Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1923 - Feb 1924)

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She Knows What We Want Mae Murray has no illusions about "uplifting the art of the screen;" and in this she is at one with a very large following among the fans. By Norbert Lusk EVERY picture I make must give me a distinctly different part." The dulcet tones were Mae Murray's, the works in quesltion were, of course, the extravaganzas which have glorified her pleasant person, its curves and its magnetic influence on the picture-going public. She fondled the thought, a pet one of stars, and aclded : "In :'The Delicious Little Devil' I was a girl of the slums, 'On W ith the Dance' offered me a Russian role, and so it is with each of my pictures — a new character always." Really, really, isn't this a little too much for some of the contributors to "What the Fans Think?" In "Jazzmania" Miss Murray was denominated a queen, and in "Fascination" her ashen blondeur looked well in mantilla and colossal Spanish comb. It is all quite simple, working cut these sharp differentiations of character, if the star gives the matter thought and her title-writer is obedient, tactful and knows his labels. Without doubt, the astute Mae gives thought to everything. She is a worker who knows her job, and leaves nothing to chance. Some of her costumes, she says, are built right on her, and when she enters a theater, her slow progress down the aisle to Row A, cloaked in a variant of red, precedes dimming of the lights by the shadow of a second, and leaves few in the audience unmindful of her presence among them. She is, they tell me. invariably her screen self, even as a hostess, when her audience expands to more than two persons. Automatically she is said to throw the veil of illusion over herself, and becomes, as nearly as I can judge, that strange being she has created of pouts and poses and, for all I know, kicking heels, too. Happily she received me alone and brought another self. along — interesting, admirable, wholly real. Limp black, the garment of servitude to art, amply clothed her, and pastel pink banded her pale hair as she sat with her back to the light. Fittings for "Fashion Row" had occupied her all day. She was tired, and showed it in all but her mind. Quick, responsive and poised, she voiced authority, without wasted emphasis, in all she said: "People sometimes call my pictures trash," she remarked quite impersonally, "and ask why I don't do big things, real things. But what are big things, after all? Bigness and reality aren't found in one type of picture, and both these elements may be lacking in a film without taking away from its appeal ; without. I mean, making the public like it less. "Glamour, luxury, flaming beauty serve the purpose of taking people out of themselves and of making them forget, for a moment, real life and its cares. That, I think, is why my pictures are liked; because there's the old Cinderella legend in them all, a story most people won't ever outgrow any more than they would cease to be thrilled by riches and bizarre backgrounds. I admit I try to give them more than that, but my first thought lies in pleasing the eve." For long this servant of the public has pleased the eye. The programs of 1906 recall Mae Murray cavorting and lifting her voice in song, the play being "Comin' Through the Rye" at the Herald Square Theater, New York, while her first hit came later, in the Ziegfeld "Follies" of 1908. It was then that the drawings of Nell Brinkley were first attracting attention, and in a singing number Miss Murray brought the artificial Brinkley Girl to the stage. She was the first of the battalion of "Follies" beauties to be inducted into the movie studios and remains, with new arrivals, the most conspicuous — and eminent. "But," as she shrewdly puts it, in speaking of her early cinema employers, "they didn't use what they bought." This has naught to do with the auction block, but means that Mae was given conventional parts to play and her flawless undulations were quite hidden by the respectable amplitude of her dresses. I remember her in "The Plow Woman," in which she suffered cruelties from the lash of Theodore Roberts on a South African farm, and drooped through five reels in drab. Against this injustice to herself and her public, the indomitable Murray pitted her knowledge of popular taste, gained in the "Follies," and finally rose from her hodden furrows, decked in what a reader of Picture-Play declares to be "not enough to cover a small-sized canary bird," and accordingly .one of the most favored stars, from the standpoint of the public, and a benediction to the mercurial box office. To Mademoiselle Mae all this has not come easily, nor is her present position retained without effort. She works, veritably a servant of the public, and rather a humble one, I found, though her fetters be golden gossamer, and her enjoyment of toil decidedlv more zestful than falls to the lot of most stars. This is because she does more, thanks to the latitude given to one who heads her own company. "If you were not doing pictures that people sometimes called trash, what, Miss Murray, would you like to do for the good of your soul?" I inquired, hopeful of hearing that she yearned for those loftier soarings into the realms of gelatins that don't pay. but are supposed to give the artiste the pulsations of an educator, an altruist — Melisandef Marguerite? Beatrice Cenci? The Greek classics? What might be this lady's pleasure to spring on him whom I tried to make seem a gullible, humorless listener ? But Mae was too wary. She smiled disarmingly. "Nothing more than what my present pictures are — if they give vie a distinctly different part. They must do that," she reminded me of her idee fixe, but without a tinge of reproach. I rather expected, at this point, the curtains to part and disclose her dearest pal and severest critic, but I dare say this extraordinary little creature is sufficient within herself, as critic, pal and goad. Her energy and application are tremendous. Every detail of production rests on her plastic shoulders, a pretty legend too often told of stars to be always true, but in Mae Murray's case it is the pleasure of this historian to vouch for it. She knows precisely howT the scenario should be arranged, and^ sees to it that her wishes are carried out when it is written, she has visualized every setting, and tells the art director why his drawings must conform to the light and actions which she plans for the scene, while in the matter of costuming our Mae is no mere manikin ; she knows volumes on the subject, and has a fecund imagination, as well. Continued on page 95