Broadway and Hollywood "Movies" (Jan - Aug 1934)

12 ‘ MOVIES " MARRIAGE ON APPROVAL By Pricilla Wayne Short Story from the Monarch Film , by Anita Delglyn . Part I. THE MOONLIGHT filtered down the narrow hallway and illuminated the youthful figure of a comely young woman half crouched by the keyhole of a bedroom door. Her thin white nightgown was almost transparent, — centainly ghost-like, in the sombre stillness of the night. “I tell you, Mary,” said the man’s voice as the girl outside in the hall strained her ears to catch every syllable, “I’d as lief see the child in her grave as have her carryin’ on like the young folks of today. Like some in our own church and Sunday School, for that matter How their folks can rest with them out traipsin' around in cars, neckin’, and to dances with hip flasks and — ” “She wanted to roll her stockings the other day—” the woman interposed. “Roll her stockings? Is that some new flapper stunt? Wants to show off her legs, eh?” The smile of the girl outside broadened. Sometimes it was very hard for her to believe that these two actually were her father and mother, with their mid-Victorian notions, their crazy ideas of the jazz age, as they called the good times of the modern generation. She listened for her mother’s reply. “The girls have been doing it for some time,” the woman’s voice explained from behind the door. “It’s because they don’t wear other things, John,” she explained to her husband of the cloth, “garters and corsets and underthings. No girl wears them now. You should have seen the girls at the pageant. I was back stage helping them get into their robes, you know. I was astounded, John. Not a single one of those girls wore a stitch of clothing more than a thin little dress and a teddy and maybe the sleaziest kind of a binder.” “What’s a binder?” Beth MacDougal grinned as she straightened from her crouching position at the door and padded in her bare feet softly down the hallway. Barbara Kent as “ Beth “Dear old Dad,” she giggled to herself. “It’s unbelievable how pure he is. And mother can’t give him accurate information at that.” Softly the girl opened the door of her own room; silently closed the door behind her. Instantly her pose of slow movements ended. In a flash she dropped the billowy whiteness of the gown about her and in the space of a split second stood in the moonlight which drenched her room, a straight, shining white thing of soft voluptuous curves and feminine appeal. With the quick, stealthy grace of a panther she padded over to the mirror, admired her naked self fleetingly in the long glass, turned a little so that the moon caught a perfect profile of her young face, her firm, little, girlish breasts, and the silky smoothness of her well rounded limbs. She wasted no time in dressing quickly, — a white sports skirt and a crimson sweater, and, of course, rolled hose. Opening the screen of the window she slid quickly to the soft, velvety carpet of the lawn below. After hurdling a few hedges wdth the agility of a young panther, she was soon seen walking sedately down the broad street under the great oaks that almost met in a great, arching, net-like canopy. She had reached the outskirts of the village and her heart was singing light; now she was headed for the country club less than a quarter of a mile from the limits of the little college town. Near the stone entrance of the club grounds a masculine figure detached itself from the shadows of the parked cars and came hurrying to meet the girl. Admiringly he took in her beauty at a glance. “Gosh, I thought you’d never make it tonight, Beth,” he said. “It’s warm, — -what do you say to a ride?” “I’d love to ride, Larry,” she replied, “but somehow it seems so, well,— secret. If we could just go up to the club house and dance!” She stopped, gazing wistfully in the direction of the jazz