HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 263, 5 November 1932, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

GOSSIP OF THE STUDIOS.

(BY MOLLIE MERRICK.)

HOLLYWOOD (Calif.), October 6,

The Emil Jannings of the speaking screen—and. I refer to the English actor, Charles Laughton—bids fair to make the same sensation as did the great German when ho came to Hollywood to create types utterly different from anything the silent screen had yet given us. Charles Laughton's second picture, "Payment Deferred," has been given a preview. Hollywood has seldom turned out a film more sincerely made. No concessions to popular appeal, to box office, to formula —"Payment Deferred" stands, as directed by Lothar Mendes, one of the most uncompromising records of horror ever made. Laughton's delineation of Marble, the murderer, is one of the greatest picces of portraiture ever given the world through the mediun; of motion pictures. It rates with the finest things the legitimate stage has contributed to acting art. And I have a feeling that this piece, which was Laughton's greatest stage success, by the way, gains in its contact with the camera, in that this medium allows us to look into the very soul of the man. An out-of-town audience, restless, difficult to please with anything but collegiate stuff, applauded the picture to the echo at its conclusion. If you want to see art in the motion picture theatre, "Payment Deferred" is the greatest contribution to art that has been made in Hollywood for some years. Aside from' the story's having the popular appeal which murder mysteries always carry, it took courage to choose it as a release in a depression year.

Joel McCrea is a rich young man with a leaning for the camera, a lot of pulchritudc, a charming manner, a marked ability for athletics and a way with women audiences, for he has just been made a star. "Free, White and Twentyone," his first picture, of the starry type, will shortly be released. It •purports to have some of the attraction which "Young Man of Manhattan" (a story which brought Norman Foster to the screen with Claudette Colbert) possessed in great plenty. But "Free, White and Twenty-one" misses that news-reel quality which made the other picture great entertainment. It reveals in Joel McCrea all those qualifications which are lyentioned above, but nothing at all of the actor. The presence of William Gargan in the cast does nothing to help McCrea's difficulties along this line, because Gargan happens to be one of the best. And comparisons cannot be escaped. This starts with a lot of rahrah in good old Dartmouth and ends in the 6ports department of a city daily. Marian Marsh is an ornamental member of the staff and the love pivot of the differences between the "pals." I don't know just what the title means, unless it refers to the fact that a producer, being free, white and twenty-one, can spend his bank roll on this sort of thing if he has a mind to. »

Musicals move right along. Arthur Johnson and Sam Coslow are beginning work on "Moon Song," the pifece which will bring that jovial plump favourite of the radio, Kate Smith, to the screen. Bill Seiter will direct it . . . Understand a lot of directors have dodged this job, thinking it will be difficult. Smith may not turn out to be a Garbo, but such glimpses as I've had of her promise popularity. George Raft certainly had good luck with liis first starring venture. "Night After Night" isn't anybody's picture. It's just one of the best evenings of laughter you'll ever have, and while the story was built around Raft, playing the part of a speakeasy proprietor who runs a club, something on the type of the Belle Livingstone mansion in New York, Alison Skipworth as Miss Jellyman, who coaches him in the social amenities, is a riot. The picture marks Mao West's first screen appearance, and "Maudie," played by this blonde, is unforgettable. She brings her own slow, sure technique to the playing of it.

News that the Hays office has lifted its ban on "Diamond ,Lil" is gobd news, after seeing Mae West in this first venture. Roscoe Karns, as Leo, the factotum of the club, is an excellent humorous characterisations. The story has a bit of glamour, Constance Cummings provides that, a touch of sentiment, and one hearty laugh after another.

One of tlie most interesting stories regarding picture-making centres around the production of that Edward Robinson success, "Tiger Shark.", The company chartered a tuna boat, and took the regular crew out for the catch. In among the crew they put their actors for close-ups. The boat proceeded with the catch as if there were no picture being made. After a few days of tuna fishing the sharks gather. This was what the Warners were waiting for. The

captain's eon doubled, for Robinson, in the scenes where he is being pursued by the sharks. He was protected from the crow's nest by four expert marksmen, who kept a ring of steel bullets about him as he swam in the water. For the final scenes—the death of Robinson— a dummy made in Robinson's likeness was stuffed with fish. Ox blood was poured into the water. This makes the sharks fierce and less cautious. They clipped to the surface immediately. When the fish-stuffed dummy was thrown to them they tore it to bits in less time than it takes to tell.

The make-up men of Hollywood work 24 hours at a stretch these days. What with costume pictures requiring heavy character make-up, horror pictures, whose characters often require four to six hours' work daily, there's very little rest for the transformation artist. Perc. Westmore flies to Catalina each morning to make up the characters for "The Island of Doctor Moreau," or, rather, "The Isle of Lost Souls" I think it is being called. Then back, via air, to get all the little Japanese ready for "Madame Butterfly." Sylvia Sidney's make-up requires a great deal of time and attention. And four great Danes, who have been working on the radio lot, had to hurry right off the other day when their scene was shot, to get into lions' costumes for arena scenes in the Do Mille .epic.

Wholesale raiding of night clubs, all those except the ones which really count, goes on in this village nightly. The most popular ones, heralded in the daily columns as the hot spot of night life, go unscathed. It's all in a prohibition lifetime. Customers and proprietors are being hauled off to some limbo of fine-playing. Meanwhile local jazz-joints who have the wherewithal to pay, seem to avoid all this little disturbance. Hollywood is a great place.

That old-fashioned coiffure seems' to have taken firm hold on the movie girls. Eleanor Boardman looks like something out of Godey's "Lady Book" these nights. And Irene Dunne goes her one better by curling little ringlets all over the liead, inserting a bowknot of diamonds in the midst, and looking very chic—l 932 fashion—in spite of it all.

Lee Tracy says characterisations have taken a more definite turn in pictures than they have carried of yore. For this reason, he thinks picture stars have a better chance at hitting the bull's eye than they did when haphazard portrayals were the vogue. Lee Tracy has more sheer charm than any young actor on the screen to-day. His smile opens a whole world of enchantment. He has less pulchritude than most actors. But he is young, with a difference. He is whimsical without being annoyingmost of the whimsicality given to pictures of late has been put into the mouths of actors without the flair for it. And he is a very fine actor in addition to all these things.