Modern Screen (Dec 1954 - Dec 1955)

Sunday and always (Continued from page 55) direct me in my latest picture, Jupiter's Darling. I figured that some technical problems had come up. I walked into the conference prepared to breeze right on through whatever the trouble was. But when the talk was over I was in as thoughtful a mood as I have ever been because I had a really intriguing assignment — to become a new kind of Esther Williams! Oh, I'd be the same girl in many ways, but it was necessary that I take on new dimensions in guess what! Femininity! I'd better explain — or let Mr. Sidney do it. "So far in your pictures you have always been the American go-getter type of girl," he told me at the conference. "You see the man you want. You make plans. You launch a direct attack. And you win in this manner. But this time we are dipping into ancient history to show a woman whose ways were more subtle, a woman who wins by seemingly losing, by yielding, j And yet, by so winning, conceivably also j loses! It is for each woman in the audience : to tell which, by the prompting of her own experience." Jupiter's Darling, you may know, is based on Robert Sherwood's hit play, The Road To Rome. It concerns the perplexing failure of the great warrior, Hannibal, to attack and sack that city after crossing the Alps and finding it at his mercy. According to Sherwood's play, Hannibal was dissuaded by the feminine logic, not to speak of feminine presence, of Amytis, wife of the then dictator of Rome, Fabius Maximus. Amytis had somehow managed to make her way to Hannibal's camp and into his tent, and had also somehow managed to make him forget his war plans. It was with that second "somehow" that my role was concerned. Groucho Marx is an avid baseball fan. He finally went to see a game between two all-girl teams. "In all the years I've been attending ball games," he said, "this is the first time I've ever wanted to kiss the third baseman!"— paul Denis This was very interesting, but also a little bit worrisome. Any time anyone wants to give old Esther a crack at this deep, under-the-skin acting she is intrigued. But she'd also like to make sure of doing a good job. Here was a role that not only required hard study, but also a psychological knowledge and understanding of the character (we're back to my mom again). So I went looking for this girl Amytis . . . rather, I went looking for the kind of reading that would conjure her up for me. And where do you think I found her? Well, good bits of her were in the Bible in the book of Esther. And insights into her ways and kind of thinking were in other philosophical works, including Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. "And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. "Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. "But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: "To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. "To know the pain of too much tenderness, "To be wounded by your own understanding of love; "And to bleed willingly and joyfully. "And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise pon your lips." up TSThen i read these words of Gibran's I was beginning to come close to the sacrificial nature of a woman in love, and not only that, but I realized how near such ways are to the sublime theme of love in religion. That's what it took to get me in the frame of mind necessary to feel I could be an Amytis! It's funny but I sometimes think that what adults have to study to learn about their spiritual world, most children often know instinctively. When my oldest boy, Benjie, who is not yet five, was heard saying not long ago that there was more to the world than his mommie and daddy, I knew he meant he had experienced already the feeling that there was a higher force, a mysterious guiding Something. I was not surprised. In talking to him I had seen this belief coming to life in his eyes. Of course this God of Benjie's is a child's God; I can tell by the trust in his eyes that there is no wrath to this God — only love and sunlight and warmth. This is the same God I know, but I didn't get to Him until my childhood was over. This doesn't mean I never received religious training when I was young. I can remember hearing my first stories about the Bible when I was two. But no impression was made upon me then. Today I feel that the faith I have never happened to me — I happened to it. I had to think and feel my way to it. On the way to the satisfaction of coming into belief there was a period when I had nothing. But I don't think of this as a time when I was an agnostic or an atheist; rather I recall it as a time of wander and wonder. I remember in my early teens crying out to my mother of my perplexity. "Do you know I don't believe in anything?" I asked. "I just don't believe. Like being in a vacuum. What shall I do?" Mother showed no alarm. "Do?" she asked. "Nothing. You are already growing into belief. You have become the kind of person who must reason her way to something as well as feel it. Now you are in an intermediate stage, but you'll come to what you want, to what you feel you need." I did. There was no great revelation. Faith came bit by bit, rubbed off on me, sort of, when I knew or touched goodness. It is still coming to me and, I honestly think, more through the everyday things of life than through formal seeking. And because this is so I have for the last few years been convinced that mine is a work a day religion. It shows no preference for Sundays but can make me aware of its presence at any time; as strongly when I am on my feet as when I am on my knees, as greatly when I sip a cup of coffee as at a time when my children are being christened. PJon't let me take away from the power *-* of such moments as one experiences in deep devotion at one's church; I value these as much as anyone. But I would no more divide life into faith and non-faith periods, or even strong-faith and weakfaith periods, than I would divide myself into devout and non-devout parts. I mean that if I am close to the true spirit when I am saying my amens in church I must also be as close to it in as seemingly pagan a place as a nightclub if there I am doing a Christian deed for someone. Wherever man helps man the Lord is being praised. Since I have brought my mother into the cast of characters of this article in a prominent way maybe I should say a direct word about her. 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