STUDIO’S EXPERIMENT

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1935, Page 20 (Supplement)

STUDIO’S EXPERIMENT

HOLLYWOOD MAKES ITS STARS. NAMES IN “BUILD-UP” BULLETINS. Now that the initial excitement is over and Margaret Sulla van, Katharine Hepbum and the other important luminaries who have flashed into the stellar heavens of recent months have settled steadily down to the routine of established stardom, the studios are busy experimenting with new sensations. Several names are prominent in the current publicity “build-up” bulletins from Hollywood. Mr. Carl Laemmle, for instance, assures us with all the earnestness at his command that he believes that in Jane Wyatt he has a player who will create as’ profound an impression on the motion picture scene as Miss Sullavan, the obvious choice for a basis of comparison in view of her association with the Universal City Studio. Another new arrival of whom you will probably be hearing a great deal in the next few months is Josephine Hutchinson, who is regarded as a potential rival to Katharine Hepburn. Then there is Barbara Robbins, whose screen career so far has not been helped by the premature exuberance of the movie moguls in investing her with the “second Hepburn” label.

In the meantime Alice Faye, who scored a success in her first picture, George White’s Scandals, is beginning to look more like Jean Harlow with the arrival of each successive batch of publicity stills from Movietone City—a sure sign that there will shortly be a stellar challenge to the original Platinum Blonde. The M.-G.-M. studio has a potential and, indeed, dangerous rival to Janet Gaynor, the brightest gem in the Fox crown, in little Jean Parker. Another factor that must be considered in the race for major honours is Jean Muir. Most coming youngsters demand to play heavy vamps or slinky sophisticates as soon as they reach a stage where their wishes become sufficiently important to be considered. I seem to remember that Bette Davis, for instance, who seemed likely to achieve real heights, adopted that policy.. Miss Muir is consequently original, if nothing else, in asking to be kept in “good girl” parte. She has had a clause written into her contract to that effect.

Others for whom the big drum is being beaten loudest at present include Binnie Barnes, Gertrude Michael and Helen Mack.

Miss Barnes is being boomed by America at the moment, but it is.pleasing to be able to record that there is at least one British actress in British pictures who seems likely to give all Hollywood’s expensively glamorised candidates a good run f6r their money. The girl is Anna Neagle. It will be surprising if Nell Gwyn does not establish the ex-gym instructress from Essex as the first genuine English feminine film star since the earlier triumphs of Betty Balfour.