MOVIE STAR COMPETITION.

Southland Times, Issue 22295, 10 April 1934, Page 9

MOVIE STAR COMPETITION.

To the Editor.

Sir, —The competition published in the Southland Times regarding the favourite cinema players would have much greater value if some other method of deciding the winners had been devised. Now there are many picture goers in this community who would head the list of their own personal favourites with, say, Edna Best, Diana Wynward, and on the male side perhaps George Arliss, Tom Walls and Sir Gerald du Maurier. Would, they get near the prize with such a list?— Not a show.

The prizes are going to go to the one supplying the list which most closely corresponds with the popular vote. Is one, therefore, to select those who appear to be most popular with the community at large? Even that is not sufficient. For those who attract the biggest crowds, such as Ralph Lynn, Charlie Chaplin,- Marie Dressier and Mickey the Mouse are hardly likely to be thought by the community as the most popular. In order to solve this problem and win a prize what one has to think out is the following knotty problem: “What players will the average minded voter imagine are likely to be written down by the rest of the voters, who in their turn have tried to imagine what the others will write down?”

Such a competition will get a false result and the winning list will probably be led off by such sex appeal females as Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow and Greta Garbo and on the handsome shiek side by Maurice Chevalier, Ronald Colman and Robert Montgomery. Trying to think out how the others will vote will never produce a genuine result. The people most able to say who are the really favourite players are the theatre managers, for in this matter the box office returns are worth much more than your voting lists will be. Had the managers conferred beforehand and sealed a winning list a better competition would have ensued.—l am, FATTY ARBUCKLE. [What our correspondent proposes would be dangerously close to a guessing competition.—Ed. S.T.j