The Marx Brothers rate among the most consistent "one-a-year" stars in Hollywood. Their first picture, "The Cocoanuts was released in 1929, and their ninth, "At the Circus," appeared in New York last month. This gives them an average of one vehicle per annum since they first crashed California, with a sabbatical year: thrown in.
The casualty list with Marxian directors and leading ladies runs very high. When Eddie Buzzell was indiscreet enough, the first day on the set of "At the Circus," to make some comment about "really acting this scene," Groucho retorted, "The Marx Brothers will do anything but act; if you want dramatics, use our stand-ins."
Buzzell managed, with the aid of smoked glasses and a liberal supply of aspirin, to stagger through the production, leaving for Europe the night the final scenes were made. That evening he was invited to meet his stars for a farewell snack, at an address on Hollywood Boulevard. When he arrived, the rendezvous proved to be a mortuary chapel where coffee and cakes were solemnly served.
Trick Played on Director Buzzell had never quite recovered, anyway, from the episode that happened the second week of production, when a bewhiskered messenger boy rode up on the set where the director was impatiently awaiting the arrival of the trio. The boy handed over Harriet and Roger Commencing tonight Harriet and Rodger, European ballroom team headlining the programme of entertainment at the Casanova Ballroom, will present an Argentine tango and and an old-fashioned waltz. These artistes are said to be particularly adept at the tango and for their tango tonight will wear costumes of unusual beauty, personally designed by Roger. With the addition of sofas increasing the seating capacity, the management has also increased the staff of foreign hostesses. Dance music is furnished by Gloria Andico's swing band.
That Hollywood's extra ranks could furnish anyone from an American cowboy to an East Indian prince has been a matter of common knowledge for years. But when the Hal Roach studio's casting director issued a call for five young Englishmen to appear in the Laurel and Hardy comedy, "A Chump at Oxford," facetiously adding "Oxford students preferred," he thought he had the Central Casting Office stumped. Sorely put, but refusing to permit its tradition of "we always get your man" to be besmürched, Central Casting rose to the occasion. Five trim young Britons reported for work the next morning, each of them hailing Oxford as his Alma Mater.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.