POPULAR PLAYERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21136, 19 March 1932, Page 11 (Supplement)

POPULAR PLAYERS.

ENGLISH BOX-OFFICE LIST.

GARBO AND DIETRICH EQUAL.

Who is the greatest box-office draw on the screen ? Many people would say Greta Garbo, among the women stars. But " Variety," surveying the stars as money-makers on the basis of information supplied from the big Hollywood studios, brackets Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo as of equal strength at the box-office during the past .year. With these two, the most attractive seven among the women, applying this money-test, appear to be completed by Constance Bennett, Joan Crawford, Marie Dressier, Janet Gavnor, and Norma Shearer.

Clark Gable and Wallace Beery are the latest of the men to reach the star class, but whereas Mr. Beerv is a " featured " player of long standing, Mr. Gable's arrival has been entirely a matter of the past year. " Two bad pictures and 1 am finished," said . the philosophic Maurice Chevalier when he was in London.

That unhappy event is not yet imminent. for Mr. Chevalier is still reckoned (on the basis of his immediate past) to exercise the greatest single-name attraction

Of the other men in the best boxoflice seven, George Arliss and Ronald Colman are bracketed as of equal strength, and the remaining two are Edward G. Robinson and Will Rogers.

The / fascinating Mr, Gable has shot ahead so rapidly that he is in the interesting position of knowing his value without being able to escape a contract that is said to give him less than £l5O a week and such handsome bonuses as his employers choose to shower upon him. As the cheapest of stars, he can only hope that his reputation will last long enough for him to take his place among the most expensive