The SCREEN and its STARS

Dunstan Times, Issue 3513, 16 March 1931, Page 2

The SCREEN and its STARS

P Exclusive to THE 'DUNSTAN TIMES.'

It may be true that motion picture making is an honest business, but it docs seem strange to us that it takes 3652 keys to protect all the valuables of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. Then: is one scene in M-G-M's "The Bachelor Father" that Marion Davies did'nl class as work- It is a hilarious sequence in which she slides down the bannisters instead of taking time to walk clown the stairsPicture roles sometimes are trying- For instance, when Majorie Ranibeau plays reaches in 'The Secret Six" she's going to have] a marcel wave every dayMemories of Hollywood's "Tin Pan Alley''era: Thirty-two battered pianos, moved from the building formerly housing song-writers, now are piled forlornly in a corner of the M-G-M property warehouse. Acolphe Menjou is practicing up on his golf. He plays tne part of a golf champion in "Among the Married" which Edgar Selvvyn is directing for Metro- Golc'wyn-Mayer and has to demonstrate his skill in a number of scenes. LR MARAFIOTI ANALYZES VOICE APPEAL OF GRACE MOORE. "Grace Moore sings with her brain as well as with her voice- I call her a dramatist in song". This is the secret of the appeal of Grac3 Moore, Metropolitan opera and screen star, -according to Dr P. Mario Marafioti, former Metropolitan voice expe«r, trainer of the voices of many a famous operatic s'ar, who ranks as one of the greatest: voice authorities in the world. "Miss Moore has almost an uncanny appeal to an audience", said 'V Marafioti recently. "When one analyzes the reason, one finds that the secret is mental rather than purely a matter of audible sound. Whatever Miss Moore sings, she dramatizes- WTien she sings 'Ave Maria' for instance, she is really praying, and because of the sincerity of if, it grips the audience. And she does the same thing with every song that she sings," Dr Marafioti perhaps knows Grace Moore better than she knows herself- She was in musical comedy when she first came under his tutelage, and it was through him and his teaching that she entered grand opera, and finally scored sensational triumphs in "La Bobeme'and Faust'' at the Metroplitan Opera House. When she came to the M-G-M studios, to appear in her first talking picture, "A Lady's Morals" , she found Dr Marafioti there before her, as he had been lured from opera to supervise the (raining of the voices of famous screen stars at the studios. "Grace Moore", said Dr Marafioti, "is an odd mixture of timidity, sincerity, and oftentimes, self consciousness, and her capacity for work is amazing. Raised in the Tennessee mountains, she began to sing while attending college, and her gorgeous natural voice won her concert engagements, followed by musical comedy.