 By transcription, Bidwell McCormick takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood. The sound technicians are among the most important people on the movie set today, and it's almost uncanny what some of these men can actually do. Yes, and if a player blows or fluffs his lines, it is very often that the sound technician even knows it in advance. Well, this item of contemporary science was discovered on the Kismet set at MGM, where Edward Arnold was working with Ronald Coleman. The dialogue was bouncing along when Jimmy Flaster, unit sound mixer, removed the beeps from his ears and shook his head. An instant later, Arnold stumbled on a word and director William Dieterley yelled, cut. The sound technician said, I knew he was going to fluff that line because he started speeding up. A sound man can usually tell about two lines in advance because involuntarily he starts speeding up as he approaches a line that he isn't sure of. Sound technicians know other things that no one else on the set knows too. He may be seated 10 feet from the action or 100 feet, but his ears instantly record every particle of sound the microphone picks up. Much of it cannot be heard by a person standing directly beside the microphone or even by the players themselves. And a sound technician will know if a player needs a drink of water, too. Very often a player's mouth will become dry, but he doesn't ask for a drink of water because he's afraid it will delay production, or because he doesn't know that it is affecting his tones. But all this is picked up with the sensitive ears of the sound technician, and very often he must ask people to drink some water. It does seem strange, but it is nevertheless true that the man sitting all day long in that chair behind the black control box with all its intricate knobs and wheels to indicate the volume of the sound being recorded knows more about the performer's state of mind and physical needs than they often do themselves. With those lucid beeps fitted onto his ears and those beeps snapped into high quality receivers which are attached to the control box by wires, the sound technician knows about everything that is going on. Now let's take a few production highlights from behind the scenes in Hollywood. It looks like hair dyeing is about to become an epidemic among Mayo players at Warner Brothers. First, Donald Wood's hair was dyed blonde for the role of Roslyn Russell's first husband in Roughly Speaking. And now George Caloris as Joachim Helm in Hotel Berlin is working with dyed hair. His is a reddish blonde for that honey-glair effect. And something new in the way of a stand-in for child players has been introduced in divorce. The monogram drama now in production with Kay Francis in the starring role. Billy Barty, 30-year-old midget, has been engaged to stand-in for Larry Olson, age 7, who is cast as one of the children of Miss Francis. Manneray Yule has today's personality close-up. It's of Carol Landis. Like most youngsters, Carol Landis was stage-struck at the age of 7, but at 16 she did something about it. She went to San Francisco, got a job in a nightclub and made a hit as a singer. From that time on, until a recently completed role in RKO Radio's having wonderful crime, in which she co-stars with Pat O'Brien and George Murphy, Carol has chartered every step of her own career. Born Francis Riddesty in Fairchild, Wisconsin, she lived in San Diego in San Bernardino, California, before going to the Golden City to embark on her theatrical career. Being an ambitious and determined gal, she sang her songs, saved her money and headed for Hollywood. Once in the film capital, she learned to dance, got a job in a musical and was signed to a contract. But Carol wasn't satisfied to take just what came her way. She knew the importance of self-improvement and never let up in her effort to become a better actress. When the United States entered the war, Carol realized there was important job to do. So she visited army camps in England, North Africa and the Pacific, and blazed many a trail to army outposts deep in the jungle to entertain our troops. G.I. Joe's dubbed her the pride of the Yanks. Carol is five-five, weighs 111 pounds, and has blonde hair and blue eyes. She's planned her future just as meticulously as she planned her film career, and there's no reason to doubt that it will be equally successful. Now a word from your local announcer. By transcription, Bidwell McCormick takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood. Time was when corsages, garlands and table arrangements were made for the motion picture sets of real flowers. Then when color films were made and the intense heat from the high-powered lights wilted the natural blossoms, paper flowers were used for the color films. But now, since paper shortage, Hollywood has had to turn largely to a substance not required by the war asked. All of which now makes the flower situation on the movie set a very tickly situation, I understand. Yes, and literally so. For in the production of Columbia's Technicolor Extravaganza, a thousand and one nights, the blooms are made of feathers. Feathers were found to be the best way to fool the Technicolor cameras. They don't wilt under the terrific heat. They're not priority material, and they can be made to look exactly like real flowers. In fact, they're all right to everyone except the actors. Yes, in one scene in that picture, Cornel Wild was required to plunge his nose into a huge red rose which Adele Jurgens had tossed him in a love scene. Three times, Director Al Green tried to shoot the scene, and on each occasion, Cornel sneezed and spoiled the shot. Finally, Green had the feather flowers shaken well through thoroughly reddish dust, and only then was Cornel able to make the romantic gesture for the cameras without sneezing. Yes, and that's just one of the difficulties experienced in making motion pictures in this day of shortages. Now, here are a few briefs about stars and pictures. The human side of the fighting fronts will be brought to the screen by Warner Brothers in a new series of monthly releases under the title Overseas Roundup, it was announced. Aquanetta just flew into Hollywood from Mexico City. She begins work immediately on Temptation, her first film under her new contract with Monogram. Top roles in The Two Mrs. Carols have been assigned to Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck. It's from the Broadway play by Martin Vale, with Mark Hellinger producing and Peter Godfrey directing. For our personality close-up, we'll tell you how Ronald Coleman's other plans almost prevented his movie career. It came to the United States in the early 1920s during the depression and show business in England. Fate or destiny couldn't have selected a more fateful era in which to launch an acting career in a new country. For in those years, Rudolph Valentino, dark and handsome was the world's screen idol, and the shy, sensitive Coleman had been appraised as dark and handsome and something like Valentino. He found New York almost as tough as London had been, but he did manage a few stage roles. After a very precarious summer, he was given an important role in the Schubert production of La Tondresse. Lillian Gish and screen director Henry King saw La Tondresse and Coleman. They were then planning production of the motion picture of the white sister and needed a young man who looked like an Italian. They approached the young Coleman, but he turned down their offer. He pleaded other plans, but didn't reveal what those other plans were. Three times he refused their proposition, and finally he decided that if Fate was knocking so persistently, perhaps he'd better make just this one picture. The white sister was a sensational success. Fans liked that dashing young fellow Coleman. Now comes the final touch. Coleman was not by nature a dashing fellow at all. He was shy, timid. Well, how did he overcome this timidity? Coleman is known on the screen today as one of the most convincing of all portrayers of dashing aggressive, alert, bold adventurers in Swashbucklers. Well, obviously he had to conquer and overcome tendencies to make himself an opposite type of personality. He overcame his timidity complex by adopting a policy which would be good for most any of us. He said, I found my fears came from indecision, so I made up my mind that I'd commit myself, one way or another, on every proposition that might confront me, and then stick to whatever decision I had made. And that's the way it is. And today, you can get a positive, immediate answer from Roland Coleman on anything you submit to him. And now a word from your local announcer. By transcription, Bidwell McCormick takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood. While working on the Mitchell-Leeson production, practically yours, Paramount Technicians initiated a new transparency device for a two-and-a-half-minute scene with Claudette Colbert and Fred McMurray. In that picture I have. While working on the Mitchell-Leeson production, while working on the Mitchell-Leeson production, while working on the Mitchell... By transcription, Bidwell McCormick takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood. While working on the Mitchell-Leeson production, practically yours, Paramount Technicians initiated a new transparency device for a two-and-a-half-minute scene with Claudette Colbert and Fred McMurray. In that picture I understand for the first time a scene using dialogue was made, was made, wherein the principles moved from a transparency background to a standing set in one shot. Yes, using a camera boom, an 18-foot transparency screen, treadmill, prop tree, and a 70-foot replica of New York Central Park, this novel effect was accomplished. By bridging the transparency screen and the standing set with a prop tree, so that when Colbert and McMurray stepped down after one minute of dialogue on the treadmill, there was no noticeable transition, and they walked through the standing set for the subsequent minute-and-a-half without a change in the camera setup. New improvements in photographic technique and the skill of the set builders working with their amazing new transparency backgrounds are accomplishing effects believed impossible a short time ago. That's right and now for a few briefs and production highlights. In Warner Bros. roughly speaking, Rosalind Russell sees her son off to war. She made it perfectly and without benefit of rehearsal, whereupon Michael Kurt is, her Academy Award director exclaimed, Ros, how do you do it? Sometimes I've had to work with people for hours to get the kind of drama you've just given me in one take. I've never seen a more touching or convincing farewell. I wasn't acting. I've seen my three brothers go, James to the Air Corps, George to the Tank Corps, and John to the Escort Service. And it hurt. While I was doing this scene, I began to feel again the ache of seeing them off. I just couldn't help reliving the whole thing all over again. Anyone who has said goodbye to a lover on leaving for the front could have done as well. Today's personality close-up is about an old timer who has just returned to the screen. Lee Tracy. Yes, and Lee Tracy is Captain Lee Tracy now. Two years of service in the Army did him a lot of good. He's not nearly so nervous as he used to be, but he still gestures with lightning-like rapidity. Yes, and he's in fine physical condition too. He mastered judo as part of his work in the Army, which was intelligence service against the Japs. His mind works as rapidly as his tongue. Usually his eyes are darting here, there, everywhere, as alert as a bird in a cat-infested yard. He has a secret yen to write, which made his early newspaper reporter roles seem like some sort of fulfillment. Stronger, however, is his interest in intelligence work, and that's what he gets in Betrayal from the East, RKO Radio, a screen version of the Allen Hind expose of Jap Nazi espionage. The Army says, Tracy, certainly train me for this role in the picture. Tracy doesn't like domesticity as such, though he loves his wife. What he hates is the rigors of housekeeping. He now owns an apartment house and lives in a suite in it. He'd really rather live in a hotel, but one does make concessions to one's wife. Above all, he hates to care for lawns and shrubs. He likes people, most of all. They're his hobby. Everybody's of interest to him, and he asks endless questions. And somehow, nobody resents his nosing into personal affairs. A hypothetical, but very difficult, Tracy question would be, now, lady, tell me just what you saw in your husband to make you fall in love with and marry him. And before she knows it, the lady's telling him. Tracy believes that acting can't be done successfully without contact with the outside world. So he gets out into the world and studies people. Incidentally, he's rarely recognized because his screen mannerisms are absent. And now, your local announcer has a few words.