Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929)

Don't Be Ashamed of Your Skin! Those unsightly skin eruptions — those pimples, blackheads and raw red blotches on face, neck and shoulders — they CAN be cleared up if you'll use the right combination of sulphur and menthol! Sulphur is a remarkable thing for clearing the skin, and as sulphur clears it, menthol heals the sore, broken tissue. That's the twofold action you want. You get it in Rowles Mentho Sulphur. Long-standing cases of skin troubles are often cleared up in two or three days time. Even fiery eczema yields to this marvelous combination. Your druggist has Rowles Mentho Sulphur in jars ready to use at few cents cost. Just try it! Love's Greatest Moment "Be Mine Forever" You, too, can soon hear these wonderful words. You were meant for love. » It is not hard to become iS=V fascinating and charming "y" — to make the man you / love want you forever, if you know certain secrets about the way a man's mind works. "Fascinating Womanhood" is an amazing book that tells the things to avoid and the beautiful things that make girls attractive to men. We have prepared a 28-page booklet outlining the contents of this wonderful book and in it telling much interesting information you would like to know. If you want it, write name and address on margin and mail with ten cents to: THE PSYCHOLOGY PRESS 4865 Easton Ave., St. Louis, Mo. Dent. 12J 1/IURJ&1SH beautifies J\~ (Not a Cosmetic) YoUT Eye* Gives lashes natural upward curve. Eyes look larger — bright eyes brighter, soft eyes softer. No heat or cosmetics. Apply a gentle pressure an instant with soft rubber pads. Handles in Apple Green, Baby Blue, Lavender, Cherry, Old Rose, Ivory. Department, drug stores, beauty shops or direct. Send $i or pay postman. Guaranteed. Kurlash Co., Inc., 33 Engineering Bldg., Rochester, N. Y. 120 A Kid that Looks Like a Gun (Continued from page ng) At least no more so than usual. You heard me all right. A kid that looks like a gun! You know — small head, long drawn out thin body, like a gun barrel. That's the chief's order, and you know the chief,' he added significantly. "'Yes,' I said, 'I know the chief, I'll see what I can do.' "You can imagine how I felt over that order. You see I usually have at my fingers' ends everything the studios want in short pants and long curls, but for the life of me, I didn't know where to find a child that looked like a shotgun. Can you beat it? I sat down in front of my registration cards and photographs with fear and trembling. The faces of boys and girls winked up at me in that exasperating way they have of saying: ' How about that job, Mrs. McQuoid? ' Yet none of them seemed to fit. I was beginning to think the studio had at last dropped a dud at my door step. "But all of a sudden, I remembered a child. You know they make a great impression— some of them. I remembered a child who looked just like what that order called for. I remembered that at the time he came in, I had wondered what it was he looked like. Now I remembered he looked exactly like a gun. I could have shouted for joy. I rushed to the telephone and the next morning this human gun, aged five, was at the studio, and at work. He fitted perfectly in the part; and no one was the least bit surprised. The Central Casting office is expected to do things like that. The producers pay about two hundred thousand dollars a year to support us and if we reported 'nothing doing' a few times, we'd be taking our own advice and go looking for jobs as waitresses or A-l stenographers. When they told me they wanted a child that looked like a gun, I simply knew we had to find one." GROWN-UPS BEFORE THEY GROW FINDING babies who look like guns, however, isn't all that Mrs. McQuoid is called upon to do. Lord, no ! Anything, from collecting a hundred six-months old babies for a baby revue to advising mothers how babies' ears may be brought into line, devolves upon her. And always, and above all because of its frequency, there is the problem of finding the child who can assume the role of a star in a sequence calling for the star's appearance as a child. Now there's really where the fun of casting children actually begins. First of all, you've got to have a child who resembles the grown-up star. Then the child must know how to act. Third, the fundamental characteristics of one must be the fundamental characteristics of the other. Relative size, general facial expression, eyes and hair that conform, are Alps that have to be crossed by this Hollywood Napoleon before she may reach the Italy of a director's approval. One day not long ago, Richard Barthelmess began a picture called "Wheel of Chance" in which the star assumes a dual role. In one character he is black haired, clear eyed, handsome; in the other he is red headed, vicious looking, hardened by his environment — difficult r61es at best. The opening scenes are laid in Russia. Twin boys, one known as the Black, one as the Red, are caught in the unreasoning fury of a pogrom. The Red, believed dead, is left in a water trough with his little head cut and bleeding. The other, saved, is brought to America. Here, then, was a problem for Mrs. McQuoid. Twin boys resembling Dick Barthelmess had to be found. Hours were spent in checking through registration cards, staring at photographs, interviewing prospective young actors. At last Ray and Roy Berendzen were selected for the parts. How well the casting office succeeded is instantly revealed in a study of the photographs of the youngsters and the photographs of Barthelmess in his two characterizations. ANOTHER day Chester Conklin needed ten children to appear as his offsprings in a current picture. The children had to be like steps in size, and each had to bear a certain resemblance to their celebrated screen papa. After much puzzling, the crossword request was solved, and Chester was satisfied.' A producing company, another day, needed three child-actors to appear as Clara Bow, Esther Ralston, and Gary Cooper, when these three stars were in the early teens. This particular call was in connection with "Children of Divorce." The order just went in in the routine way one night and the Casting Office was expected to meet the requirements by the next morning. When that order came in, Mrs. McQuoid set up before her photographs of Gary, Clara, and Esther. She noted carefully the features, the height, the eyes, hair, and general appearance of each. Cooper is tall and thin, with grey eyes that look out from a lean, serious face; Clara Bow twinkles; Esther Ralston's is a calm blonde beauty that has something of the maternal about it. Mrs. McQuoid began to think. Occasionally she consulted her files of photographs. At last she made her selections. She chose Yvonne Pelletier as Esther Ralston, Joyce Coad as Clara Bow, and Don Marion as Gary Cooper. Yvonne has the same relative height to the other children as Esther Ralston has to Clara Bow and Cooper. Her face is soft, her eyes half-sad, her hair golden. Joyce is smaller. In her piquancy and life that is fire — Clara Bow for the world. Don Marion is taller, and more serious. His hair is tousled, and his manners are those of Gary Cooper. The director was delighted with the selections. A harder job awaited Mrs. McQuoid when a director called for a child who looked like Harry Langdon might have looked when Harry was a boy. "Only an offspring could look like Harry Langdon," Mrs. McQuoid remarked. HE PHILS MANY BILLS BUT she didn't give up trying and the result was BillieWebb, who was accepted by the director for the part. Little Philippe DeLacy has been called upon time after time to play important roles in the child sequences of plays more often than any other child actor. John Barrymore found him an excellent youthful Don Juan; Neil Hamilton saw in Philippe an Irish lad in "Mother Machree"; most important of all, perhaps, was young Philippe's portrayal of the young piince in "The Student Prince." There was something about his face and the expression of his eyes which brings a vivid picture of Ramon Novarro. It was not difficult to see Ramon as he was as a child. "Sometimes the demand is even more exacting," Mrs. McQuoid said. "Now take the case of 'Sorrell and Son. ' Here we had to have a boy who looked like Nils Asther who was cast as Kit Sorrell. Then Kit had to look like his father, H. B. Warner. And, by deduction, the boy Kit had to look like both men." So it goes, from day to day. Fascinating, yes, but tough — well, rather.