 By transcription, Bidwell McCormick takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood. Director Peter Godfrey wanted several hundred actors to rough things up when he was filming a scene in Hotel Berlin. So he used a modern ruse to accomplish the effect he was after. I suppose if he wanted to stampede he would just announce that there were some cigarettes for sale and he'd get some action over it. Well, Godfrey did better than that. He was trying to get several hundred actors to stampede toward a bomb shelter to give realism to the scene he was shooting. So he announced that two cartons of cigarettes were going to be given away to the first twenty persons reaching the shelter. Well, I guess he got his action, all right? Yes, and there was realism of plenty and some bruises that were not called for in the script. Diogenes can throw away his lamp. Jean Sullivan, young Warner Brothers actress, soon to be seen opposite Philip Dorn in Escape from the Desert, has found, if not an honest man, an honest woman. A little less than two years ago when Jean was eking her way through UCLA with such odd jobs as housework, minding babies and what all else, one of her clientele became a little delinquent and moved from the city before making good. Jean has a letter from the lady now of Des Moines, Iowa. Dear Jean, she wrote, I'm terribly, terribly sorry to have forgotten you when we left. I just remembered that we owed you a dollar and a half for minding the baby twice. Here is the check and I hope you'll forgive. We certainly could use you in this town. After a month of intensive effort and the use of very much imagination, Milo Anderson, famous costume designer, managed to outfit 54 corines from a scanty supply of carefully hoarded pre-war silk, satin, fur and ostrich feathers. The costumes were scantier than usual, but were officially approved for use in the time, the place and the girl, a musical show now shooting. Anderson was very proud of the fact that he had five ostrich feathers left over, a pride which lasted until six more corines were added to the cast. Mr. Anderson will welcome any suggestions. Arrow Flynn is to top all of his cinematic swashbuckling by killing no less than 32 antagonists in his next star, The Adventures of Don Juan, and he starred at his career portraying a corpse. Donald Meek, heretofore confined to mousy characters, has been assigned a lion-like role by Warner Brothers in Janey Gets Married, a comedy now before the cameras with Joan Leslie, Robert Hutton and an all-star cast. He will portray the bombastic owner of a chain of newspapers, and will compete romantically with Robert Benchley for the hand of a gay divorcee. Child prodigies, be they tap dancers, memory experts or mimics, have long been classed with the lower forms of animal life. Confronted by them and their antics, most adults feel inclined to do something drastic. And that's what makes a Lexus Smith, Warner Brothers star, something of an enigma. A Lexus who shares top billing with Jack Benny in The Hornblows at Midnight is, or was, a child prodigy. And a Lexus is easy, very easy to take. Maybe it's because she's as simple as her name, her last name. Maybe it's because she's devoid of phony Hollywood charm and a desire to impress people. Actually she came about her rare talent in a diversified field perfectly naturally. Her career has the obvious result of an overpowering interest in a number of things like dancing, singing, acting and formal music. Thoroughly imbued with these interests, a Lexus decided to do something about them. She walked, she wasn't shelved, to the nearest good teacher she could find and then set to work. As a result, she was doing solo ballet dancing at the Hollywood Bowl at the age of 13. By this age too, she was an accomplished concert pianist, had a lyric soprano voice which many said was of operatic proportions. A Lexus studied all these things six to eight hours a day, every day. She knew finally the thrill of not only being good but expert at half a dozen of the more exacting arts. In itself, that's not so much. But the fact that a Lexus excelled at these things without impressing herself with her ability and this mind you in Hollywood, the very seat of self-impressing has something of the truly noble in it. And now a word from your local announcer. By transcription, Bidwell McCormick takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood. It took studio technicians at MGM 72 hours to duplicate a surprise Jap attack. They could have been actually accomplished in an equal number of seconds. That must have been during the filming of They Were Expendable. Yes. The technicians, property and construction crews, reproduced a rubble, a rubble strewn bomb cratered, smoldering replica of Cavite Naval Yard after its historic destruction by Japanese bombers. To create the illusion of havoc, special buildings of non-priority materials were constructed, broken gas and water mains, splintered bulkheads, shattered windows, wrecked trucks, all furnished background for the crowds of terrified evacuees shown being removed by soldiers in the sequence. Before a single camera turned, however, I understand director John Ford contributed a typical dictatorial touch. Amid the carnage lay a sign which previously had graced the driveway of the Naval Yard when the Japs came. Spotting it, Ford ordered it to be set up in its original place, although the drive now was no more than a pile of smoking rubble. Ironically enough, the lettered sign read, Keep this space clear at all times. And just as Ford was about to record the first scene, a brush fire blazed up six miles offshore and directly in camera range. Clouds of gray smoke billowed from the island. Perfect, exclaimed Ford, chewing his pipe with delight. That's Manila burning. Green Mansions, W. H. Hudson's novel of life and death in a South American jungle, has been purchased by the MGM studio and is scheduled to go before the cameras late this year. Screen rights to the timely, realistic and widely acclaimed ladies' home journal novelette We Got Back have also been purchased by Metro Golden Mayor. Peter Lawford, young English actor, wins the most important role of his career and two leading ladies as the juvenile lead in Two Sisters from Boston. Gloria Dehaven's pretty brown-haired sister recently decided to launch a screen career of her own and already has won a comedy role in Yolanda and the Thief, MGM Technicolor Fantasy, starring Fred Astaire and Lucille Brimmer. Marjorie has been Gloria's studio stand-in ever since the youngest Dehaven began her Comet-like career in Best Foot Forward. Previously, Marjorie and her brother, Carter Dehaven Jr., were on the stage with their father, one-time matinee idol. Once again, in early to wed, Lucille Ball is wearing a lucky piece borrowed from Irene, executive designer for Metro Golden Mayor. In this case, it's a beautiful square emerald-cut diamond set in a gold shadow box, Irene's engagement ring from her husband, Captain Elliot Gibbons. Irene and Lucille have been observing this little custom ever since they've been together at MGM. The something borrowed, which Lucille wears in at least one scene in every picture she makes, is always a piece of Irene's beautiful collection of rare jewelry. Bunny Walters' six-foot glamazon has been set for a role in MGM's Abbott and Costello in Hollywood. She'll do a dance routine with Lou Costello, who stands five feet four inches tall. It seems only yesterday that Van Johnson, who was just one of the eager kids on the lot, was seeking a break. But even those who didn't know Van by name noticed him, his infectious smile, and the fact that he looks just like what he is, a clean-cut, gentlemanly American boy attracted attention. So everyone on the MGM lot has been continually pulling for Van from the first. Van Johnson was born in Newport, Rhode Island. He entered the theater, went on a vacation from his father's realty business, when he was offered a small role in New Faces on Broadway. Stern in Vaudeville was followed by roles in Too Many Girls and Pal Joey on Broadway, and then a motion picture contract came, and he has appeared in such films as The White Cliffs of Dover, a guy named Joe, Madame Curie, The Human Comedy, Two Girls and the Sailor, and 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, and is soon to be seen in A Thrill to Remember. An hour word from your local announcer. By transcription, Bidwell McCormick takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood. A rainy day often causes many surprising things to happen in a movie studio, but recently, for the first time on record, it brought about shooting and with real bullets. Well, that was when director Charles David had Deanna Durbin and other members of the company filming Lady on a Train, wasn't it? Yes. The company was on Universal's back lot shooting exterior scenes on the New York Street set, which had been tarped. That is, it had been roofed over with a huge tarpoleon to keep out the, shall we say, dampness. Well, fearing that the ever-increasing weight of the water might bring the entire covering crashing down on players and equipment, director David sent a rush call to the studio arsenal for a man with a rifle to shoot holes in the canvas so that the water would drain off. For the first time since it began playing butler roles, Arthur Treacher will have a running mate. In That's the Spirit, Irene Ryan contends for kitchen honors with a tall, suave actor. She is a housemaid. In previous pictures, Treacher always dominated the back stairs comedy. The salary of William W. Willie Davis, 6 foot 6 inch professional wrestler who plays a palace attendant in Waller-Wanger's Night of Paradise continues for three weeks after completion of the Universal Technicolor Spectacle while his hair is growing back. Davis shaved his head for the role as he did for a previous Wanger picture, Arabian Nights. A span of 2,495 years was recently represented on Universal Stage 12. On one end of the block-long soundstage was a leftover set from Night in Paradise where King Croesus held sway in 550 B.C. On the opposite end of the stage, John Hoffman was directing Noah Berry Jr. and Lois Collier in a ferry boat scene laid in San Francisco in 1945 for Hear That Trumpet Talk. Lady, one of the oldest dog actors in Hollywood, has been brought out of retirement to play a character part in Universal's Uncle Harry. Lady is 18 years old and a veteran of many silent pictures. Her trainer, Henry East, had given it her friends many years ago figuring that she was too senile for screen work. And then along came Uncle Harry with a good dog, Role, whose name is Weary, supposed to be so fat and old that it has to be carried by Geraldine Fitzgerald or George Sanders and dies before the picture ends. Lady was just the type, so now she's out earning a living at her age. While young actors frequently portray old men, senior actors rarely impersonate juveniles. And yet with the help of the Universal Makeup Department, Ludwig Stolzl became 40 years younger for one sequence in Serenade for Murder. Neighbors in San Fernando Valley laughingly refer to Noah Berry Jr. as the disgruntled gentleman farmer. This doesn't mean that the current crop on the Berry 5.5-acre ranch has been ruined, nor does it mean that the mean old moustached villain prominent in outdoor pictures is about to fork clothes on the screen actor's plot. Young Berry is disgruntled because he feels confined on his small plot. He wants to do farming on a larger scale, say about a 500-acre farm somewhere in Central California. Noah says, after all, a man has to have breathing space. Soon he will be seen opposite Benita Granville in Universal's The Beautiful Cheat. Noah inherited his love for the great outdoors from his father, Noah Berry Sr., old-time Western favorite. As a child, Young Berry accompanied his father and his uncle on outdoor trips into New Mexico and Arizona. The late Henry McRae, daddy of universal serial thrillers, discovered Noah Jr. acting in the Hollywood Theater Mart's Kindling, following his graduation from Hollywood High School and signed the theatrically ambitious youngster to play the lead in three episodic features. Noah Berry Jr., whose nickname is Pidge, is married to the former Maxine Jones, daughter of the late Western star Buck Jones. They have a four-year-old daughter, Maxine Jr. Add now a word from your local announcer.