 Bidwell McCormick takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood. Many times you have gone to the theater just as I have and sat there waiting for the feature picture to come on. And you have probably been bored with the almost endless procession of subtitles, giving screen credits to this person and to that person. And you, like myself, have no doubt said, why don't they get on with a picture and forget all this introduction? Well, it occurred to me that you might want to know something about these little people, who they are and how they are often just as important to the success of a motion picture as the stars themselves. So today we are going to take you behind the scenes and tell you how two men were responsible for making certain scenes in a great motion picture, fairly live and breathe. Such was the realism of the painted backgrounds they supervised. Go ahead, Nathan Hale. Okay, Bidwell, I shall be happy to tell of these two men. One is a prominent city planner and the other a well-known architect. Well, in making of David O. Selznick since you went away, William Pereira, one of the gentlemen and Mark Lee Kirk, the other, designed and supervised the construction of three giant dioramas on a scale never before attempted. Now, dioramas are the tremendous painted backdrops which form the background for motion pictures. They're made in the studios when suitable natural backgrounds are not available. These two men created the realistic illusions of depth, of change and of background, which make a motion picture as real as life. And when a producer attempts to capture both the mood and physical aspect of all America, then you can see he leans heavily on the technicians who will accomplish the task. To men like these goes a great amount of credit for the success and overall technical perfection. Ordinarily, dioramas don't get the special treatment given these, for they were painted on in full color, thus giving a three-dimensional effect and individually, they spread 30 feet high by 180 feet long. These dioramas required several thousand square feet of canvas, but they were so skillfully executed that all of this material was for the motion picture audience a real and livable street, changing its aspect with every change of season. Next time you go to the movies, take a good look at the things in the background. They sometimes offer just as much drama as the histrionics going on in the foreground. Yes, there's a surprising amount of detail needed in a production to make for realism and good entertainment. For instance, a lady's purse was cast in a movie the other day. Ordinarily, the selection of such a commonplace accessory of female wardrobe wouldn't have caused much commotion. A few samples would have been inspected and the one that matched the rest of the outfit would have been chosen. But picking this particular handbag was no such simple matter. In fact, director Billy Wilder gave the problem as much attention as Cecil B. DeMille might have devoted to finding the right bathtub for one of his magnum opuses. Yes, and this purse has a very important place in the lost weekend. The unusual picture Paramount is making from Charles Jackson's best-selling story of a chronic alcoholic. Ray Milan plays one of his most significant scenes in the picture with it. This is the time when Don Burnham, the habitual drunkard in the novel, hits bottom in his alcoholic generation by stealing a girl's purse in a cocktail bar. The young woman from the wardrobe department brought out two dozen assorted handbags and laid them before the director and the star. There were big ones and little ones of leather and cloth material, square, oblong and circular, and in several shades. Then director Wilder said, now let's rehearse the scene and see which purse gives the best performance. I see it's something like this. Well, Ray listened closely to the directions and the stage was set. One of the handbags was placed in a chair beside Milan. Then the actor sat down and with his left hand coveredly drew the purse up next to him. He shifted his cigarette to his left hand. He inserted his right hand inside his coat, gradually lowering it until it reached the purse, which he drew up out of sight and pressed tightly against his side as he got up to leave the bar. This one's too big, he said. You can see the bulge. You could spot it a mile away. So we played the same scene over and over with all the other samples until he found the one that was exactly right to play the part of the lady's purse. And now a word from your local announcer. Here are a few production highlights from behind the scenes in Hollywood. Love Letters is the title of a new song Victor Young has written, which will be used as a theme music for the forthcoming production of the same name. Tom Noonan, young stage comedian of Broadway, has been signed to a long-term contract by RKO Radio. He's considered a screen find of the youthful, glib, fast-talking type of comedian. Broadway has seen Noonan in Junior Miss and Men to the Sea. Anyone who has seen Going My Way and Who Hasn't will remember Jean Heather, the University of Washington girl who made such a sparkling screen debut as the runaway girl in that picture. She also played Barbara Stanwyck's stepdaughter in Double Indemnity. Now she's been cast by Paramount for a prominent part in The Well-Groomed Bride, which will cost our Ray Milland, Olivia DeHavilland, and Sonny Toffs. Direction of the Falcon in San Francisco with Tom Conway in the title role goes to Joseph H. Lewis, who after two years of army service has been honorably discharged. Since returning to civilian life, Lewis directed Minstrel Man, while in uniform he directed 22 army training films. Of all things, a sound-proof crying chamber has been added to the Columbia set for Over 21, which stars Alexander Knox, Charles Coburn, and Irene Dunn. Oh, no, not for the stars. But in one sequence of the picture, it requires more than a dozen infants. But the film action doesn't call for them to cry. However, keeping a toddler from crying when he's in the mood for it is a problem that baffles even a director like Charles Viter, who's megging the production. Viter found that if one of the tots started whimpering, it seemed to be contagious. So he ordered the sound-proof room installed to isolate the infants the very minute they started crying. Clark Gable is back in movie land. His first picture will be Strange Adventure and shooting will begin in March. Brian Donnelly has brought out the western outfit he wore when he got his first break and will wear the costume as Trampas in The Virginian. In 1935, Donnelly played his first important role in Barbary Coast, wearing black shirt, breeches, boots, hat, and scarf. He later purchased the outfit from producer Samuel Goldwyn and has kept it ever since, considering it a good luck costume. The Virginian will also mark a lucky reunion of Donnelly and Joel McCray, who appeared with him in Barbary Coast. Joel plays the title role as The Virginian. Francis Porter has been signed by RKO Radio to do the screenplay of Steven Laird's original story, Palace on Main Street, under the author's supervision. Steve Fisher will adapt Deadlier than the Mail from the James Gunn novel for their studio. Lena Horne, Hollywood's desk beauty with a languorous voice, wins an important role in Metro Golden Mayor's forthcoming production of Close Shave, an Abbot and Costello comedy. Lena will also sing several song numbers. After seeing Nonogryphus' performance in the psychological murder mystery, The Unseen, Paramount is seeking starring vehicles for this seven-year-old discovery. Clifford Odette's Dudley Nichols, John Twist, DeWitt Boudin, Borden Chase, and Anise Mackenzie are some of the well-known names in the record roster of 53 writers, now at work at the RKO Radio Studio, preparing, writing, and polishing scripts for 40 productions. The Ritz Melchior, a metropolitan opera star who made his motion picture debut recently in MGM's thrill of a romance, has been given a contract at that studio and assigned to another important singing role in the forthcoming Brighton Beach. Paramount will again star Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and there will be plenty of dancing which is indicated by the title On with the Dance. The starting date of the production has not been announced, but it has been revealed that Irving Berlin will do the music. Something new in the way of portable dressing rooms appeared on the MGM lot, it's a gift to Judy Garland who celebrates her 10th anniversary as a screen personality and her 23rd screen role with the start of filming on The Harvey Girls. The dressing room is completely new in design, resembling a small library on wheels. The room is done in dark wood and red leather, has easy chairs, bookshelves, and lampstands on attractive tables. This sitting room portion is separated from the dressing room with a sliding panel of doors. The 20-year-old singer, Tannis Chandler, has won an RKO radio long-term contract and a featured role in George White's Scandals of 1945. It came about this way. An executive of this studio heard her voice on the first OWI programs to General MacArthur's Invasion Troops and Filipino guerrillas on Lausanne. Miss Chandler has been devoting many of her evenings last year to various OWI overseas broadcasts in the three languages that she speaks fluently. What would you most like to hear about the movies? Write a postcard to Bidwell McCormick in care of this station requesting it, and we'll try to bring it to you on these programs. For today's personality close-ups, we have the stories of an extra and a woman casting director. Manaree, you tell us about Bob Milash, Dean of Hollywood's extras who just played in his 2,515th movie. Well, for one thing, his role as a grizzled cowboy in Duffy's Tavern also marks his 45th anniversary in motion pictures. Bob has been in pictures longer than any other living Hollywood actor. He says he began his career before the cameras in the first-moving pictures with live actors. It was a Thomas E. Edison picture called Babes in a Barrel with Billy Sorrell in the principal role. That was made in Flushing, Long Island and was an educational film. I was working on the stage then, Bob recalls, and a friend asked me if I wanted to make an easy $5 and get a free lunch besides. He said they were making something new, a moving picture, and would pay five bucks plus lunch for an experienced actor. I took the job and worked for two days. The picture was only 250 feet long. In 1903, Malosh played in The Great Train Robbery, a picture which is generally regarded as the forerunner of modern movies. He appeared as five different characters in this pioneer flicker. Bob came to Hollywood for the Edison film company in 1910 and has been here ever since, except for occasional excursions back in Devaudville. He played in Cecil B. DeMille's first picture, The Squaw Man, made in 1914 with Dustin Fonham. He worked in the first Max Senate bathing beauty comedies and in the early Universal Pictures. An actor had to have a strong back then, no matter whatever else he had, said the veteran. You had to help set up the camera, move the lights, arrange the furniture on the set, go get the props and lend a hand at writing the script. Well, when there was a script. Bob Malosh can say to most of the stars and featured players with whom he now works as an extra, I remember you when, but he doesn't. Instead, he merely adds another picture to the long record in the diary which he has kept covering two centuries in the history of motion pictures. And the 61-year-old Bob Malosh promises that someday he's going to write a book about what he has seen and done in his time as a movie actor. In the meantime, he quips, you can quote me of saying, I am convinced that the cinema is here to stay. It hardly seems possible. There's still a field of endeavor that is almost exclusively male. But at present, there are only two women casting directors in Hollywood. And according to one of them, Florence Tannen, it's a natural job for a woman too. So the men had better prepare for a feminine invasion. Mrs. Tannen is the wife of Corporal Charles Tannen, former actor whom she met by refusing to give him a gate pass to a studio in 1936. He got in all right and interrupted her career long enough to marry her. Although she's been in the business as assistant since 1923, Mrs. Tannen assumed full responsibility for the first time when she was made casting director for Abroad with Two Yanks, a comedy starring a Hal Roach player, William Bendix, Dennis O'Keefe and Helen Walker. And after casting 22 people on the morning of her first day in complete charge, she hurried home to do her housework. She stopped on the way to do the marketing of some laundry. It wouldn't do for me to miscast myself, she said. After all, I'm a wife first. My toughest job these days is to cast her maid of all work at home. So I'm playing the part myself. Casting has long been regarded as a man's job in Hollywood, but I don't know any particular reason why she observed women ought to be good judges of acting ability as well as character. They usually pick a husband sooner or later, and if their judgment is wrong, it's just too bad. Mrs. Tannen takes her job seriously, but she isn't pontifical about it. She laughs easily and often. She attributes her present post to the reckless purchase of a fur coat in 1923. She was then a crack PBX operator and had two weeks' vacation coming up. A girlfriend on the casting department switchboard at board at Metro Golden Mayor advised her of a temporary job there. So recalled Mrs. Tannen, I worked through my vacation and bought a fur coat. I've been in casting work ever since. She joined Edward Small in 1941 to assist in the casting of several pictures, then went to RKO Radio where she remained until Small recalled her to take over the top spot. The only other woman casting director in Hollywood is Ruth Birch with David O. Selznick. Yes, Mrs. Tannen admits I believe in hunches, particularly women's hunches. I depend on it almost every day, but my knees knock until I see what comes out of the cameras. Listen again next week when Bidrow McCormick takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood.