HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18889, 12 October 1929, Page 26 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

(CONTINUED);

sound and hold it. The floors are padded with sawdust and sand between the layers of boarding. Outside stands a policeman to ensure the privacy of the director and his staff.

Only writers of standing are admitted. Vehicles are halted in the vicinity when shooting begins. Even the sky is patrolled to keep the monotonous drone of the aeroplane engines from being caught up by the treacherous mike.

Fifteen years ago it was another story. Out at Universal there was a custom of allowing the dear public to look at movie stars and directors for twenty-five cents. A quarter of a dollar entitled you to entrance to the studio and a tour of the lot.

Stories were talked over in those days. The director just shot his story as he went along. And some of the movies were made with a generous gallery of tourists standing on the sidelines watching the process. Their guide gave them a megaphoned spiel. Noise didn't matter—it was the early days of silent pictures. The studio commissary had a runway outside and a wire wall through which the tourists could peer in on notables at luncheon. One warm day there was a good gallery. A director, glancing up from his luncheon, caught sight of the spectators. “Jove," said he, “I feel like a wild animal in a zoo! ’’ The idea caught on like wildfire. These people were accustomed to translating thought into z. ;- tion. Instantly low growls sounded where a moment before there were conversation and laughter. The entire studio force went wholeheartedly into an imitation of a zoo at' feeding time. The bewildered guide shooed his fascinated and frightened proteges away. And that group of delightful in-esponslbles who made the first movies just lay back in their chairs and roared with laughter. 8 :: Making Good in Hollywood. Screen and stage personalities are getting all mixed up in the colony. Once a legitimate star has made a successful movie the gelatine gentry take him or her to their heart. Before that success is established in cinematics, the notable (regardless how much fame he may have had on the stage) just hasn’t made good. So making good in Hollywood is coming through with a local success. Anne Harding, wbo has had an enviable career on the legitimate stage, is not one of the boulevard lights here. She keeps strictly. to her work, and for her hours away from the studio finds no difficulty in gathering together a group of people from the East coast who have long been her friends. Just at present she has established a Hollywood precedent by refusing to have her hair curled.

This quite radical departure from established form in the motion picture ritual was at first regarded as mutiny. Studio officials and beauticians and designers pleaded and implored. They tried to convince the lovely lady that sex appeal is largely established with curling tongs. Their supplications fell on deaf ears. Anne Harding was quite willing to have her hair arranged in any way suitable for her part. In three different and bizarre ways, to be exact. But all three different and bizarre ways must be accomplished without the aid of a curling iron. It's a brave stand to take.

Winifred We stover Hart is recuperating from the effect of an intensive period of work after years of idleness, and at the same time is taking off forty-five pounds of fat accumulated to play the role of Lummox. It must be a magnificent feeling to take on forty-five pounds and have a legitimate excuse for it. Winifred Hart says she had the time of her life, but the reducing process isn't so rapid and she is particularly anxious to get down to ingenue proportions so she can suggest something more to producers than a clumsy servant. “Plenty of schlagobers” is the recipe for gaining the forty-five. “Schlagobers”—for the benefit of the non-German devotees of this column, is nothing more or less than a mighty daub of whipped cream. Jack Dempsey comes into a boul cafe and gets more breathless attention thaq most of the pretty women there. Perhaps for the reason that the cafe population is made up mostly of pretty women. “Isn’t he a gorgeous figure !** said pale, anaemic young things, with romantic sighs. They’ve been living on lettuce and grape-fruit so long, acquiring the Hollywood silhouette, that the sight of a prize-fighter sets them all a-tremble. :: ti *: Points of View. A village blonde was revealing her engagement to two other belles—also blon *2. She has been famous for her romances. And most of them have been heralded in headlines. Said she: “I am going to tell him everything. Everything. 1 m not going to have any would-be friends slipping up to Him after were married and whispering, 'See so-and-so over there talking to your wife? Well, he’s one of her old affairs. No—none of that for me; I'm going to tell him all Second blonde: “What courage, dearie! ” ... Third blonde: “Dearie! What a memory! ” 8 8 8 Lon Chaney Temporarily Out of Action. Lon Chaney's next film has been indefinitely postponed. Since this sadfaced actor, whose gift for w e * ld arid unusual make-up has made him a favouri e with audiences of all types, declared himself against talkies, gossip about his future has been rife in the colony. 111-health, not tajkie arguments, is the given cause for Chaney’s postponement of activities. Chaney, a contortionist in the days of early theatrical struggles, enjoys fame, money, the fruits of ambition gratified, in fact everything but health. Due to a spinal injury in his contortionist days he is seldom free from pain. Complications from a recent siege of influenza rave added further to his physical burdens. Although Chaney cares nothing for personal glory, rarely makes a personal appearance, and reads neither Press notices nor fan mail, he is the one in the colony in greatest demand hv visitors. An executive on the lot tells r.:e that the usual Wall Street magnate will visit m- vieland, see the rarest beauties in dlmdom, look them over with conservative admiration, and then, with a light in his eye, sa;.-: “If you want to do me a favour, show me Lon Chaney.” Charlie Chaplin has an Evening Out. Every celebrity longs for a taste of life as the average layman knows it. Thus is it that Charlie Chaplin standing on the curb before a shop waiting for his chauffeur’s arrival, fell into talk with a pert little girl. Traffic, the weather, and the girl who was to join her for dinner were the subjects in question.

They were to dine in a cafeteria, it seemed. An impulse seized Chaplin. “Wouldn't you both like to have dinner with me, at the Biltmore?” he asked. “You wouldn’t fool us, would you, Mister?” the girl said. Decided that they both should accept, they started out. At the hotel they were obviously amazed at the service accorded their random friend. Head waiters hurried forward, and they got the best table. Chaplin, at a loss to produce a name, had called himself Mr Jones.” Talk progressed. The comedian, listening, was delighted at the Haroun ai Raschid impulse which had prompted him to two little city sparrows into the confines ot a smart hotel and accord them the dignity and chivalry reserved for their more fortunate sisters. All went well until Gloria Swanson entered with a party of people. Hello, Charlie,” she said, as she passed. Rounder and rounder grew the eyes of one little protege. <S fy / ' she . said » “you wouldn’t be Charlie Chaplin, would you?” I’m afraid I am,” said Chaplin, mentaffy bidding adieu to the poise of his little guests. He had seen the socially established at a loss for words in his presence. But he was due for a surprise. “Well, that being the case,” said the personality-plus member of the duo, “I can speak my mind about your pictures, Mr Chaplin.” And there followed one of the keenest analyses of the Chaplin brand of humour the comedian had ever heard.

Chaplin bought them orchids after dinner and sent them home in his town Car ‘- dic *. nt hear from them again until “The Circus” was produced. Then he received a letter from little person-ality-plus again outlining the leading qualifications of his work.

The comedian rates it as among the most interesting evenings of his life that night he played Caliph to two little city sparrows cafeteria bound.

8 8 g “Technique”. If there is one word likely to start trouble in Hollywood it is “technique”. That is, in its present application. Nobody leaned as heavily on it as the movies did in the days when movies were silent. Then a change, and the word which had been the rod and the staff of the entire pantomime profession suddenly became anathema. “She relies too much upon silent technique” is a remark which can bring down untold remonstrance upon your head. Yet this is what happens most often and most disastrously to all those artists of the silent regime who have mouthfuls of lines and know not what to do with them.

The day will come when those of the silent clan who survive will have a very definite knowledge of what can be done by fusing two entirely different arts. Before that day the weaklings of the profession, the unimaginative, the unresourceful, the merely beautiful and the egotistically popular, will have fallen by the wayside. As survival of the fittest rules the animal kingdom, as this is Nature’s unwritten law, it is meet that it should encroach upon this moving picture situation.

A canvass of work by silent stars to date reveals that few are great shakes in talking pictures; This is only to be expected. Some of this is due to producers’ forcing the situation, keeping stars before the public by throwing them into roles beyond them. Still more of it is due to the fact that you must do more with an author’s lines than merely read them in a good tone and with regard to microphone catches. This last is what is being accomplished chiefly by Hollywood stars.who had not had stage experience. M When Frederick Lonsdale wrote The Last of Mrs Cheyney,” he contributed some of the most sparkling lines light comedy has had these many years. . His flashing sallies were underlaid with irony. Innumerable subtleties played across the surface of the dialogue. The talking picture version was entrusted to Norma Shearer, and she was backgrounded by excellent artists, Basil Rathbone and George Barraud.

Norma Shearer’s beauty is unquestioned. Of all Hollywood women, she perhaps looks the role of Mrs Cheyney to perfection. The author has given her weapons in her lines, and the role of Mrs Cheyney carries some of the cleverest lines in the play, but Miss Shearer merely holds these word weapons awkwardly while she relies on facial revelations of the old technique to put over her meaning; nor does she bring one whit of subtlety or light to her lines, although they are tastefully done. One could not imagine her doing anything not in excellent taste. Myrna Loy is a silent artist with a very good microphone voice. Her work in “ The Black Watch ” and “ The Desert Song ” shows this; yet she emerged from the two with a far better record as the hill girl in “ The Desert Song ” than as the goddess of the hills in “ The Black Watch.” As a hill goddess she revealed a lack of understanding of timing which marred her performance and invested it with unforgivable monotony. Perhaps she is not guilty oj this misdemeanour. The fault may lie at the director’s door; and the monotonous reading of the lines may, perhaps, be laid to following instructions rather than to lack of feeling by Myrna Loy. Living in Hollywood and visiting studio sets teaches one that players do not always have their own wav with the parts they p!ay.

Victor M’Laglen, for it is wise to pick on the men some of the time, hasn't a voice which backgrounds his impressive personality adequately. This, too, is a lack which time and correct training may overcome. At present it is a great let-down to hear him speak. He is one of the most dynamic personalities of the screen—a smile that is contagious coupled with a forcefulness of purpose pleasing to men and women alike. His voice lacks vitality, but M’Laglen nas not been dealing in the medium of words.

When Janet Gaynor was given to the world through audible version of “The Four Devils,” she was hailed as "the voice with a soul.” I don't know just who had the inspiration for that sprightly tag, but it fell so far short of the Gaynor speaking product as to give the tag a humorous flair. Janet Gaynor in this picture revealed that her voice was a childish, reedy organ whose outstanding characteristic was immaturity. Any twelve-year-old child can run the gamut of her tone production in speech. As it now stands, it is not capable of investing lines with anything but recognisability. What can be I done with it through cultivation and in time remains to be seen. Meanwhile Janet carries the somewhat comic tag, ‘ the voice with a soul.” These are haphazard cases not chosen with regard to order of merit or demerit, merely commented upon in the perspective in which they happened to fall beneath my eye. Mary Duncan, in the above-mentioned picture, revealed that she was accustomed to use her voice as a medium for reaching her audience. During this interval in the scheme of motion picture making, the greatest kindness Hollywood can do her children is to eliminate superlatives in the descriptive tags of their output, and to keep fledgelings who have dealt only in silent themes out of a too cruel spotlight which emphasises their lacks rather than blinds the public to them.