Silver Screen (May-Oct 1939)

would be fantastic. Give to Gable the reserve the gentle dignity which is Franchot's and the result would be pathetic, even comic. It's the combination of the Gable spirit and the Gable eyes ears and shoulders which turns the stunning trick. It's because his spirit swaggers in the swagger "coat" of his body I am sure that if Gable, though possessed of all the qualities which are his, were "turned out" in a chassis three feet high with a beard, the two women who sat next to me at the preview of "Idiot's Delight" would never have undergone such paroxysms of delight over Clark as to make them idiots Nor were they alone in their wild wnthmgs. Men and women alike responded to that lusty figure on the screen. But to what, precisely, did they respond? To that challenge, I say. To that great, glowing carefree personality housed in that particular body. Yes, this is it. Yes, somehow we are challenged by Gable, men and women, young and old. The rake-helling Romeo in that picture took love and life and war and women and himself and hurled them in our faces, daring us to take them seriously, daring us not to take them seriously. That's the "why" of Gable, I submit, off and on the screen— the spirit of challenge. What s this? You don't agree? You think what? Oh, you do. Is that a nice thing to say? Well, let's skip it. Let's give it back to Norma. Gable's charm depends on the fact that he is a MAN and we know it, and how! . But then, rather confusingly, there's Jimmy Stewart. Not that Jimmy isn't a man, too, and Metro knows it. But certainly his masculine qualities are of quite a different quality than Gable's, packaged quite differently, too. Certainly Jimmy wouldn't challenge a mouse without first apologizing. Several years ago, when Jimmy first came to Hollywood and unpacked his overnight bag in a Hollywood hotel and the Press Passed By to look him over, there were ominous head-wagglings and The most pugnacious ladybopping star is James Cagney. He makes girls look so pretty with shiners. pessimistic pen-squigglings. The question : "What Romantic Leading Man to date has gone places with what Jimmy Stewart has to work with?" was raised. The answer to that might have lifted Jimmy and his options right out of Hollywood. It was variously observed that Jimmy was long and thin and pipe stemmish and laconic and so wistful that you felt like slugging him so you could stop suffering ... it was remarked that he has an eyebrow which refuses to stay put, hair that his mother combed, the last time, when he was nine . . . and more of the same. Much more. And then what does James do? James fools 'em. James ups and takes the longness and the leanness, the wistfulness, ^nZ^h^r'lip, puts them all up to a personality which is now hailed as replete with charm "tenderness," "latent strength," "pathos," "humor," ''sublimated sex-appeal." And, in all the film colony James knows no peer Good looks? No. Not according to the popular school ^o thought" about movie-hero good looks. ^f^*™^™ unless you were marked by a pipe-stem before birth. Person ality? I refused to admit it, I take some pride m being original I can't answer this one. Maybe he's a changeling. Changelings are not as other men and do not need to be Now, then, there's Taylor-just a handsome youngster picked up out of Pomono, a kid from Nebrasky, Doc' Brugh's boy. Robert just stepped onto the screen in "Society Doctor, twirled a scalpel and was a star. Easy as pie. Easy as pie, too, to catalogue the superficial whys of that instantaneous combustion. The dark widow's peak, just made for the caressing fingers of women. The superbly cast face. The physique of an Olympian. These qualifications, one might say, dispensingly, if one were the lazy and dispensing type, just plumped Bob right down into the proverbial bowl of cherries. . , . But I dunno ... the resplendent male beauty of Nils Asther comes to mind, the sultry good looks of young Barry Nort&n ... fat lot of good their comeliness did them . . . Nat Pendleton is doing better. Since that first success, Bob has lived through the ordeal of being a "Glamour Boy" and If the box-office were a lady he would have even less trouble. When Cary Grant is ruthless feminine hearts go a-flutter and a yearning to surrender steals over them. Silver Screen 22 J.