Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

4S Teacups of big premieres, voices her opinions to which players, sees half of nobs at parties with the other half. Bystander "Gloria Swanson deserves a medal of honor for her good disposition. She was charming and gracious to all the people who swarmed around her, even if they did almost tear the coat ofif her back. She and Corinne Griffith struggled together through the crowd and, when they finally arrived in the lobby, Corinns, terribly nervous and a little disheveled — as who wouldn't be? — gasped, 'I don't see how Gloria does it. I was so panic-stricken I wanted to kick and scream.' But Gloria maintained that, if she had, it would have been such a good show that the crowd would have been even less willing to let her through. "The other opening I went to was 'The Rough Riders,' and a stranger affair I never saw. Not that the picture wasn't good — it was just the audience that was all wrong. Evidently almost every one of importance had already seen the film at a preview, or perhaps the elite won't turn out for any premiere that isn't staged by Sid Grauman. Anyway, the audience as a whole was positively dowdy. "At the end of the picture, George Jessel got up to introduce members of the cast who were in the audience. But Charlie Farrell, who was the outstanding hit in the film, couldn't be there that night, as he was in the hospital following a little argument he had with an Arabian pony he rides in 'Bride of the Night.' So the audience rather stoically offered limp applause to George Bancroft and Noah Beery, did a little better by Mary Astor, and grew genuinely enthusiastic only when Bebe Daniels, who of course wasn't in the picture at all, was introduced. Crowds always love her. "The appalling part of the introductions came when Jessel got down to the last ones on his list. The audience was growing restive, so he grouped the last four — Fay Wray, Given Lee is Fanny's latest nominee for the role of Lorelei in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" -and absolutely her final one, she insists Photo by Kenneth Alexander foan Crawford is working so hard jumping from picture to picture that she no longer has time to be the dance-contest girl. Arlette" Marchal, Josephine Dunn, and another whom I can't even remember. They looked like a misfit chorus about to go into a dance they weren't quite familiar with. I suffered for them. "Among those absent from almost any premiere is Leatrice Joy. That girl has the right idea about how to see films. She takes them over to her house and runs them thi-ough her own projection machine. "For such a long time I didn't see Leatrice that I decided she was just a myth. Of course, I kept reading about her in the papers, and a lot of people told me that she was simply lovely in her new picture, 'Vanity,' but the pla3'ers I don't see once in a while never inspire me to seek out the theaters where their pictures are running." "What a fine business the theaters would do if many people felt like that !" I remarked. Fanny cast me a superior sm'ile, as much as to say that other people really had no right to feel as she does about things, anyway. "But ril never lose interest in Leatrice again," she went on enthusiastically. "I saw her at a luncheon a while ago and she was as gorgeous as ever. She has the most vibrant, magnetic personality ! And I don't blame her for not going out much. She has much more fun staying at home and playing with the baby during the