HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 809, 8 July 1933, Page 18

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

(By

MOLLIE MERRICK.

HOLLYWOOD, June 9. Colleen Moore states that she has had 100,000 “ still ’’ pictures taken during her film career. Thirty-eight thousand of these are bound in volumes in her Bel Air home. Colleen Moore estimates that one million dollars were spent in getting those 100,000 pictures At one time Colleen Moore mailed out 3500 “ fan ” pictures a week. Producers ceased to encourage this very expensive form of promotion some time back, and stars answer their own fan mail or else . . . One of the Big Sensations. When some necessary changes are made and vital cutting is done. “ Dinner at Eight " will be one of the big picture sensations of the year. As it is—in its first-preview stage—it is a tour de force of acting and directorial talent with the least green laurels going to the adaptors who have done some rather clumsy things with the Kaufman —Ferber play. Fortunately, the adaptations have been so arranged that they may be cut out with no loss to the picture. Over footage which kept us in the theatre for two hours and ten minutes, gives ample opportunity to remove the explanations which the adaptors thought necessary to add to the action of the story. The action was, at all times, clearly understandable, so the explanative scenes became anti-climax and redundant to a degree. But out of it all came a Marie Dressier, whose performance is one of the finest in a lifetime of good work. As Carlotta Vance, the retired, but, not retiring, stage star, MaficDressier gives us a depth of psychology and a fund of humour not offered by every ro t e. She sustains the humour of the piece throughout, and to her falls the tag line at the end—and here may I say that the adaptors have surpassed the authors in giving the play the brilliant finish it should have had. The}* deserve credit, too. for their

elimination of the kitchen scene—excess cargo in the theatre version. John Barrymore, as the has-been actor, is excellent. His reading of the role has a fine restraint. Two excellent characterisations in the parts of Dan Packer, by Wallace Beery, and the “ hard-boiled ” agent with a heart, by Lee Tracy, will not be easily forgotten. Beery portrays one of those rough-and-ready humans we all love to see on the screen or stage, but pray for deliverance from in reai life; and the beautiful mixture of heart and hardness in Lee Tracy’s version of the agent is perfection. If you are a Jean Harlow “ fan " this star’s performance will thrill you, and if you are not you will still take off your hat to one of the best bits of characterisation you’ve ever seen. As Kitty Packer, Jean Harlow plays an ex-hat check girl. There .is no trace of j caricature in her version of the shoddy , little beauty with her transparent ex- ! cuses, affairs and cheap tactics, j Billie Burke, as the wife, modelled : her version on Hedda Hopper’s interj pretation in the local stage presentaI tion. Her hysterical scene with her I husband—Lionel Barrymore, and her j daughter. Madge Evans, carried the precise tempo necessary to the moment. Louise Glosser Hale is one of my enthusiasms, so her version of those dry lines given to the poor relation delighted me beyond words. May Ro£>- ; son and Elizabeth Patterson came in : for the small parts of the cook and the i secretary to Jordan, which gives you | an idea of how beautifully this picture is cast, both these actresses being art- , ists in their line. The play was purchased at a cost of ; 110.000 dollars, and its production and ; distribution will bring its total cost | somewhere around 800,(XX) dollars, I j should hazard at a rough guess. The public will love this film, if I know anything about it, because every ! woman has at some time or other, regardless of her income, tried to give a dinner party and had everything go wrong; and every man has had a dinner party going on in his home on a

night when things went very wrong with his business or his investments. It is a very human and understandable drama of life. Another Robbery. For the second time in less than a year Zeppo Marx and his wife have been subjected to a robbery. The jewels of Mrs Marx were the objective, and this time, as previously, the robbers got away with them. The men forced their way into the apartment at the point of a pistol, and, covering Mr and Mrs Marx and their guest. Allan Miller, of New York, -proceeded to the kitchen, where they had the cook turn off the gas from under the dinner she was preparing and brought her into the living-room, where she and the guest were gagged and bound. Mr and Mrs Marx, taken upstairs, were locked in a cupboard after the thieves , had taken the jewels, which were worth 37.000 dollars. The gems stolen from Marx last August later were recovered when a Chicago insurance company made a cash payment of 20 per cent of their value to the thieves. A Beauty Hint. The secret for the lustre and loveliness of Katharine Hepburn’s hair is out; each morning, when she is making a picture, her hair is shampooed with eggs and bay rum. The whites and yolks of four eggs are whipped separately and four teaspoonfuls of bay rum are beaten into the mixture. The yolks are rubbed into the hair first and act as a thorough cleansing agent. They are then rinsed out and the whites are added to promote lustre. When the mixture is rinsed out • the hair is rubbed almost dry and dressed. Bulky Shoulders Popular. Any method for arriving at the bulky shoulders that are so popular to-day is fair. So it is arrived at in one of Helen Twelvetrees’s wraps by means of bands of silver fox running upward from wrist to neckline—a some*what different application of fur to the present-day model. Adrienne Ames has a white taffetas jacket, the sleeves of which, billowing beyond the shoulder most satisfyingly, are made of four tiers of pleated and ruffled edged taffetas, giving her a winged effect that is both startling and chic. Miriam Jordan has a white boucle frock cut on very straight lines and topped by a hip-length flaring coat of Turkey red cotton. The coat has a tiny roll collar—ties in front with a huge Fauntleroy bow of the material, and then zims out from her bodv to stand stiffly like a wooden soldier’s uniform. Seersucker has won the clay in the newest beach things being planned by Hollywood stars. Janet Gaynor, whose beach clothes are as famous in Honolulu as at Malibu and Santa Monica, has pyjamas of this material, the coats being done in fine plaid, the trousers in stripe with the plaid cuffs. Seersucker bathrobes for the patio breakfast are being shown everywhere in Hollywood, and Janet Gaynor has some in that clear blue which is so becoming to babies with tiny white plaids running across it. This year beach clothes must be simple, of inexpensive materials, and exceedingly chic. For this chic, beautiful colour combinations are sought; exquisite soft greens and blues and flesh pinks—faded hennas and all the variants of that most lovely colour of them all, the incomparably chicwhite. The Knife-Thrower. There is a man ih Hollywood who outlines people with knives, just pour le sport and pour le movies. You’d be surprised what a business he does at times. Sometimes he has to hurl a knife right past the victim’s head as he saunters across the dance floor. In one South American picture of this kind his work was one of the most telling dramatic moments—you saw the whole flight of the knife from the moment it left his hand until it landed in the -wood. If he has to graze an “ extra ” player the fee is but fifteen dollars, -whilst for a character actor who works pretty steadily, it goes up to fifty dollars. But if the story calls for an escape on the part of the leading man or lady it is one hundred dollars. The knife-thrower makes special prices for great stars, but he doesn’t have to do this often since great stars are not particularly fond of knife-throwing scenes. (Copyright by the “ Star" and the N.A.N.A. All rights reserved.) Both 6ft sin. Dorothea Weick, the latest German screen star to reach Hollywood, and Marlene Dietrich, who has just renewed her contract with Paramount, are both sft sin in height.