Movie Classic (Mar-Aug 1936)

his time: he refused to give them more than six months out of each year. The other half-year he reserved for concert work. After his great success in Naughty Marietta, the picture producers became more insistent in their bids for a year-long contract. They offered him extravagant salary raises if he would only give up "that concert foolishness." What did he want to fiddle around with that for when he had an almost unbelievably brilliant screen career right in his grasp? And, to all of their arguments, he remained adamant. Only eight months out of each year would he consent to devote to pictures. The other four months must remain his. The screen would not permit him to sing such music as he wanted to sing ; consequently, the screen must give way to concerts in which it could be sung. For his allegiance to his ambition, he has paid a price — a price of thousands of dollars a week. His almost unheard-of attitude has provoked a storm of questions, and the one that is asked most insistently is this: "Does Nelson Eddy plan to quit Hollywood? Has he used the screen merely as a stepping stone?" And here's the answer : • HE NEITHER proposes to quit the screen nor to abandon his annual concert tours. Not long ago, just after completing Rose Marie and just before launching his present tour, he told me : "1 am deeply grateful for the screen success I've had. In a year's time, it has carried me five years nearer the realization of mv ambition. I still find it hard to believe that one picture could do for anyone what Naughty Marietta did for me. "Before, I was fairly well-known in certain musical circles ; now I am known everywhere and my concert tours are in the nature of personal appearances. I am in demand, and, whether the demand is based on curiosity or an honest appreciation of music, it enables me to sing the music 1 want to sing — to larger audiences. "On this tour, I'm booked to sing in approximately fifty cities and my managers advise me that virtually every concert is already sold out. That would have been impossible two years ago ... I think there is a definite upswing in the public's appreciation of good music and I think the screen deserves a large measure of the credit, in spite of the fact that the first really great musical picture still remains to be produced. "In my opinion, great musical pictures cannot be produced successfully — yet. The pub ln his new picture, Rose Marie, Nels> Eddy has an opportunity that he fe< too few singers have had in films. I sings in an outdoor setting. And, mor over, the setting is the real thing. / outdoor sequences of the picture we filmed at beautiful Lake Tahoe, in tf high Sierras. And, for the second tir he and Jeanette MacDonald ar stars. He plays a member of the west Mounted Police; she plays a who is trying to aid her fugitive I played by a new "find," James S lie is not yet ready to accept the best in music and no studio dares to risk the tremendous financial losses that might be involved. "Hollywood has been content thus far to copy the stage. Most of our pretentious musical pictures have been 'backstage' subjects. The public is certain to tire of the same theme rehashed over and over again, especially when every song sequence is limited by the narrow boundaries of the stage. The movie camera has such mobility that music could be taken outdoors. In Naughty Marietta, it was, to a certain degree. Rose Marie is even more of an outdoor operetta. It's a step, I think, in the right direction. • "There has been a lot of talk about presenting existing operas in their entirety on the screen. That, I believe, would be folly. In the first place, any argument that the public has displayed its willingness to accept opera is erroneous. Only operatic arias — the 'hit' songs — have been attempted. The intervening musi c — the meat of the opera — has been studiously Nelson Eddy is serious abou avoided. his singing career — but he': f Continued on page 73] a dov/n-to-earth person, too.