Screen Preferred to Stage Acting

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23073, 25 June 1938, Page 16 (Supplement)

Screen Preferred to Stage Acting

Both William Powell and Annabella, who will appear together in their latest production, prefer acting before the movie camera to acting on the stage. Annabella has a sound reason for her preference in dramatic media. "When I played Shakespearean repertoire," she says, "I was thrilled by the footlights and the 'touch' with the audience beyond them. But after a few weeks 1 found myself reading the same lines over and over and getting the same laughter at the same moment; the same tears; the same tense moments. In Hollywood," Annabella continued, "perhaps one does the same scene over and over several times —but only for one day. To-morrow is always a fresh adventure." William Powell takes another line of reasoning: "The stage," he says, "particularly stock company work, is a great school, and I spent nine years there. It is true that there is the socalled personal contact. This enables one to gauge audience reaction to the actor's mood or manner of presenting a part. But we get our applause in pictures, too. Fan mail tells us both in quantity and quality, whether we are satisfying the audiences."