"Too Many Film Stars"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22723, 8 May 1937, Page 22 (Supplement)

"Too Many Film Stars"

English Writer Complains About Mania \ For Finding New Faces

APPALLING WASTE OF MONEY AND ABILITY

That kaleidoscope which we call the film world offers us at present Greta Garbo in a new version of a very old subject—

" Camille." It sends back from Hollywood a young Englishman, Errol Flynn, who has jumped to fame during the last year in his first American picture. And it introduces a child star of fourteen, Deanna Durbin, who is already famous in I 4 America for her first film, writes A. Jympson Harman in the London Evening News.

t ; - S CHOOLGIRL Miss Durbin, who has never done any acting beI . fore, was born about the time Garbo gave up selling hats in StockI holm and went into pictures. Garbo 1 had to go to Hollywood to become | really famous—about three years before Shirley Temple was born. Before Miss , Temple had stopped spilling her porridge on her bib, | Mr. Flynn had started a life of adventure which included gold-mining in New Guinea and trying to get on the pictures at Elstree. I hope I am not confusing you too 1 much, but I wanted to get you into a ! proper state of mind to appreciate the topsy-turvy nature of this film business. 1 There is obviously something wrong •with a 14-year-old girl being hailed as ■' a star in the same breath as the 14 years' experienced Greta Garbo, in the j way that it is surprising to find a searover like Mr. Flynn suddenly becoif ing a great lover- on the screen; but not, ; mark you, as great a public favourite yet as baby Shirley. Hollywood Endurance Record The really ■ surprising thing is that Garbo has managed to hang on so long. Excepting Charlie Chaplin, who is one to himself, Garbo must hold the Hollywood' endurance record to-day. Until last year Ramon Novarro was a runnertip, with about fourteen years' screen , life in America. | My purpose is not to suggest that j Garbo is an old star. On the other hand, I think she may be perennially young because she is a real artist in | her profession. But you cannot find Garbos every month of every year. | And that is where I join issue with i the magnates of the film business. They j are always complaining about the short- ; age of stars. Any man who can find ! a new personality for the screen is | claimed as a genius. I have just been I reading ajjout the brilliant Mr. Darryl I Zanuck, who "'has dug himself up four stars while everybody is moaning about jthe need for them." Mr. Zanuck's Stars Mr. Zanuck, who is of Hollywood, of course, has discovered a star in Miss Sonja Henie, better known to us as a clever skater. Another of his discoveries, is Tyrone Power, junior, the son of an actor who was never honoured with stardom. Yet another is Simons Simon, a not-very-good-looking French Miss, whose chief claim to screen fame ' at present seems* to be a pouting mouth. Mr. Zanuck's other star is a Mexican young man, Don Ameche, whom we I have just seen as an Indian in ( "Ramona." 7 I say nothing against these young j people, nor against Frances Farmer: I Luise Rainer, who gives such a dynamic I performance in " The Great Ziegfeld"; i Robert Taylor, who has every American i schoolgirl—and. many English ones—at his feet; Rosalind Russell; Jack Benny; Alice Faye; Eleanor Powell; James Stewart; Donald Cook; Jane Withers; Fred Mac Murray; Gladys Swarthout; Brian Donlevy; Charles Uoyer; Merle Oberon; Shirley Ross; Lily OPons; Olivia de Havilland; Michael Whalen; .the Dionne Quintuplets . . . who says new stars are hard to find? The Barnum Touch The trouble to my mind is that there ere too many new stars. Part of what's wrong with the films is the mania for finding new faces. Barnum had the same trouble in his profession. The great circus showman no sooner found the/'world's fattest woman than he had jfco seek, out the-world's whitest elephant to -sustain the interest of his patrons. ' ' I-; submit that the cinema is a cut better than this circus business. It isn't- very complimentary to us filmgoers to suggest that we need a fresh face on the screen every month to keep / us paying at the box office. It assumes that we have no apprecia- , fiion of talent and so keeps hurling ilovelties at us: for many of the new screen personalities are little more than . novelties. You cannot find a new acting genius month in and out every year.

films and too many pictures in which the latest sensations appear. I like Shirley Temple, but I don't want to see her four times a year until I am sick of the sight of her pretty little face and childish mannerisms. I would rather see Garbo in two good parts a year. That is why Garbo is still going strong after eleven years in Hollywood. I want to see Myrna Loy allowed to develop her talent and not pushed out of th& way by an ex-tennis star or a screen sensation from Titipoo. I am glad to see Gary Cooper given better and better pictures and to watch Jean Arthur become more proficient every time she makes a film.

It is pleasant to see Ronald Colman going, on and on,- if not up and up. Mr. Colman is wise in these days in playing " free-lance " picking and choosing his films. I can still enjoy the delightful art of Adolphe Menjou because when he got out of " the-best-dressed-sophisti-cate-of-the-screen " period he was content to do without stardom, thereby eliminating the chance of a schoolboy prodigy sending him into oblivion.

So many delightful and talented actors and actresses have had their careers cut short by this mania for finding new stars. I wrote recently about old-time stars who had faded away, and it was interesting to notice the number of people who sent letters saying how much they regretted the passing of this and that favourite. The trouble is not that new stars are hard to find. It's too easy.

Stars Instead of Pictures r-z. • % Under this system, real talent has little or no chance to develop. The of ability in the film business is appalling. And so is the waste of money, because booming and sudden fame lead to salaries and unnecessary competition among staremployers. • The film business is run almost entirely on the presentation of new stars instead of on shoving good pictures. JVe are invited to see too few great