Modern Screen (Dec 1949 - Nov 1950)

Fabulous Wealth-Undreamed of Horror in the depths of Africa KING SOLOMON'S MINES by H. Rider Haggard The Story of the MGM picture With only two men to help her, Elisabeth Curtis begins a strange journey into the forbidden wilderness of Africa. Her destination is Watusi-land where she hopes to find her husband who has vanished into the unknown interior of the Dark Continent. The small group fights its way through jungle and desert to reach the land of the Watusi, Africa's fabulous diamond country. But only undreamed of horror and death incarnate face them at the end of their journey. H. RIDER HAGGARD S ig Solomons Mines He lived for one thing onlyVengeance! BENJAMIN BLAKE— SON OF FURY by Edison Marshall Benjamin Blake must bow his back to the new squire of Breetholm, cruel treacherous Arthur, his father's brother. With lash and fist Arthur teaches Ben the bitter lesson of humility. Ben escapes from Breetholm and journeys to the south seas, vowing to return someday. The balmy tropics and beautiful island maidens almost make him forget his uncle. But the spell of the tropics fail to dim his memory of past suffering. In a quest for vengeance Ben sets out for Breetholm to destroy the thing he hates most — his uncle. Get these bestsellers today-at all newsstands I SAW IT HAPPEN My girlfriend and I were sitting in the Oval Room of the CopleyPlaza Hotel in Boston, watching Vic Damone sing. We'd saved up our money especially to see him that night and had to take the bus back to Hartford the same evening. We told this to the waiter, so you can imagine our thrill when Vic himself came over to our table to talk to us. Just as the waiter brought us our check, someone picked it up and signed it, saying, "I'll take care of this. It was Vic! Two extremely happy girls went back to Hartford that night— Vic Damone fans for life. Dorothy Sattin Hartford, Connecticut chosen babies. It may sound trite, but screen celebrities love to live normal lives The theory that actresses are too careerminded to be normally maternal is completely false. No girl, for example, has been more career-minded than Olivia DeHavillanc. and yet when she became pregnant she remained in bed seven months rather than take the chance of losing her child. Now her happiness as a mother is greater than her thrill at being an Oscar-winner ever was Georgia Skelton, Red's wife and an actress in her own right, did the very same thing before the birth of her child. Betty Hutton epitomized Hollywood's sentiment about babies when she said recently, "I didn't know how good and full life could be until I had my children." 'This is not to say that all life in Hollywood is idyllic. There are childless couples, and Hollywood does have its sinners, but they are in the minority. F ranees Farmer, one of the most beautiful and promising actresses the community has ever known, wound up a series of love affairs by taking overdoses of alcohol and benzedrine and ended up a patient in an asylum. Carole Landis, hopelessly in love, committed suicide because she couldn't marry the married man she loved. Lupe Velez, the gay, carefree Mexican spitfire, burst on Hollywood like a bombshell and died almost as suddenly. The darling of many local Lotharios, her list of conquests were the envy of every playgirl in town. But eventually, passion undid her. She conceived a child out of wedlock, and swallowed fifty-five sleeping pills to forget about it. Madge Meredith, the beautiful wideeyed country girl from Iowa who wanted so hard to become a movie star, got herself involved and convicted with a bunch of kidnapping thugs who beat up her manager, Nick Gianaclis. Today, Madge works in the Tehachapi prison for women, sentenced to a five-years to life term, forgotten by all but a few. Jean Wallace, after making a failure of her marriage to Franchot Tone, tried to stab herself to death. Luckily, she recovered. The list of moral transgressors in amcommunity is long but so is the list or healthy, happy families. Hollywood rank* high on the latter list. Its citizens knowthat babies are the nicest people, and thev are as welcome in this town as anywhere else on earth. The End dell books j 250