Snakes May Be Friendly Pals, But Irene Has No Time For 'Em

 HOLLYWOOD, Mar. 24 - Miss Irene Dunne, who has never had a lost week end in all her life, told us that she was seeing snakes "They crawl into my dreams," she said, "and slither all over the room."

 The trouble began, she confided when 20th Century-Fox insisted she play some scenes for "Anna and the King of Siam" with Blacky Dittmars, a six-foot long indigo snake.

 "I've gone through movie floods, tornadoes, battles and fist fights," she said, "and never been scared. But that snake makes me shake all over."

 Miss Grace Olive Wiley, who owns the snake, said, "Tut, tut, my dear, snakes are our little friends. You just don't understand them."

 Miss Dunne grinned. "I hate snakes and rats," she said.

 "He wants to make friends," said Miss Wiley. "What do I do?" asked Miss Dunne. "Shake hands?"

 Miss Wiley whispered to us, "I'll have to educate that woman. It's just a matter of ignorance." We edged away from Blacky, who was squirming out of Miss Wiley's arms. We preferred to share Miss Dunne's ignorance.

Show Must Go ON

 Miss Dunne went into the scene. She sat at one end of a long table, teaching some scantily clad Siamese harem girls, including Linda Darnell, Gale Sondergaard and Buff Cobb.

 Overhead was a big box were the prop man put Blacky. On signal from Director John Cromwell one of the men pushed a button, which electrically opened a trap door. Blacky fell into Miss Dunne's lap and squirmed across her bare arm. Miss Dunne, we beg to report, let out a scream that, had Boris Karloff heard it, would have gotten her a role in the next Frankenstein picture. Cromwell congratulated her. 

 "That was no acting," she told him. "That was the real thing."

 Miss Wiley felt badly. "Blacky wants to be friends with you," she said. "He's hurt that you run away." Miss Dunne said she never read Dale Carnegie on snakes.

 "He isn't poisonous," Miss Dunne assured us, "and it's silly to have aversions like that, but I can't help it. He gives me goose pimples." She rolled up her sleeve, and sure enough, there were a few goose pimples. 

 Miss Wiles invited Miss Dunne to her home in Long Beach, Calif., to meet her cobras, rattlers, lizards, and Gila monsters, which she rents to Hollywood studios.

Ah Yes, Slinky!

 She said that her Javanese lizard, Slinky, who has had a slight slithering acquaintance with Frederic March and Joan Bennett, possessed considerably more personality even than Blacky. Miss Dunne thanked her graciously, but we don't think that she plans to take tea with Slinky.

 Just then Irene was called to the camera for another scene with Blacky.

 "Oh, no, not again!" she said imploringly. Miss Wiley came up with Blacky. 

 "He does want so much to be friends with you," she said. "Maybe you might pet him just once."

 Miss Dunne looked as if she had seen the headless horseman.

(The Daily Huronite, March 24, 1946)

Remark: all of this was in vain. This scene is not in the film, probably some more Irene Dunne minutes which ended on the cutting floor.