HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 365, 5 March 1932, Page 24 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON

By

Mollie Merrick.

HOLLYWOOD. February 2. Costume Picture Revival? Discussion of the next Lawrence Tibbett picture centres around a musical version of “ The Prisoner of Zenda ” —a fact interesting from the standpoint that it is indicative of a revival of costume pictures. The “ costume ” picture has been considered “ out ” for some time now. If Lawrence Tibbett is put in this dramatic and colourful story there will be a concerted rush by other studios to seize on like stories for their particular stars and we’ll be off again on the cycle which once gave us “ Beau Brummel,” with John Barrymore, and “ Monsieur Beaucaire,” with Rudolph Valentino. Those pictures were pretty good—and a revival of something of the sort might not be a bad idea now that we have been gangstered and aeroplaned almost to death. Serials Again. A return' to serials will possibly be the big departure in talking pictures during the coming year. The public seem ready for twelve-reel ventures once again. When we were children there was Pearl White and her adventures to harden our childish arteries. Then I remember another actress who distinguished herself in gelatine by leaping from a motor-car to the steps of a moving train and later even dropped from a low-flying aeroplane on to the roof of a goods train. But horrors seem to be holding their own. The success of “Frankenstein” proves that the American public regard such type pictures with favour. “ The Island of Dr Moreau ” is a tale of this sort soon to be filmed. This story bv H. G. Wells is one of a scientist who transforms beasts into men. “ Portrait of a Man With Red Hair ” is being used by Paramount as a vehicle for Charles Laughton, the English actor. It is a delightful little study in sadism by Hugh Walpole which should go well this season. R.R.R., by Karel Capek, is the story of a world in the grip of Robots—-machine-made men. It is scarcely light entertainment, and should be a boxoffice smash, seeing that America, as a nation, is going in for misery on a largfe scale. The City of Opportunity. Hollywood will always be thought of as the city of opportunity. And rightly so, as thousands have made good here in a way that would be impossible to them in most other walks of life. There are any number of men and women high in the cinema world to-dav who started in very inconspicuous places. Dorothy Arzner, one of the few women directors, is one of these. She first worked in the studios as a secretary at twenty dollars a week. Frances Marion is another Holiv. wood success who remembers the when she worked as a stenographer for Hobart Bosworth at twelve dollars a week. Now she is one of the highest paid scenario writers in the film colNot so long ago Charles Farrell was among that eager crowd of “extras”

who . talked about the time when they rm would become fam- ; a small part during tjk* the filming of "The • & Ten Command- * ments.” Some gC director saw him, 111 and he was given |H a test for the boy IHI in “Seventh Heave n.” You HI know the rest. You hear about 11 the famous ones;

but there are some i ou never hear about. Joan Crawford, I or instance, discovered an errand boy >n one of her sets playing the piano

when he thought everyone had left the stage. She listened with amazement to him, realising that here was both talent and technique. She talked

with the boy, and learned that he was graduated from one of the largest conservatories of music in the world, and was trying to realise a life-long ambition, that of playing accompaniments for the film stars who sing, by taking a position as errand boy in the studios. “ Just to get to know studio people,” he explained. “ And some day my chance to play the piano is bound to come.”

Greta Garbo noticed a woman busily sketching every minute that she wasn’t engaged in handing out costumes from the wardrobe department. Going over to talk with her, Greta Garbo saw that she had finished a sketch that was more characteristic of her than most of the pictures she had had taken. Some day this woman hopes to work in the art department of the studio, and in the meantime she is given every possible chance to sketch the players. Marie Dressier is another one who made an interesting find. This was a girl who worked all day long filing the photographs of stars. Passing through the office, Marie Dressier recognised the girl as one of the promising younger actresses of some years ago whose career didn’t come up to expectations. Yet she prefers to work among actors and actresses, if she can’t be one of them. About Tallulah Bankhead. There is more glamour to Tallulah Bankhead smoking a cigarette and chatting the while a chiropodist works on a pet corn than there ever was in all the former sirens of the screen posing on leopard skin rugs and looking languishing and languorous. Tallulah Bankhead, of Alabama originally, and more recently of London, where for nine years she has been a famous idol of the legitimate stage, is as intriguing off-stage as most of our golden .beauties are the other side of the footlights and in full war-paint. This actress, who captivated London in the role of Iris March in the “ Green Hat,” who has starred in practically every great American success in its English version with the exception of Rain,” has never had a motion picture story fit for her talents. Yet she has accredited herself nobly with mediocre stories and has, in a brief motion picture career, established herself as a favourite and an artist of tremendous possibilities, notwithstanding story handicaps. Tallulah Bankhead has become known as the girl who is never alone. She always has a flotilla of friends in escort; arrives at the studio with three or four; lunches with a group every day. Making tests, going to the hairdresser or to a party—just drifts along with a little group of her own choosing and never bothers about the miserable business of having a good time because she takes her good time with her. Her Views. Sari Maritza, the new foreign star imported by Paramount, finds many things to wonder about in Movieland—and America, incidentally. The youth of America, for one thing. She says a boy looks as if he were out of college on a holiday, yet when you talk to him you discover that he has a child of eight or nine years, has been in pictures for some time and is well in his thirties. Women, she says, have her completely fooled in America. There is no gray hair—no grandmother point of view—no age, and no fear of age. Everyone in Hollywood is blonde and many people eat corn bread—a dish unheard of hitherto in her life. High-pressure salesmen, says Sari Maritza, astound the average European. So does the universal gum-chewing going on in this land of the free—jaw. Homes that look like motion picture sets motion picture sets that look like homes—the heavy Spanish hand—women who dress up in the daytime and appear most informally most of the time at night, in direct contradistinction to Englishwomen, who dress casually by day, but who make of their evening events a formal occasion—all these things are mystifying a little forwom?n glimpsing Hollywood for the first time. As time goes on it will become more and. more amusing—and