"Star Dust"

At the top of "Star Dust" (20th Century Fox, 1940) we're at the Chinese for a preview. Although with the crowds in the bleachers it actually looks like a premiere. We get shots of some of the attendees anxiously wondering when the stars will come out. 

Walter Lang directed. The film stars Linda Darnell, John Payne, Roland Young, Charlotte Greenwood and Donald Meek. The cinematography was by J. Peverell Marley.

Jack Tillmany comments: "The film is worth watching because it's one of the less frequently shown and based a bit on Linda Darnell's own story (she lied about her age to get into the movies etc.). But there's a sad ending to the saga (NOT in the film) that this is the film she was watching on the Late, Late Show on WBBM - Channel 2 - in Chicago the night of the fire that resulted in her death, in 1965."

 

  The film is Amalgamated Pictures new film "Dancing Debutante."

 

 A look across the entrance while the film is still on. 

 

 

Amalgamated's talent scout, played by Roland Young, wants to listen to the audience reaction. 

 

 

Acting coach Charlotte Greenwood in the forecourt to tell Roland he should just go inside. Note the poster for "The Grapes of Wrath," a Fox release that played the Chinese for a week beginning February 28, 1940. 

 

The audience coming out.

 

 It's a hit! 

 

 

 

William Gargan, playing the studio head, exits with an uncredited Victoria Vinton as the star. 

 

 

An unsuccessful Hollywood hopeful in the forecourt that Roland is going to send back home.

Roland hits the road in the search for new talent. He finds John Payne playing football and later sees Linda Darnell at a restaurant in Arkansas. Although she's wanting to be an actress and even stages a surprise audition for him in an old theatre, he decides she's too young. But by trickery she gets an invitation from the studio for a screen test and comes to Hollywood on the same train as John. 

 

 

 

Linda and John walking by the Chinese after they arrive in Hollywood. Kurt Wahlner notes that the readerboard was advertising "The Man From Dakota" starring Wallace Beery. It played for one week beginning February 21, 1940. The co-feature was "Congo Maisie" with Ann Sothern and John Carroll. Kurt curates the site GraumansChinese.org.

 

 

Heading into the darkened forecourt. 

 

 

They try out some footprints for size. The poster is for "Little Old New York," a Fox release with Alice Faye and Fred MacMurray that played the Chinese for a week beginning February 7, 1940. The co-feature was "High School" starring Jane Withers.

 

Back at the Chinese for a show. The footage they used for this shot was actually taken at the premiere for "Dirigible" in 1931. Note the airship above the entrance doors. Footage from that premiere also appears in Paramount's 1936 film "The Preview Murder Mystery." 

 

 

 

The crowd coming in. But it's not a shot done at the Chinese. 

 

 

Roland arriving in the forecourt. Well, it's a studio simulation of it for this scene. The plot is that he's supposed to bring Linda to the show. But she's given up and has gone back to Arkansas.

Donald Meek, as the studio casting director, has been playing games and has decided that Roland has made too many discoveries and he wants to promote his own proteges. He's at the theatre with a starlet played by Mary Beth Hughes. They're expecting to see footage of Mary Beth's test for a new film as a segment in the Fox Movietone newsreel. But Charlotte has switched the footage. We get Linda instead and the studio head loves her. Poor scheming Donald is fired.   

 

Yes, Linda comes back from Arkansas once again and, of course, becomes a star. Here she's with Sid Grauman getting a foot placed in concrete. 

 

The camera backs up for a wider view.  

Sid says: " May your success, like the imprints you've just made, last forever."

Linda Darnell actually did get herself a forecourt ceremony on March 18, 1940. Jack Tillmany comments: "It became quite obvious that once the Chinese became a Fox flagship house the emphasis on footprints in cement leaned heavily in the direction of 20th Century Fox contract players who had more or less recently arrived on the Hollywood scene, like Sonja Henie and Tyrone Power, all the way up to Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in 1953, whereas their equally worthy counterparts at MGM and Warner Bros., for example, were less frequently so thus immortalized."

Kurt Wahlner comments: "Mr. Grauman looks well here. No wonder so many people treasured his friendship. While we were definitely at the Chinese for the first two visits in the film, this footprint scene at the end was done using a studio set and was perhaps a last minute addition to the story."

See the Grauman's Chinese pages on the Los Angeles Theatres site for a history of this 1927 vintage movie palace and hundreds of photos. "Star Dust" played the Chinese for a week beginning April 3, 1940 along with "Slightly Honorable."

On IMDb: "Star Dust"  The full film is on YouTube.