KISS CAUSES A STIR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 4, 6 January 1939, Page 2

KISS CAUSES A STIR

JACKIE COOGAN AND DEANNA DURBIN Should Jackie Cooper be alloewd to kiss Deanna Durbin on the screen? This is the question which has been hanging like a dark cloud over the head of every executive and many lesser folk in the Universal studios. One American magazine has even conducted a ballot on the question to determine the reaction of the great American public. But the ballot was too late. The answer is no. Since Universal signed up Deanna Durbin two years ago and starred her in “Three Smart Girls,” the studio has been bowed down by its responsibility to the American home. For Deanna was instantly accepted as the ideal type of the nice young American girl. If Deanna lets Jackie steal a kiss millions of American youngsters will be saying: “Deanna does it so why shouldn’t I?” Just as Shirley Temple’s willingness to eat spinach has made it palatable to the youngest generation of Americans, so Deanna’s unwillingness to accept an innocent kiss will make the habit unpalatable to the next older generation. The trouble has arisen over Deanna’s latest film, “That Certain Age,” in which she has a girlish “crush” on an older man, Melvyn Douglas, while the suitor of her own tender age is pursuing her in vain. Romance has been slowly creeping into Deanna’s screen life, and now that she has turned 16 the studio feels that it is time she began to branch out. In its original form the script of

“That Certain Age” was rumoured to call for an elopement. The studio was promptly deluged with letters from American parents protesting against such a criminal act. The elopement was cut, and for a while the studio vacillated over the kiss. The children’s two mothers were against it, Melvyn Douglas could not see any harm in it, the children themselves thought it was a lot of fuss over nothing, but Edward Ludwig, the director, an 1 . Joe Pasternak, the producer, put their feet down. So there will be no postman’s knock for Deanna. The innocence of the young must be preserved.