HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 96, 24 April 1931, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

GOSSIP FROM FILMLAND.

(By MOLLIS MERKICK.)

HOLLYWOOD, March 25.

The return here of Greta Nissen, as a member of the talkie colony, is the first exotic note to l>e struck in the cinema group for some time past. When Greta Nissen lived in Hollywood and ■worked in the studios, she did much to contribute to the r.ilken languorous charm" which is the prerogative of all ladies in the camera eye. Not only had she the whitest skin, the most amazing curves, the most sensational eyelashes, and the superlative amount of "It," but she wore orchids every day and sported emeralds of dramatic size.

My idea of a movie beauty is a girl who does just these things. The consistent return to normalcy among the stars may be an interesting movement, as a social gesture, but I like my stars to be different from civilian girls. 1 loved their bizarre frocks in the days before conservative gowns became a fetish with them. I loved their trick of wearing plenty of glass to lunc J l even on the warmest days, and with the sportiest of frocks. When their golden curls slapped about their slim little necks and their rosy knees were dimplinglv bared, they were more mterestinc as a group than they are now when they seem to be just so many debutantes burying away from one luncheon to another party. Thev are hurrying away from luncheon'to get to pretty hard work, a matter of fact, but they do look like so many of the seasons crop of funlovers on parade. Greta Nissen, who somehow always reminds mc of a lustrous pearl, is returning to work for Winfield Sheehan in a picture called "Women of All Nations. One of her last Hollywood appearances was with this company, when she was cast in a Charles Farrell picture which neither suited Charles Farrell nor was muchi ot a shakes as stories go. It was called "Fazil," and it limped along until some bitter critic suggested they name it "Fizzle." After that it just sat down and gave over.

When the spring run of movies comes out a new beauty, Conchita Montenegro, will be seen in important roles. This exquisite Latin type was brought to Metro for Spanish versions only, but in four months she has learned to speak English so well that she will be taken to a far location in the South Seas by Director Van Dyke for the feminine lead in his new picture. Latin types have aways been favourites in movies. Only of late, since talkies have wrought such havoc with them, have they suffered a lapse. Lupo Vclez, once the bright comet of this heavenly crew, has twinkled down into a little star. A little star that tppears from time to time, always gay and shining, but no longer breath-taking and sensational.

Illness lias swept Dolores Del Rio out of the local heavens. Since her marriage this Spanish beauty has been confined to her bed with a serious kidney ailment

which has prohibited her participating in any of the life of the colony. It has paralysed her movie careeV and robbed the screen of one of its exotically lovely

Conchita Montenegro is, then, the bright hope of 1931 in the way of Latin beauty. Mona Maris, who gave promise of such a brilliant career last year, settled down into just another player. Her beauty, which is unquestionable, did. not click sensationally with the dear public.

Of the local romances, that of Bill Powell and Carole Lombard and Lew Ayres and Lola Lane is paralleled with the sentimental friendship said to exist between Kay Francis and Kenneth McKenna. There are strong rumours of a wedding ring and happy-ever-after for all three couples.

"One hour of life .is represented by three minutes on the stage. On the screen Ave can give one hour of life but 30 seconds' time." This amazing statement is Rouben Mamoulian's judgment, in brief, on the essential difference between the stage and the screen, and sums up, in his belief, the extent of what liberties the director may take in the way of speeches in talkie dialogue. Rouben Mamoulian was brought from the New York stage, where he enjoys the reputation of being one of its most brilliant directors, to make Clara Bow's present picturc. Not only is he considered a master of stage craft, but his youthful and thoroughly radical views are regarded as essentially valuable in an art which is as yet on the threshold of its maturity, and which needs all the consistent reactionary ideas that can be brought to it. In dealing with movies Mamoulian states that pantomime and action still dominate, and always will dominate, the screen. Intense, fiery, with a keen analytical mind and superlative artistic courage, Mamoulian —ready to leap at any departure from routine which may intelligently be made—tells me he has learned these certain limitations for camera.

Chief of them is the fact that three minutes of talk in dialogue is the greatest extent to which a director may go. Three minutes of speech in the caro of highly-trained artists, capable of holding the interest of their hearers to the maximum. Even under these conditions the director says the threeminute speech is dangerous. Two [jmnutes, excellently; done, is far -eaier, ,

After this two-minute run of words there must follow some pantomimic activity or sheer physical action to keep the audience from shuffling their feet or coughing, or studying the people in the rows about them instead of concentrating on the screen before them. This is in opposition to the stage law, which permits 15 minutes of speech as the longest dialogue interval. On my part it takes a very fine actor to keep me interested for a 15-minute stretch in the theatre —and at that, a very fine actor with some very fine ideas to expound in his text.

According to this dictum such plays as "The Apple Cart," with its lengthy speeches, will never make the grade where motion pictures are concerned. Even George Bernard Shaw with his brilliant wit, flashing and radical ideas, could not keep a 05-cent audience quiet were his plays to be photographed precisely as he has written them. Eroni this standpoint wo understand why movie moguls arc wisely kept away from opera during thoeo first months when music was the god of the screen and there were just about- 50,000,000 moviemen giving them high-powered sales talks on how such things as "Carmen," "La Cene Delia Beffe," and other operatic hits could be screened to advantage.

In dramas and comedy-dramas, the audience is clocked for restlessness. Shuffling, coughing, disinterest of any kind whatsoever—and this includes conversational buzz —is regarded as fatal and may be ascribed, in a talkie, to the length of speeches, nine times out of ten. The tenth time it rests in "personalitylack" in the actor or actress to whom the speech is entrusted. When wo look back on the pictures which have caused the greatest sensa-

tions we find them to be pictures concerned chiefly with physical action. "All Quiet on tho Western Front" seldom had speeches of any length. When the story narrowed down to purely dialogue—as in the case of the philosophical argument among the private soldiers on the causc of the war and its effect on the worldit was cleverly broken by ingenious pantomimic work done by-Slim Summerville.