“TOO MANY STARS”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20731, 19 May 1937, Page 7

“TOO MANY STARS”

MANIA FOR FINDING NEW FACES 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 h*s 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 America for her first film, writes A. Jympson Harman in the “London Evening News."

Schoolgirl Miss Durbin, who has never done any acting before, was born about the time Garbo gave up selling hats in Stockholm and went into pictures. Garbo had to go to Hollywood to become really famous—about three years before Shirley Temple was bom. 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 much, but I wanted to get you into a proper state of mind to appreciate the topsy-turvy nature of this film business. 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 way that it is surprising to find a searover like Mr Flynn suddenly becoming 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 entrance record to-day. Until last year Ramon Novarro was a runnerup, with about fourteen years’ screen life in America. My purpose is not to suggest that 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 the magnates of the film business. They are always complaining about the shortage of stars. Any man who can find a new personality for the screen is claimed as a genius. I have just been reading about the brilliant Mr Darryl Zanuk. who “has dug himself up four stars while everybody is moaning about the need for them.” 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 Simone 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 have just seen as an Indian in "Ramona.” •

I say nothing against these young people, nor against Frances Farmer: Luise Rainer, who gives such a dynamic performance in “Ths Great Ziegfeld"; Robert Taylor, who has every American 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 Boyer; Merle Oberon; Shirley Ross; Lily Pons; 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 are 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 to 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 ass’unes that we have no appreciation, of talent and so keeps hurling novelties at us: tor many of the new screen personalities are little more than novelties. You cannot find a new acting genius every month in and out every year.

Stars Instead of Pictures Under this system, real talent has little or no choice to develop. Tire waste of ability in the film business is appalling. And so is the waste of money, because booming and sudden fame lead to increased salaries and unnecessary competition among staremployers. The film business is run almost entirely on the orcsentation of new stars instead of on showing good pictures. We are invited to see too few great films and too many pictures in which the latest sensation appear. I like Shirley Temple, but I don't

want to see her four times a year until I am sick of tfie 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 the way by an ex-tennis star or a screen sensation from Titipoo. lam 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 no" up and up. Mr Colman is wise in hese 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-sophistl-

cate-of-the-screen" period he was content to do without stardom, thereby eliminatin gthe chance of a schoolboy prodigy pending him into oblivion.

So many delightful and talented actors and actresses have had their careers cut short bv. this mania for fiv Ung 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.

A summer Palace on the River Marlene Dietrich started work recently .1 her first picture in England, “Knight Without Armour." The opening scene has been built on the sloping lawns running down to the lake at Denham Studios, and consists of an enormous set showing the summer Palace near St. Petersburg of the Countess Alexandra. Marlene Dietrich is arriving at the Palace in a troika drawn by three magnificent greys, and on the step drawn up to welcome her is a group of servants and retainers in their Russian costumes. A long drive was constructed leading up to the house, and flanked by lovely beds of flowers from the gardens and greenhouses of the Studio. The long white facade of buildings by the lake backed by the old trees on the lawns at Denham, make a lovely scene for the opening of this important picture. Marlene