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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

"Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" (1938) - Storyboard & Pencils

Here are some more images from "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" (1938). This time, I've put some of the Database Notes below the items and included some IMDB background information.


W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty

From "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" (1938). W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty -- shaped like an egg. Drawn in brown pencil with some red highlights. He's waving around his cane as if shouting at Charlie McCarthy (who is roughed in and positioned upper left). Smaller paper with frame drawn inside. Pin holes at corners. No hole punch. Perhaps drawn by Marc Davis. [Unframed Item: 8.25”W x 6.5”H] SeqID-0271 8/4/2005

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Edward G. Robinson and Gretta Garbo on Teeter Totter

From “Mother Goose Goes Hollywood” (1938). Pencil sketch of Edward G. Robinson and Greta Garbo on a teeter totter looking at each other. Note: “#5” This is a little unusual because of the portrayal of Garbo with very large feet (while this was not unusual in other films, it was a little strong for Disney at the time). [Image: 11-5/8"W x 9-3/8"H. Frame: 20-3/16"W X 17-7/8] Acquired 1993. SeqID-0090 Updated: 8/3/2005

Edward G. Robinson: Robinson (1893-1973), actor known for his gangster roles starting with “Little Caesar” (1931).

Gretta Garbo: Garbo (1905-1990) actress on silent screen, Her performance as the doomed courtesan in Camille (1937) was called the finest ever recorded on film. famous by-line “I want to be alone.”

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Charlie McCarthy as "Baby In Tree Top"

From “Mother Goose Goes Hollywood” (1938). A Director's drawing of Charlie McCarthy "Baby in tree-top." Notes: "5"; "JE"; "REG TO 104"; timing marks - 5 thru 9. [12"W x 10"H] Acquired 1996. SeqID-0210 Updated: 5/1/2008

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Eddie Cantor as "Little Jack Horner"

From Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938). #144. A wonderful pose of Eddie Cantor singing and looking to picture right. Appears to be leaning against something. This is where he plays "Little Jack Horner." Cantor does the "10 & 20 black birds" rhyme and out pops Cab Calloway from the pie. [Image: 6-7/8"W x 6-7/8"H. Frame: 14-1/8"W x 14"H] Acquired 1993. SeqID-0089 Updated: 8/17/2005

Eddie Cantor: Singer, songwriter ("Merrily We Roll Along"), comedian, author and actor, educated in public schools. He made his first public appearance in Vaudeville in 1907 at New York's Clinton Music Hall, then became a member of the Gus Edwards Gang, later touring vaudeville with Lila Lee as the team Cantor & Lee. He made Broadway stage appearances in "Canary Cottage", "Broadway Brevities of 1920", "Make It Snappy", "Kid Boots", "Whoopee", "Banjo Eyes", and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1917, 1918, 1919 and 1927. He had his own radio program in the 1930s, appeared often on television in the 1950s, and made many records. Joining ASCAP in 1951, and his popular-song compositions also include "Get a Little Fun Out of Life", "It's Great to Be Alive", and "The Old Stage Door". Eddie Cantor also wrote the books "Ziegfeld, the Great Glorifier" and "As I Remember Them", and the autobiographies "My Life Is In Your Hands" and "Take My Life." Received a Special Academy Award in 1956 for distinguished service to the film industry. He invented the name "March of Dimes" for the donation campaigns of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (polio), a play on the "March of Time" newsreels. He began the first campaign on his own radio show in January 1938, asking people to mail a dime to the nation's most famous polio victim, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Other entertainers joined in the appeal via their own shows, and the White House mail room was deluged with 2,680,000 dimes. President of Screen Actors Guild (SAG) from 1933-35.

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Wallace Berry as "Little Blue Boy"

From “Mother Goose Goes Hollywood” (1938). Wallace Berry as Little Blue Boy, sitting and holding trumpet. Notes: "21"; "H"; "TR. BAL. #17" [Unframed Item: 12"W X 10"H] Acquired 1996. SeqID-0192. Updated: 5/20/2008

Wallace Berry: In 1902, 16-year-old Wallace Beery joined the Ringling Brothers Circus as an assistant to the elephant trainer. He left two years later after a leopard clawed his arm. Beery next went to New York, where he found work in musical variety shows. He became a leading man in musicals and appeared on Broadway and in traveling stock companies. In 1913 he headed for Hollywood, where he would get his start as the hulking Swedish maid in the Sweedie comedy series for Essanay. In 1915 he would work with young ingénue Gloria Swanson in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). A year later they would marry and be wildly unhappy together. The marriage dissolved when Beery could not control his drinking and Gloria got tired of his abuse. Beery finished with the Sweedie series and worked as the heavy in a number of films. Starting with Patria (1917), he would play the beastly Hun in a number of films. In the 1920s he would be seen in a number of adventures, including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Sea Hawk (1924) and The Pony Express (1925). He would also play the part of Poole in So Big (1924), which was based on the best-selling book of the same name by Edna Ferber. Paramount began to move Beery back into comedies with Behind the Front (1926). When sound came, Beery was one of the victims of the wholesale studio purge. He had a voice that would record well, but his speech was slow and his tone was a deep, folksy, down home-type. While not the handsome hero image, MGM executive Irving Thalberg saw something in Beery and hired him for the studio. Thalberg cast Beery in The Big House (1930), which was a big hit and got Beery an Academy Award nomination. However, Beery would become almost a household word with the release of the sentimental Min and Bill (1930), which would be one of 1930's top money makers. The next year Beery would win the Oscar for Best Actor in The Champ (1931/I). He would be forever remembered as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934) (who says never work with kids?). Beery became one of the top ten stars in Hollywood, as he was cast as the tough, dim-witted, easy-going type (which, in real life, he was anything but). In Flesh (1932) he would be the dim-witted wrestler who did not figure that his wife was unfaithful. In Dinner at Eight (1933) he played a businessman trying to get into society while having trouble with his wife, Jean Harlow. After Marie Dressler died in 1934, he would not find another partner in the same vein as his early talkies until he teamed with Marjorie Main in the 1940s. He would appear opposite her in such films as Wyoming (1940) and Barnacle Bill (1941). By that time his career was slowing as he was getting up in age. He continued to work, appearing in only one or two pictures a year, until he died from a heart attack in 1949.

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