Mauch Twins & Mark Twain

(See front cover)

With all the stories in the world to choose from, which story would a shrewd cinema producer pick to coincide with the coronation of a King of England? This was one problem which last year faced Warner Brothers' Associate Executive in Charge of Production Hal Wallis. For a cinema producer, problems never come singly. Another and more difficult riddle for Producer Wallis was this: what were the best roles in which to cast two 12-year-old identical twins who looked so much alike that their mother could scarcely tell them apart? One test of a cinema producer is his ability to solve two problems at the same time. Ready for simultaneous release in 275 U. S. cities last week was Producer Wallis' exceedingly neat finesse of his dilemma: Billy & Bobby Mauch in Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, last made as a silent picture with Marguerite Clark playing both roles in 1915.

The Prince and the Pauper starts on the day in 1537 when boy infants are born simultaneously to Henry the VIII in Windsor Palace and to Pickpocket John Canty in Offal Court. Young Prince Edward thrives at the court, under the tutelage of the Duke of Norfolk (Henry Stephenson). Young Tom Canty thrives in the gutter, with Latin lessons from Father Andrew and whackings from his father (Barton MacLane). Prowling about London one day, Tom crawls under a bench outside the castle to take a nap. The Captain of the Guard hauls him out and is giving him a thrashing when Prince Edward comes out of the palace to call his dog. Prince invites pauper indoors to play. They change clothes for a joke, laugh when the mirror shows how much they look alike. Then the Prince runs out again to find his dog. The Captain of the Guard, thinking it is the pauper, resumes his interrupted thrashing, tosses Prince Edward out into the street.

In his story, Author Mark Twain set out to show that palaces were not much better than the people in them. At Windsor, young Tom Canty falls under the wing of the bad Earl of Hertford (Claude Rains) who, when he hears Tom's story about how he got into the palace, merely tells King Henry that the Prince is mad. When the old king dies. Hertford plans to execute the Duke of Norfolk and have Tom Canty crowned, with himself as Lord Protector. As things shape up, he seems in a fair way to accomplish it.

Another notion of Mark Twain's was that monarchies would do better if kings saw how their subjects lived. In medieval London's alleys, Edward fares not much better than his counterpart in the palace until he encounters a young soldier of fortune named Miles Hendon (Errol Flynn). Hendon feeds him, humors his apparently preposterous notion that he is the King of England, sets out, when the boy is kidnapped, to rescue him from John Canty's gang of thieves. When the rescue entails fighting off the palace guards, sent to kill the young King before he can return to foil the Hertford,plot, Hendon begins to think his young protege's ideas of his own grandeur may not be delusions after all, hurries him back to London.

Biggest scene in The Prince and the Pauper is naturally the Coronation, for which Warners used their big new Stage 22, too ft. longer than the lot's ordinary 40-ft. stages; a small army of extras, the St. Luke's Choir and six technical advisers. In this scene Tom Canty, already prayed over, sworn and anointed, is about to get the crown when Prince Edward comes scampering up Westminster Abbey's central aisle to present his claims. When Tom Canty corroborates them, the Archbishop of Canterbury agrees to crown Edward if he can tell the whereabouts of the Great Seal of England. Edward does so with some difficulty. When next seen he is on the throne distributing rewards to those who deserve them, passing laws for the improvement of the slum population, and taking waivers on the Earl of Hertford.

The Prince and the Pauper is not and does not aim to be screen drama of cosmic import, superspectacle or Hollywood picture-poem. It does aim to be, and is, a frisky, fresh and wholly likable comedy by the best comic writer, for the screen or otherwise, whom the U. S. has yet produced. Directed by William Keighley, acted by Warner Brothers' most high-powered cast since Midsummer Night's Dream, staged by Robert Lord and scored by Erich Korngold, it should amply grace next fortnight's Coronation. It should also grace, if not climax, the careers of two amiable young actors from Peoria, Ill. who, among Hollywood's currently swollen quota of remarkable children, are perhaps the most remarkable.

Billy & Bobby Mauch (pronounced mock) are more extraordinary than Shirley Temple because there are two of them. They have an advantage over the Dionnes because they are interchangeable. In The Prince and the Pauper, it is not possible to say which Mauch played which. The original plan was, not to have one play Prince and the other Pauper, but to have Billy play all the palace scenes and Bobby play all the guttersnipe scenes, regardless of which character appeared in them. This plan came to nothing because it suited the Mauch twins' sense of humor to switch from time to time. This was by no means the first trick of the kind they had played. The Mauch brothers got their Hollywood jobs not because they looked alike but because they both look like Fredric March. Producer Wallis, who had been scouring the U. S. for a ten-year-old to play young Anthony in March's Anthony Adverse, found the Mauchs, signed Billy for the part. In Anthony Adverse Bobby Mauch's job was stand-in for his brother. He apparently discharged his duties faithfully. Actually he did nothing of the sort. When the picture was over, he and Billy confessed to Director Mervyn Le Roy that they had switched jobs whenever they felt like it. Neither Director Le Roy nor anyone else knew the difference at the time or in the picture.

Sons of an employe of the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad, the Mauchs were born in 1924. Billy is the older by ten minutes. Their mother, delighted with her product, had them taught to dance before they went to school. By the time they were seven, the little Mauchs were acting on radio and posing for ads in their spare time. Their jobs were comparatively easy because whenever one felt unlike working the other took his place. By the time they got their Warner contract in 1935, the Mauchs had had experience on programs like Lucky Strike. Show Boat and THE MARCH OF TIME. After Anthony Adverse, Bobby Mauch was cast in Penrod & Sam. Again he and Billy took turns acting and. standing-in. When Warners drew up a new contract, Mrs. Mauch refused to let one son perform as stand-in for the other on the ground that it might give him an inferiority complex. When studio executives demurred, Mrs. Mauch threatened to let Warners keep one twin, sign the other with a rival studio. The

Mauchs currently have a contract calling for $350 a week apiece, with equal attention and billing guaranteed. Mrs. Mauch gets $150 as their guardian. Until last week, Father Felix Mauch, currently a general agent for the Toledo, Peoria & Western, lived and worked in New York, dashing out West to see his sons on his vacations. Between pictures his sons visited him in the East. Last week, Mr.

Mauch, with Bobby and Billy, returned to California for good, where he has now been transferred. The Mauchs travel by train, because they consider that planes are injurious to their father's business.

On the screen the Mauchs' main defects are their Midwest accents. Their major assets are energy, lack of precocity and a wholesome distaste for showing off, which prevents them from trying to steal scenes like most of their contemporaries.

Off screen, the Mauchs' most apparent assets are good brains. Both are currently well ahead of the average in their lessons.

Most serious off-screen defect in the Mauchs is their enthusiasm for capitalizing their similarity of appearance to fool acquaintances. When not practicing this hobby, the Mauchs are easily distinguish able. Billy wears glasses. Contrary to legend, Mrs. Mauch can always tell her sons apart when they are awake. She sometimes makes a mistake when both are asleep. To avoid waking the wrong twin the morning when only one has to go to work early, the Mauch family has worked out a system. The Mauch who has worked late the night before leaves make-up on his arm. Only the clean twin is disturbed next day.

Invariable question raised by every cinema fan magazine about every child actor is whether or not the child actor is "unspoiled." Equally invariable is the fan magazine answer: No. Whether or not the Mauchs are unspoiled, time will tell. Tricking people about their identity, however, is by no means the only Mauch peccadillo. Two years ago, when Bobby was sick, the Mauch twins got a chemistry set. With it they have since compounded a mixture of ink and ketchup for making spots on bedspreads; an ink spot remover, for removing the spots; and a rotten egg extract, for harmlessly discommoding din ner guests at the Mauch apartment on Franklin Avenue.

When not engaged in chemistry, the Mauchs invent other contrivances. Their most formidable invention was a submarine in which Bobby took the maiden voyage. When the ship failed to rise after a minute, Billy rescued his brother by diving after him. In addition to being inventors, the Mauchs are pugilists, speculators, sportsmen, collectors and litterateurs. As litterateurs, the Mauchs have written several scenarios for themselves and other Warner actors. None has so far been accepted. Their tastes in reading are catholic. Recently Billy Mauch read Alexis Carrel's Man, the Unknown.

Last Christmas both were reading Gulliver's Travels. One day Father Mauch, who was paying them a visit, fell asleep on a sofa. They found two spools of thread, wound it around him so that when he woke up he found himself in the same predicament as Gulliver in Lilliput. Mrs. Mauch extricated her husband with a pair of scissors.

What will become of the Mauchs, not even their parents dare to guess. Neither wants to be an actor. Currently, Bobby wants to be a civil engineer, Billy a doctor.

Past ambitions of the Mauchs were to be baseball players, transport pilots, acrobats, firemen, G-Men. Both intend to go to college. Since even if Warners does not give them new contracts, options on their old one will give them each $900 a week by 1938, they should be able to afford it. Last fortnight the Mauchs were in New York for a holiday. This week they were back in Hollywood, ready to start work on the next Mauch picture--probably an adaptation of Hugh Walpole's book, A Prayer For My Son.

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