Merry Christmas

From Paulette Goddard!

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Happy Halloween

From pirate Paulette!

Girls Posing On A Box At The Roach Studio.

Thelma Todd poses on a box in a publicity photo for Hal Roach.

Martha Sleeper sitting on what might be the same box Thelma Todd posed on at the Hal Roach studio.

Paulette Goddard on a box at the Hal Roach studio in 1932.

A picture of Thelma Todd on a box used for a magazine article.

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SEEIN' STARS - October 15, 1939

From the Laurel and Hardy Archive on facebook.



FEG MURRAY'S "Seein' Stars" weekly comic strip
1939

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Paulette Goddard

From the Hal Roach Studio page on facebook.


Paulette Goddard, 1932

 

 

Here's the caption at a larger size.

 

 

 

Paulette Goddard went on to greater fame at other studios and with her natural hair color, which was said to have been red, although she appeared to be a brunette in black and white movies.

 

 

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Paulette Goddard And Friends

Paulette Goddard ( the one with the hat, center ) and friends in a photo from a Brazilian newspaper.  The one on the left is Dorothy Layton.


Hal Roach's comedy girls - (CINEARTE, October 26, 1932, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Notice the retouching to make the hands distinct when the photo was printed. The fingers look as if they had been outlined.




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Paulette Goddard Photos

More Paulette Goddard photos.

Original caption..." DEBUTANTE TURNS ACTRESS " PAULETTE GODDARD IS THE LATEST GIRL TO JOIN THE FORCES AT HAL ROACH'S STUDIO. MISS GODDARD A PASADENA SOCIETY DEBUTANTE WHO GAVE UP THE SOCIAL LIFE IN FAVOR OF THE FILMS, WILL SHOW HER PLATINUM, BLONDE BEAUTY IN HAL ROACH'S COMEDIES FOR METRO - GOLDWYN - MAYER. DATED MAY 23, 1933

Seen here as a blonde, in real life Paulette Goddard was a redhead, something that fans didn't know from seeing her in black and white films.



Paulette Goddard and Charles Chaplin filming Modern Times - 1935.

Paulette Goddard fantasy.

Doing her part in entertaining the troops during the second World War.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Paulette Goddard Publicity

Paulette Goddard publicity in Portuguese from Brazil.


PAULETTE GODDARD - (CARAS Y CARETAS, Saturday, September 10, 1932, Buenos Aires, Argentina)

 

 

PAULETTE GODDARD - (CARAS Y CARETAS, Saturday, July 2, 1932, Buenos Aires, Argentina)

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Paulette Goddard

Posted by Randy Skretvedt on facebook, along with the original caption:

"Paulette Goddard, beautiful platinum blonde stage actress and one of the season's most socially prominent debutantes, who recently signed a long term contract with the Hal Roach Studios." 1932, photographed by Stax.

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Paulette Goddard As A Blonde

Paulette Goddard publicity item in Portuguese from a Brazilian newspaper.


PAULETTE GODDARD - (VIDA DOMESTICA, September, 1932, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Translation: "HAL ROACH PREFERS BLONDE GIRLS, TOO

Hal Roach, when he was recently here in Rio, was delighted with our brunettes and stated that they are the ideal women for Hollywood comedies and dramas. But the truth, as a perfect gentleman, Hal Roach also likes blonde girls, or perhaps he actually prefers them... A proof is that he just hired, with advantage conditions, this beautiful blonde pictured here: Paulette Goddard. Paulette, who was with Ziegfeld (she was terrific!), worked in Paris."

The title's reference to Hal Roach preferring blondes is a reference to Anita Loos' GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES. GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES was first published in 1926 and the first movie version came out in 1928; better known today is the 1953 version starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

Blondes were very popular in the movies in the 1930's and this seems to be related to the Anita Loos book, although the immediate cause was the success of Jean Harlow as the blonde in HELL'S ANGELS and subsequent movies.



Special thanks to Jorge Finkielman for providing us with this item and it's translation.


GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentlemen_Prefer_Blondes_(novel)




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SEEIN' STARS And SCREEN ODDITIES

SEEIN' STARS by Feg Murray and SCREEN ODDITIES by George Scarbo were two similar newspaper cartoons about movie stars.


Reblogged from http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/
































In THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1938, there was a scene in which Martha Raye stood admiring her reflection in a mirror and said, "What a shape!" It wasn't just her legs that were shapely, although that seems to have been what the publicity was focusing on in this period. Usually they just said she had a big mouth and that she was funny.




















THE BULLFIGHTERS was the last movie Laurel and Hardy made in this country. Most of the pies they threw seem to have been thrown in one of their earlier ones, THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY. Although Gary Cooper's first leading role was opposite Thelma Todd in NEVADA, he didn't work with Laurel and Hardy at the beginning of his career, although Lupe Velez, Jean Harlow, and Paulette Goddard did.




THE BULLFIGHTERS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bullfighters




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MOVIE CLASSIC - October And November 1932

I was getting an article about Buster Keaton to begin with, then I saw some other things that interested me.


Paulette Goddard was one of the blondes early in her career. She worked with Thelma Todd at the Roach studio around this time.

 

 

 

 

 

Buster Keaton's wife divorced him

although this account differs somewhat from what actually happened.

 

 

 

Lina Basquette knew Thelma Todd and is mentioned in Donati's book.

 

 

Johnny Weissmuller did not work with Thelma Todd in the movies,

although they were photographed together. He married Lupe Velez, who started out at the Roach studio, and who made one movie with Thelma Todd, PALOOKA.

 

 

 

Thelma Todd was in CALL HER SAVAGE with Clara Bow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Cecilia Parker is best known for playing Mickey Rooney's sister in the "Andy Hardy" movies.

 The publicity for those films did not depict her in a like manner.

 

 

 

Photos of Lupe Velez and Thelma Hill appear on this page.

 

Thelma Hill also worked for Roach.

 

 

 

Buster Keaton's "Land Yacht" is the subject of this article, which mentions his friend Lew Cody.

Lew Cody had been married to Mabel Normand, who was deceased at the time that this article was written. Lew Cody too would pass away afterwards. Buster Keaton's life at this time was not a happy one.









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The Camera Never Lies... But The Retoucher Does

The camera never lies, so they say. But the retouchers say a little fib never hurt anyone.

 

A retoucher painted out part of this picture of Thelma Todd ( as "Alison Loyd", in CORSAIR ), in order to make her stand out from the background for publication. Sometimes they painted out other things, such as blemishes or distracting details. Retouchers could change a photograph's appearence a great deal.

 

 

 

 

 

 Ginger Rogers at Paramount, before she was famous. They wanted her to stand out from the background, too

 

The picture is marked "reverse, so presumably they wanted it reversed when printed for publication.

                                                                                Paulette Goddard

A little off the sides, please.

They're at it again.

 

 

 

Mae West

 

 

They did the same thing with this picture, but it's a little less obvious.

 

 

This famous photo is actually an enlargement from a newsreel. Notice how retouchers were able to separate the Chinese baby from the background.





 

Dale pointed out that they retouched this photo to make Carole Forman's bust smaller. The painted-out area is still visible as white.

 

Here, Dale attempted to restore "The Spider Lady" to her former greatness.

 

 

 

Ann Rutherford 

 

 

This one also looks like there has been retouching in the area of the bust..

 

 

 

 

Carole Landis, sometimes called "The Original Sweater Girl"

 

 

 This one, too.

 

 

 

 

Somebody thought Spock of Star Trek fame looked a little too much like the Devil. Something that didn't really seem to matter on television, but they wanted a different look for their publication.

 

 

 

 Left, Spock as he really looks ( at least on television ). Right, the new improved version.

 

 

 

 

 Finally, we take a look at something a retoucher might have done, but did not.

 

 

The wire suspending the balloon on the left is visible in this picture of Thelma Todd at Paramound in the silent era. A retoucher could have painted the wire out to make it appear as if the balloon were floating in midair, without any type of support.

 

 

 

 

 I've never retouched photos, and I never progressed beyond semi-professional photographer as I never really made any money out of it, but I worked with the old cameras and the old techniques and am familiar with them. The guys that made those old publicity pictures achieved fantastic results without modern equiptment. They are amoung the unsung heroes of their era, and Hollywood owes them much.