sometimes cagy lot, they were often represented as the last defense in a world of lies, soldiers against injustice, and the keepers of democracy.

Even the innocuous and heartwarming comedy, “Miracle on 34th Street” (1947), notes this aspect of gritty street journalism when the smarmy bully Mr. Sawyer, who as gotten Edmund Gwenn institutionalized, fears the power of the press. “We’re very anxious to avoid publicity of any kind.”


John Payne, Mr. Gwenn’s lawyer, realizes the power of the press is just the way to get his day in court, and we have the following parody of a newspaper headline in the days when editors had more puns up their sleeves than extra aces.

Other aspects to the old movie view of journalism, sidebars if you will, are guys like old Joe the linotype operator in “Meet John Doe” (1941), and this shouting newsboy who, flashing a newspaper full of that opposite pole of journalism we know as propaganda, storms into the crowd and brings an end to Gary Cooper’s crusade. The truth may set us free, but lies are mighty strong handcuffs.

Then there is the worst kind of free press, the kind that dies. We now live an age of many competing news sources, most wondrous and remarkable. No longer shackled to the printing press, we find ourselves in the curious position of losing the ability, or interest, in keeping a permanent record. The Internet is far-reaching, but hardly permanent. We may find ourselves irresistibly dawn, or pulled unwillingly, further into a world of up to the minute superficiality. Meanwhile, the solid bastions of democracy, the keepers of the record, morph into dinosaurs. The death toll continues.

Rocky Mountain News
Baltimore Examiner
Kentucky Post
Cincinnati Post
Albuquerque Tribune
South Idaho Press

These are only a few of the dinosaurs now extinct. For more on the state of the press, have a look at this website called Newspaper Death Watch. Morbid title, but in the tradition of splashy newspaper headlines in the movies, it gets your attention.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947) sets two interesting precedents for the American public. First, it becomes a traditional must-see film for the Christmas holiday season, something warm and fuzzy, and frequently re-made. Secondly, and more importantly, it openly and frankly acknowledges, perhaps even establishes, the phenomenon of yuletide commercialism, Black Friday binges, Cyber Mondays and Thanksgiving as a warm-up act for the big show to follow.

Maureen O’Hara is in Human Resources at New York City’s famed Macy’s Department Store and is in charge of the Thanksgiving Parade. She hires Edmund Gwenn as a last-minute replacement for the fellow supposed to play Santa Claus, whose float brings up the rear of the parade. She has unwittingly hired the real Santa Claus to play himself, and that is where the plot takes off. John Payne is her prospective beau and Santa’s attorney, and young Natalie Wood her daughter, who does not believe in Santa.

We have a few shots of Macy’s and a couple of actors playing Mr. Macy and his rival, Mr. Gimbel, but it’s not really so much about Macy’s or New York City. This could be any department store in any town. These could be your kids waiting in line in to sit in Santa’s lap, or it could be you, or your parents. We have a suggestion of the late war with the most touching scene in the movie probably where the little girl from Holland, who does not speak English, is captivated by a Santa Claus who can easily converse with her in Dutch. But most of the film is not about the past, either good old days or horrors gratefully behind us. It is not even about the present, with bustling well-dressed shoppers using cash instead of credit cards and content to wait until Christmas Eve to decorate their real trees, with dreams of their first suburban post-war homes dancing in their heads, topping their wish list.

It is about the future, a time which this film maps out even if it does not envision. It is about a time of paying with plastic, and of over-spending with plastic. It is about the economic reporters gauging, analyzing, cringing and exulting about how much money is being spent by the shopper, by the minute, in an America where two-thirds of our economy is dependent on this one short season.

It is about putting up the tree on Thanksgiving after rushing through the turkey dinner. It is about watching Miracle on 34th Street not because it is one of the few classic films which mentions that most American of holidays, Thanksgiving, but because leads us into Christmas, ready, set, go right after you finish your piece of pumpkin pie.

Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943)

“Hello, Frisco, Hello” (1943) makes the War go away by giving us Alice Faye and John Payne in a Technicolor Barbary Coast of yesteryear. Along with Jack Oakie and June Havoc, they make a vaudeville foursome trying to rise above the honkytonks of San Francisco’s Pacific Street. Alice is “dead gone” on John Payne, but he has his sights on Nob Hill and the carriage trade.

John Payne, the brains of the quartet, aspires to greater things, and falls for wealthy socialite played by Lynn Bari, breaking our Alice Faye’s heart. He acquires several theaters, becoming an impresario and leaving his old gang behind.

The film is notable for Miss Faye’s poignant rendition of “You’ll Never Know” which she croons onstage into a prop telephone to her long-distance lover. The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and quickly became a favorite in wartime America among separated sweethearts. Her distinctive contralto singing voice, low and warm, marked her from other singing stars of her day.

“You went away, and my heart went with you,” the song goes, and it is because of the simple, yet truthful, sentimentality of the film that makes it rise above a standard plot. Alice Faye exuded a sweet vulnerability that contrasted with her earlier Depression-era films where she appeared more hard-boiled and world weary and world wise. Even her taking the hand of little Shirley Temple for a brisk, soldierly tap-dance in “Poor Little Rich Girl” (1936) does little to soften the tough as nails working girl of the Depression. It took the War, and Technicolor, perhaps, to show the softer side of an actress who still maintains a certain aloofness, and this perhaps only for self defense.

In “Hello, Frisco, Hello” she also gets to twirl a lariat while singing “Ragtime Cowboy Joe,” and shoots off a couple six shooters like percussion instruments. Wisecracking Jack Oakie gets some of the best lines, like “Look at you. You look like the last half of Finnegan’s Wake” to berate June Havoc.

Sly, man-stealing Bernice Croft, played by Lynn Bari gets to fire off, “I’ll probably spend the next week snapping whalebone in my corsets trying to do the Grizzly Bear,” in a seductive sort of yesteryear pass to Mr. Payne. June Havoc refers to her as an “enamel puss society wench.”

Some trick novelty roller skating accompanies “It’s Tulip Time in Holland,” and Miss Faye charms the stereotyped Irish with “Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?” By the time she goes her own way from Payne and the act, she becomes the toast of London with “By the Light of the Silvery Moon.” What a fool Payne is for ever leaving her.

Here is Alice Faye singing “You Never Know.”

Now Playing - October 1942

This ad for “Iceland” (1942) exhorts us to Buy War Bonds and Stamps. In this film, John Payne is a Marine, and Sonja Henie grins with enormous dimples and skates with her usual doll-like grace and precision. “They’re Bringing New Glory…To Old Glory!” the ad fairly shouts.

A follow up to the popular “Sun Valley Serenade,” “Iceland” may have been big on patriotism if a bit thin on plot. It did well at the box office, as Sonja Henie’s skating was a popular novelty no matter what the storyline.

It is announced that tomorrow morning the doors open at 8:45 a.m. for an early bird show for defense workers just getting off the graveyard shift.