Patrician Player

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23061, 11 June 1938, Page 16 (Supplement)

Patrician Player

Dialogue by Phone

Miss Gail Patrick Earns High Regard By Consistently Good Performances MORE AMBITIOUS SCREEN ROLES PROBABLE

By PAUL REGAN

One of our distinguished critics on a national daily, in finishing his review of Deanna Durbin's "Mad About Music/' remarked that, but for the star and Herbert Marshall, the film would have been stolen by Gail Patrick. It is not the first time that remark has been made. Miss Patrick has hitherto failed to accomplish the feat because of the more obvious effulgence of the star personalities, as opposed to her own acting. Yet be warned, that at any moment, in any picture, Gail Patrick will outshine others and take full honours herself.

SHE is one of those film actresses who are fated to earn at some time or another the phrase "she brings rare intelligence to.bear upon her performance." It is sad, and true, that intelligent acting is regarded as a rarity among film players' Why that should be so I cannot explain. Unless it be that players have any intelligence rolled out of them when they go through the mills of the film factories. It is only during the past year or so that Gail Patrick has emerged into tho full limelight, though she has been filling so-so roles in Hollywood productions since 1933. Like a good many others, her initial Hollywood venture .was the outcome of a competition. Paramount, to which she is under contract, ran a nation-wide contest to decide who should represent the "Panther Woman" in one of their films. It sound? daft, and perhaps it is a little difficult to associate the patrician Miss Patf-ick, from a patrician Alabama family, with Panther Women, but she entered the competition just the same. Many Western Pictures Margaret Fitzpatrick, the subject of this article, can be considered lucky. She did not win the contest, bo she did not have to live down the title of "Panther Women" until the time her merits were properly recognised. And Paramount thought they had to do something for the handsome girl from way down South, who, though unpantherine, looked sleek and lithesome enough. But their ward possessed one of those Southern accents that could bo cut wjth a knife. So while they were trying to iron that out of her system by sending her to a studio training school in elocution

Many of those pictures were neither duds nor epics, though a few such as "Death Takes a Holiday," "Rumba," "Big Broadcast of 1936," "Smart Girl," and "No More Ladies," gave her better opportunities than others. As usual, Gail Patrick took patrician, society, or "upper hundred," feminine characters. Her style was just unostentatiously neat and easy. Perhaps that was the trouble, this lack of the more flamboyant qualities, or her desire not to attempt any undue exploitation of an appeal other tharivacting. Acting True to Life Someone has told me that they regard her acting as mechanical, by which I suppose they mean that she gives the impression of reacting to dialogue and incident in a studied, automatic manner. Well, there are actors and actresses who display more elaboration of style, and whose screen appeal can be just as much a matter of mechanics. If not more so. It could not have been mere mechanical acting which led to the first widespread recognition of her talent in "My Man Godfrey," in which she more than held her own against William Powell, Carole Lombard, and Alice Brady. Though the character of the arrogant and scheming sister was out of focus, and more unsympathetic than otherwise, she was able to make it less incredible in comparison. In fact, among all the principal figures, Gail Patrick's was probably the easiest to recognise as being true to life. Thoroughbred Poise Not all Powell's suavity and comedy sense, Carole Lombard's licensed simulation of dementia, or Alice Brady's intensive dithering, could hide the fact that Gail Patrick was near dominating the proceedings. Her poise and cool aloofness indeed set her apart from the rest. If a campaign was started in favour of more screen girls like Miss Patrick, I should support it with enthusiasm; and ask that she be made the leader of her type, as the ideal. I may be wrong, but I cannot think of any other young actress who can walk into a scene and so readily convey that patent quality of the thoroughbred; even if the conditions and circumstances are not always conducive. We have to go back to the silent film to find a similar type to Gail. She reminds me vividly, in face, figure and manner, of Alice Joyce, whom many filmgoers will doubtless recall. Political Ambitions

American censors recently took exception to a scene in "Fools for Scandal," in which Carole Lombard and Femand Gravet star together. The studios decided to reshoot some of the dialogue—but Graoet had returned to France. The difficulty Was overcome by having Miss Lombard and Gravet play the scene to each other across the transatlantic telephone. After two '"takes" the sound-track was completed. It cost a little over £2OO.

and histrionics, they also put her into p. woolly Western. In this, her first film, "The Mysterious Rider," her speech fitted into the character of a prairie patootie as near as made no odds.

There are signs that something more ambitious for. Gail Patrick is likely. It is true she is not yet out of the featured class, but she can quite easily become one of those featured artists whose performances give more pleasure than the stars'.

To diverge a little, Gail Patrick's Hollywood career through the years has been mottled with Westerns. Until the producers had definitely made up their minds about her, it was their habit to shove her into such heavy fare as "To the Last Man," "Waggon Wheels," "Two Fisted," and "Wanderer of tho (Wasteland." First Featured Role

There is no chance of overlooking her quiet insistence on recognition in "Mad About Music." On sheer acting merit alone, she wins hands down. Since "My Man Godfrey," she has come to the front as an actress with a

It is somewhat hard to "see" the invariably soignee Miss Patrick amid the background of swirling desert dust, round-ups, saloons, and other bits-arid-pieces of a Western. That touch of "class," which all Hollywood has not dispelled, that patrician quality, hardly fitted into the Western.

Every year for the first four years, she appeared in at least one Western. But they helped her to jump through the hoops while getting on with the job of making other types of films. „ Her first featured role was in a horror film called "Murder at the Zoo," introduced at the time when horrific tit-bits were the vogue. If 1 remember rightly, it was mostly about Lionel Atwill as a zoo scientist who got rid of his wif© and other impedimenta by dropping, them in the crocodile pool, or poisoning them with snake serum. Gail Patrick played the part of a nice, efficient, assistant to Randolph Scott's nice, efficient assistant-scientist. If not very important, Gail's place in tins film was noteworthy. She helped to decorate the background of snake houses, reptile pools, and retort-littered laboratories quite nicely. Hollywood Contract It was the first occasion she had to display that sleek and finished quality; and her voice and accent, slightly shorn of their too Southern drawl, were pleasant to the ear. From that point onwards she began to appear in a number of pictures for Paramount, who had placed her under contract. She also popped up now and again in other companies' films. For three years or so she worked at the rate of six to seven films a year. It can be guessed, therefore, that her roles were not sufficiently outstanding £o make the majority fully alive to her presence.

distinct and pleasing manner, as well as a defined aptitude to get over her own inbred qualities. You probably discovered that in her recent "society dame" roles in "John Meade's Woman," "Her Husband Lies," "Artists and Models" and "Dangerous to Know." She is a Bachelor of both Arts and Law, and it is credited that she has ambitions toward the governorship of her own state of Alabama.

Personally. I should be least interested in Miss Patrick as a governor of any American state, preferring to see her govern her own state on the screen.