Country Doctor

In a swirling snowstorm, a number of cinema folk stepped off a train one day last week in Callander. Ont. to begin location work on a picture involving Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe and the five smallest daughters of Oliva and Elzire Dionne. From the Twentieth Century-Fox lot in Hollywood Producer Darryl Zanuck had sent 22 technicians and cameramen, Director Henry King, Actor Jean Hersholt, Actress Dorothy Peterson, Writers Sonya Levien and Charles Blake.

Last autumn Producer Zanuck offered the Quintuplets' guardians $100,000 for their appearance in a picture, began negotiating in competition with Mary Pickford, who wanted them for United Artists, and Harold Lloyd who wanted them for The Milky Way. Before anything was settled, last October Mr. Zanuck's staff was fussing with love interest, conflict, a villain for their story. Last month Zanuck signed up the Quintuplets, was ready to go to work on The Country Doctor with the role of Dr. Dafoe played by Jean Hersholt. Incidents during the week's shooting which, so far as his charges were concerned. Dr. Dafoe limited to an hour or less each morning: P: Instead of Klieg lights, softer ones were used in the Quintuplets' nursery in the Dafoe Hospital. Cameramen wore sterile masks and gowns. Actor Hersholt and Actress Peterson (the nurse) had their clothing sterilized, their noses and throats sprayed before each scene. The adults exhibited much more nervousness and confusion than did the five bouncing, goggle-eyed babies, who with composure played scenes along unexpected lines, caused the speaking actors frequently to improvise. P: Yvonne Dionne turned out to be the best actress. Cecile was the musical one, waving her arms in time with a nursery rhyme. Marie was the least adept at walking. Emilie and Yvonne each cut her ninth tooth, causing Mr. Zanuck in Hollywood to fret: "We'll just have to hope . . . that audiences will not notice. . . ." Of Annette Mr. Hersholt said: "She had her big, devastating eyes turned full force on me, and when my eyes were focused on hers . . . for the first time in my life I 'blew' my lines."

P: While sightseeing Actor Hersholt slipped, fell, severely bruised his leg. He was put to bed, treated with an electric lamp, by Dr. Dafoe. Said he: "So far as I know, no actor has ever before had the experience of learning his role from the living character.''

P: In their frame house 100 yards away from the Dafoe Hospital, Oliva and Elzire Dionne sulked, gazed glumly at a contract, as yet unsigned, by which they would get $700 in return for permission to let professional actors impersonate them. "I figured $700 wasn't enough," said the father of the Quintuplets.

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