(See front cover)
Tourists in Hollywood are sometimes disappointed by their first visit to a movie set. Unfortunately, there were no visitors on the Columbia Pictures Corp. sound stage where one day last June five albino canaries, a crate of firecrackers, the studio's mascot cat and half-a-dozen property movers were assembled. One of the prop men, breaking rules by smoking a cigaret, dropped a spark into the firecrackers, causing them to sizzle. The whole crateful exploded and, in the ensuing commotion, the five canaries flew away, the cat produced five kittens.
Canaries, firecrackers and some $200,000 worth of other miscellaneous equipment were part of the paraphernalia for Columbia's biggest feature of the year: You Can't Take It With You, Screenwriter Robert Riskin's adaptation of the smash hit play by Moss Hart & George S. Kaufman, for which Columbia's President Harry Cohn last year paid a record price of $200,000. By the end of June, with a new flock of birds added to a cast which already included such rarities as Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, Donald Meek, Spring Byington and Mischa Auer, shooting on the picture ended and 329,000 feet of film were sent to the cutting room. A finished feature picture contains 8,000. By last week, You Can't Take It With You was only about twice that size and almost in shape for its first previews. Cost of the picture so far is about ten times what Columbia paid for the story, but Producer Harry Cohn confidently expects that when it is released the first week in September, it will bring back the $2,000,000 and $1,000,000 or so besides.
Reason for Producer Cohn's confidence is simple. You Can't Take It With You is directed by Frank Capra. Unlike most of Hollywood's major cinemanufacturers, Columbia controls neither a huge chain of theatres nor a long roster of famed stars.
For both of these, Capra, as the company's strongest financial asset, has been a more than acceptable substitute. A genial, stocky, 41-year-old son of Sicilian immigrants, he has twice won the top honors of his profession, the Motion Picture Academy's Award for It Happened One Night in 1935, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town in 1936. Last year, after a prolonged dispute in which he charged Columbia with breach of contract, their differences were composed on a basis that pays Capra roughly $350,000 a year. He has personally created or vastly improved half-a-dozen stars, including Barbara Stanwyck, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, and Jean Arthur. More important than all these is the simple fact that in his 17 years in the cinema industry, Frank Capra has an almost unparalleled record of having turned out only one real flop. On the strength of this record he is regarded not only as the mainstay of his company but as the top director of his industry.