Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1931)

It's all in fun! Anita Page and Mary Lawlor stage a snowball fight and pose for this cute battle scene Just for the Fun of It/ Fric?idly Advice on Girls' Problems I want to help you. Are you overweight? Send for my booklet of reducing exercises and non-fattening menus. Are you worried about your complexion? My skin leaflet will give you helpful advice. A stamped, self-addressed envelope will bring you either, or both, or other advice on personal problems. There is no charge. Address me at PHOTOPLAY, 221 West 57th Street, New York City. CAROLYN VAN WYCK ONCE in a while I come across a girl who has taken all the advice about self-improvement just a little too literally. Jane Margaret is evidently one of these. Jane Margaret's signature has become familiar to me over a period of years. Every now and then a letter from her turns up on my desk, asking for my suggestions, and occasionally an enthusiastic and heart-warming note comes, telling me how well the advice has worked out in her case. But recently I had a letter from Jane Margaret which disturbs me. As revealed by her letters, and by the snapshot she sent when she wanted advice about the arrangement of her hair, Jane Margaret is an attractive girl. She is overwhelmingly ambitious to make the most of her talents, to make her life "important and worthwhile," as she puts it. And, of course, that attitude is not to be frowned upon. Jane Margaret's latest letter, however, shows something I hadn't noticed before. She is forgetting how to play. She is so eager to improve each shining hour that she is letting all the fun pass her by. If she doesn't watch out, Jane will be a very dull girl. Books are read solely to develop her mind. Friends are chosen because they come from "nice" families, have the right background and can provide the right contacts. Everything is calculated, and nothing done for the joy of doing it. She asks mc: "Shall I join an ice-skating club made up of neighborhood boys and girls? They skate in the park when the weather permits or meet one evening a week at a nearby indoor rink. They're a nice bunch and I would like to know some of them better, but I get plenty of exercise and I feel it is a lot of time to give up every week." She adds, rather wistfully it seems to me: " I like to skate and think I could become a really good skater, if only I had the time for it." DO, do, take the time, Jane Margaret. Don't be so stingy with yourself. Perhaps ten years from now you will have more leisure to skate, and will have lost interest in learning. Because our interests do change with the years, and what seems so desirable and worthy of attainment today may fail to stir us in the least on some tomorrow. Certain interests and pleasures belong to certain definite periods of our lives, and if we put them off too long we find it is too late to enjoy them. Life is a serious matter, especially when one is just approaching its biggest problems. Time must be guarded, before it slips away and leaves us with nothing accomplished, with wasted talents and rejected opportunities. But a girl of Jane Margaret's naturally serious temperament needs to cultivate a more — well, not frivolous, but let's say. light-hearted viewpoint. Similar to that of Elsie T., whose letter lies on my desk now. ELSIE writes: " My brother scolds me for spending my money on dancing lessons and pretty clothes, when I might be taking postgraduate work at the university and fitting myself for a position more important than the one I hold. Because I am not thinking seriously of marriage (I am only nineteen and feel I have plenty of time), he thinks I ought to be planning a career. I suppose he is afraid I might not marry at all, and he thinks I should have some other absorbing interest to fill my fife. "I tease him and tell him my most absorbing interest right now is to have a good time, to get all the fun out of these years when life seems so happy. We had a rather difficult childhood because our parents died when we were quite young, and it seems so wonderful that at last we have grown up, that he is happily married to a girl I admire, and that I have been able to finish school after a long financial struggle. "I earn enough to pay my own expenses, and I'm perfectly content with the things I can provide. I worked mighty hard all through school and graduated from the university with honors. "I'm not burning the candle at both ends either. I spend many of the 'quiet evenings at [ please turn to page 109 ]