Screenland (May-Oct 1930)

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SCREENLAND Oh, Oui? Oui! // we can't all visit the Rue de la Paix this year, we'll find a good substitute on the screen. For Fifi Dorsay brings all the chic, the perfume, and the joie de vivre of her native France to our talking films. Fifi appeared in "They Had to See Paris" and "H ot for Paris." The screen, to say nothing of the audience, has never been the same. Somehow, we never before realized so clearly that we of America and we of France are just brothers— and sisters. Ul VE Messieurs et Madames, Another Invasion! Hollywood Opens her Arms to These Dear French By Marie House OOO LA LA, mon Dieu, mon cherie, mon chou, chou, poof, poof-poof, and a liberal sprinkling of oui oui's. A deadly barrage of Gallic expressions. Z-z-zees, Z'Z-zisses and z-z-zos bu2;2; in our ears. A hail of shrapnel could be no more effective. Don't shoot. We surrender. Vive la France! • Screen tests. Voice tests. Close-ups. Long shots, Still shots. High powered premieres; and another French' man has won the hand'painted wagon load of fan mail. Cameras to the right of them! Microphones to the left of them! Directors at the heels of them! Foreign celebrities on the side lines, hoping they stutter! Nothing can stop them, these doughty French. To the fan lines comes the smell of powder and grease paint. Through the trusty binoculars we see the clash of arms (a-a-aah), the roll of eyes, the brilliant flash of those Gallic smiles. Ooooooooooh la la! Scaling the heights of the deadly Mount Microphone, that has sent so many accents floundering backwards into vaudeville, these clever French, with telling gestures and plenty of 'ca,' have carried the tricolor to the peaks of the highest Hollywood strongholds and there with true Gallic insouciance, sit practically on top of the world. Others may hesitate to cross the Rubicon where voice and action meet. But not the French. Mon Dieu! But most certainly not the French. If they lack for a word, a shrug will do. What the tongue hesitates on, the eyes express. And the Parisian flavor of the songs they sing are more effective than they would be in untrimmed English. Because no matter what they are, we chortle blissfully anyway and suspect the worst. With practically no trouble at all, even, they have succeeded in feeding us whole spoonfuls of unadulturated foreign language with scarcely a wry face among us — scarcely. Vive la France! Maurice Chevalier began it last summer, probably in just a little "Innocents of Paris" fun — but it proved to be the shot fired that was next heard in "The Cock-Eyed World." But Will Rogers is really to blame: not that he started it exactly, but Will is always starting things so blame him anyway. Besides after "They Had To See Paris," everyone got the idea, which made the score practically unanimous in favor of the French.